In the Spring of 1998, the Asylum Clan decided that it was time to move off base and into a house they could call their own.  The town of Sedalia was chosen as the location to look for a house.  As Pooky worked in Sedalia during the days, she started scoping out the houses for sale and as good prospects were found, she send digital pics to Doc.  One day in May on the way to look at one house, Pooky was driving down a sidestreet and spotted a large white house that appeared to be well kept and had a fantastic front door - and most interesting of all was the For Sale Sign in front of the house.  Something about the house just called to her and said "Come Look At Me".  Doc, soft touch that he was and still is, gave the agreement to take a look at the house even though it was not exactly what he was in search of.  Walking into the house for the first time, for Pooky it seemed as if the house was already home.  By the end of June, the clan was moving in.  Pooky’s feeling on the house was that she "needed to put it back to the way it was supposed to be."  What she meant by that, she couldn’t pinpoint, it was just a feeling that she had and still continues to have at times.

The game plan was that the third floor / remodeled in the 50’s attic would be the Master Bedroom.  Well, that didn’t quite work out - the larger mattress would not fit up the stairs.  Since the twin size mattresses did, the third floor became the domain of the oldest two girls.  You would think that they would have loved it.  There are three walk-in closets up there along with a half bath.  Nope, they both hated it.  They swore that the attic was haunted and could not stand to be up there.  They claimed to hear noises and that the closet doors would open without any human assistance and lights being turned on and off by folks other than themselves.  As they were already very stressed about the whole situation, they really freaked out when a bat was flying around their room one night.  Pooky was down on the main floor watching TV and heard the screams on the third floor.  Thankfully Doc walked in the door a few minutes later and he was assigned the job of removing the bat.  The girls moved down to a room on the second floor and pretty much have as little to do with the attic as possible - especially if there is not anyone else up there.

The attic remained unoccupied for several months and it was around that time that other little weird instances would occur.  They were just small things but nothing that could be "proven" one way or another.  Somebody would turn off a light in a room, a little later it’d be back on, but nobody would have gone in the room.  This didn’t happen, just once in a while.  What started to occur more frequently is that in various areas of the house, Pooky would either get the creeps, or feel like someone was following her such as on the stairs, or get this very weird  sensation that made her skin crawl.  If Doc was working the midnight to 7 shift, she either needed to be asleep by the time he left, or she just could not get to sleep.  If he was getting off work at 11:30, she’d wait up as she couldn’t get to sleep until then.  It’s almost as if any guests that were around would leave when Doc was home from work.  During certain periods of time, there were areas in the house that she could not stand to be in.  All of this would last for several weeks, and then all would "be right" with the house again and she would be comfortable being alone in an area of the house instead of being almost terrified.  This is almost a repetative cycle that Pooky goes through, all is right with the house, all is not right with the house, etc. 

After the first cycle or two of this, Pooky became almost obsessive with trying to determine the history of the house.  The furthest that she has been able to trace the house back has been to 1890.  One thing that struck her as kind of strange was that in 1890/1891 a gentleman who owned a confectionary lived in the house.  For the next 2-3 years, this gentleman lived at an address a few blocks away, and then was back residing in this house.  During the research of the history of house, she found out that the family who lived in the house in the 50’s owned a construction company in town.  She sent a letter to the company trying to find out information and when no reply was made within the first few weeks, she basically forgot about it.  Also during this time was a gentleman who came into her office to sign up for service.  He noticed Pooky’s name (real name) and asked about it as he had the same last night as Pooky’s and his daughter’s first name was the same as Pooky’s.  During the small town familiar time discussion, low and behold - he used to live a block or two down the street from Pooky and Doc’s house at the same time as the construction company family, and he was best friends with one of the sons there at the time.

As the majority of the house was painted a dirty white aka beige looking color, Pooky and Doc decided that some color needed to be added and some other things needed to be done to make the house their own.  So, Pooky being Pooky, started doing some redecorating here and there.  Low and behold, another little interesting trend for lack of a better word made it’s appearance.  It seems as if every time a major change is done to the house, previous residents of the house start making their appearance.  (Still living and breathing folks).  Pooky went to Penney’s to pick up curtains that she had ordered and wrote a check for the purchase.  The Customer Service Rep noticed the address on the check and started asking questions about the house.  Come to find out, her parents had owned the house in the 60’s.  She had lived with her parents in the house for awile, and then after her marriage had difficulties, she and her son had moved back in with them.  Her information on the physical changes to the property were that the entire house was decorated in different shades of green, including the carpets and walls while her parents owned it.  According to her, there was a beautiful chandelier at that time that had since been removed (Pooky wasn’t clear on if it had been in the dining room or the foyer as both locations were mentioned).  Around the front yard, there had been a red rock wall containing the yard so that it was flat instead of the current slope down to the sidewalk.  Shortly after this episode, the second person who made their appearance was the son of the construction company owner. 

This gentleman was quite friendly and informative.  He was in his 60’s at that point in time and said that he was born in the back bedroom of the house.  Due to the number of siblings living in the house in addition to his grandparents, his father remodeled the attic to be a bedroom for the teenage boys complete with a half bath with one wall being drawers and three walk-in closets off the main area.  The dining room had pocket doors, but his mother thought it made the house "too closed off" so his father took out the pocket doors and made it into an archway, much to Pooky’s sorrow.  (If anyone would like to put the pocket doors back in, please feel free to send references and information to Pooky  : )   ).  This family was also the family to put on the metal siding in the 50’s when it first came out.  He asked if he and his siblings could stop by sometime to see the house as they were still very attached to it, but after a year or two passed, Pooky gave up on hoping this would occur.  This gentleman also mentioned that his parents had obtained the house from his grandparents. 

For awhile, all was calm again, yeah!  Then one day, Pooky and Doc figured out how to move the Master bedroom to the attic by using purchasing split boxsprings.  Time for massive rearranging of who was in what room.  Guess that stirred things up again.  Pooky was back to not being able to sleep if Doc wasn’t home due to creepy feelings, closet doors weren’t staying shut, and all that fun kind of stuff.  Again, nothing major, all could be reasoned away, but all answers still left that little feeling of doubt.  The cycle went on and things just were not "comfortable" in the house, especially for Pooky.  This cycle continued its course, no new previous residents appeared, more deadend research was done on the house and eventually all went back to being right with the house.  Pooky just got used to adapting to the cycles and feelings and life continued on.

In the fall of 2003, the house underwent another round of major changes.  The old siding was ripped off the house and new was put on.  These changes must have been enough to affect whatever forces drive fate.  Before the house was fully involved in the residing job, a young gentleman stopped by.  He was the son of the lady who’s parents had owned the house in the 60’s.  He mentioned what changes he knew the house had undergone while his grandparents owned it and compared it then to now.  Most interesting of all, at least to Pooky, he also mentioned that when he was a kid, they were never allowed on the "back stairs" (they are the set of stairs closest to the kitchen that meet the stairs going up from the foyer at the halfway point landing to merge together to continue on to the second floor), there really was not a good reason given for this, nor was he allowed to play in the attic.  The reason he gave for the attic was that the son of the previous owner had killed himself there, his specific words were "he blew himself away".  While the house was looking the ugliest it possible could (basically the way it was in the 50’s), 3 of the siblings that lived in the house in the 50’s stopped by (their father owned the construction company).

This visit was quite interesting, but to explain it better, I need to backtrack a minute.  We had previously been told that there had been a neighborhood fire and there was some  traces of the fire in the attic, mainly some singed beams.  One our neighbors has lived in the house next door his entire life.  When we asked him about the fire, he did not recall any neighborhood fire.    He also told us that our garage was built in the 1950’s when the family living there at the time purchased a new Cadillac.  Ok, back to this round of visitors.  Doc and Pooky were outside ’admiring’ (NOT) the retro look the house now had after the white metal siding had been removed.  The first floor of the house was done in narrow wood siding material that had been painted white.  The second floor and dormers had the cedar shake shingle type siding that had been painted green.  Out front, a nice car pulls up and three older people got out and approached the house.  They were two sisters and brothers - 3 of the children of the owner of the construction company that owned the house in the 50’s, they were also the siblings of the gentleman Pooky had spoken to when he called regarding the letter Pooky sent to the construction company.  They introduced themselves and said the house looked (outside) just as it did when they lived there.  They told Pooky and Doc where all their siblings were living AND without being asked (Pooky at least was almost dying of curiosity due to the information a few weeks earlier about one of their siblings killing himself) that all of their siblings were still living.  Hmmm.... more contradictory information, but of note to Pooky, this family keeps returning in some way or another to the house. 

Around this time, Pooky has been talking to a neighbor down the street that has been having weird happenings at her house also.  This neighbor has a friend that she works for and this friend/employer is open to communication with those that have passed to the other side or whatever you want to call it.  The neighbor that knows both Pooky and this lady keeps trying to get the two together, but it just hadn’t been able to work out yet due to schedules and such.  One night while Doc is working, Pooky is down in the basement and hears workboots (key point to remember) walk across the kitchen floor.  It is a very distinct sound as some folks well know.  Pooky chalked this up to "Oh, Doc’s home a little early, no big deal" and finished throwing the load of laundry in.  Huh, what do you know.  There is nobody in the kitchen and Pooky didn’t hear anyone leave the kitchen.  Pooky looks outside and no Doc’s car.  Hmmm..... not good. Pooky headed upstairs to the attic bedroom, and nope, that’s not good - freak out feeling galore.  So....  Pooky hangs out downstairs in the living room watching TV and waiting for Doc to arrive home.  Most unusual at the time was the kitchen, which was usually peaceful to Pooky was no longer comfortable, her usual spot on the couch - nope, couldn’t sit there as it felt as if someone was leaning over her shoulder or standing over her.  I can assure you that Pooky was quite relieved when Doc made it home as it seemed as if the unseen visitors that were trying to get her attention or whatever would leave when he was around.  A few days later, Pooky roamed over to where the neighbor works as she had seen both the neighbor and her neighbor’s boss outside the shop.  While they were talking about the visitors in the neighbor’s house, the sensitive employer looks over her shoulder and says hush, I’m talking, I’ll be with you in a minute and turns back to the conversation.  Now, keeping in mind that Pooky had never met this lady before nor had she talked about the footsteps, you have to realize that it was quite unsettling for Pooky when the lady says to her that a "visitor" to Pooky’s house had been trying to get her attention and used his workboots to make noise to try that method.  Key word again - workboots, not just boots, not shoes, but workboots.  I’m sorry to say Pooky can not recall what the gentleman visitor’s name was, but from what he told the lady, all he wanted was his presence acknowledged and then he was willing to move on to his next stop.  Pooky hasn’t heard from him since, hopefully all is well with him.

For those of you who do not know about the physical layout of the house, I’m going to put it in here, hopefully briefly.  The house is built in a square four corner style.  This permits cross breezes to go through the house.  This design layout was helped to be made popular by the Sears house designs and was quite common for many years.  There is a covered front porch across the front of the house with the entry door on the west end of the north side of the house.  Entering the house, you are in the foyer.  Along the wall on the west side is the stairs going to the second floor.  At the halfway point there is a small landing and they make a 90 degree turn to go to the second floor landing.  More on the second floor in a minute.  Going east from the foyer is the living room with an archway separating the two areas.  Going through the archway on the south side of the living room is the dining room.  On the southwest corner of the dining room is a doorway (minus door) that enters into a small butler’s pantry with a built-in china cabinet.  On the northwest side of the butler’s pantry is the doorway (minus door) to the kitchen.  On the south side of the kitchen is a door to the mudroom which was previously a porch that was enclosed at some point in time.  On the southside of the mudroom is the door to the backyard.  On the northeast end of the kitchen is the doorway (minus the door) to a very short hallway to the foyer.  On the west side of this hallway is the door to the basement stairs and a half flight of stairs going to the midpoint landing to join with the stairs leading from the foyer.  On a sidenote - there are not any closets or a bathroom on this floor.  When this house was built, taxes were partly (and for the most part) based on the number of closets in the residence, or at least that is what we have been told.  The stairs lead to an open landing on the second floor - what I mean by empty is that it is the size of a bedroom instead of being a hallway or small area.  There are 7 doors off of the landing.  The door on the southwest side leads K3 (boy child)’s room.  The door off of the southeast side enters K1 (oldest girl)’s room.  The door straight ahead from the stairs on the east side is the bathroom.  To the north of that door on the same wall is a closet door (still has the closet).  On the north wall, east end is the door to K4 (youngest girl)’s room and on the north wall, west end is the door to K2 (second child, middle girl)’s room.  On the west side of the landing next to the top of the stairs is the door to the stairway to the attic.  Going up these stairs they make a sharp turn at top to make a short walkway into the room itself with a bannister keeping one from falling over the edge and down the stairs.  The main room is over the center of the house.  There are four dormers on the house - one each facing north, south, east, and west.  The west dormer is the one containing the stairway entry and short walkway to the main area.  The east dormer contains the half bath.  The south dormer used to contain the bed but no longer does.  The north dormer contains the main system doc uses to keep an eye on the website along with the attic cam.  The basement has had a concrete floor put in at some point in time, has a cellar door entrace on the south side, west end and has an old coalshute door on the east wall, north end.  Other than that, it’s a basement.  : )  Nothing major or unusual usually happens there.  Ok, back on to the "history".

Well, this pretty much decided things, this lady needed to come to Doc and Pooky’s house.  Doc was out of town, but hey, let’s be brave or stupid, Pooky’s not sure which she was even to this day.  The neighbor, the "sensitive" lady her equally sensitive daughter came over.  The main floor was the first area visited.  Not too much going on in the foyer at that time (activity in the house does not stay in one place, it will move around).  The living room was all calm and peaceful.  Upon walking into the dining room, she declared that it felt dead.  There was also an inactive vortex in the northwest corner of the living room.  Her daughter did not like the feeling the windows and current curtains combined gave off.  It was almost a closed off wall type feeling instead of being a window.  The curtains in question are just lace sheers.  No heavy duty stuff and are very similar to the ones in the living room which did not bother her.  They were the ones that came with the house however, and everywhere else the curtains have been replaced.  Another sensation the dining room gave them was that the ceiling physically felt lower to the ground than the almost 10 feet that it is.  We turned on the ceiling fan light and both of them immediately said to dim the light, our "guests" did not like the ceiling fan or the bright light it put out.  Once the light on it was dimmed, the guests were happier.  Of note on the ceiling fan, it is one that Doc and Pooky purchased and put in.  While Pooky was on a business trip out of state, the bottom of the globe fixture fell off.  The way the light was made, it should not have happened, but it did.  The lady and her daughter did not know about this ceiling fan episode, but were quite positive that our "guests" did not like that ceiling fan.  From there the next stop was the butler’s pantry.  Lots of sensations there.  From what the lady was told, it and the mudroom used to be an open porch or area where canning apples occured.  Visiting the mudroom confirmed that sensation for her.  The kitchen was quite peaceful that night, nothing there.  The second floor was pretty much skipped as something was pulling her to the attic.  She was also "being shown" pictures of something roundish and bluish in the attic near cables that she needed to find.  Remember - she had never previously been in this house.  The attic was almost over powering for her.  There was so much going on that night that some of this may be slightly out of order, but it is all here and as accurate as it can be.

The north dormer brought her a great sensation of sadness and sorrow along with a name.  Later research on the house showed that a gentleman with that first name lived in the house for less than 2 years.  No other information has been found on him.

The southwest closet felt active to her but nothing specific was shared with her.  However, after opening this door, it refused to shut and latch - for that matter, it refused to stay closed the rest of the night.  It would be open a crack as nobody could get it to latch, and a little while later, it would slowly drift open while nobody was around it.

The northwest closet was overwhelming.  When she was standing in front of the closet door and put her hand out to the door, she felt as if she was placing her hand on someone’s face.  When she opened the door and checked out the closet, there was a civil war soldier that wanted her attention.  He told her that he was passing through and that he had been hurt - he had a cut on his arm.  The hair on her arm was raised up in the same location as where the soldier said his arm had been cut.  Basically all he wanted to do was share his pain with someone and move on. 

A few feet away from this closet door is the trapdoor to the attic.  The sensation of this was so strong that she could not go near it but yet felt she had to as the guests were trying to get her to find this bluish object.  Finally her daughter stood on a chair and looked through the opening using a flashlight.  Upon close investigation, she found a cracked, hard plastic blue ball sitting a short distance away from the opening - next to cables running through the attic.  Doc had been up in that area previously and had found some OLD beer cans, but he can not confirm nor deny if he say the blue ball then.  He doesn’t recall seeing it, but he can not swear that it was or wasn’t there previously.  By now, it’s starting to feel very creepy in the attic. After the blue ball was found, the guests told her that them trying to get her to find the blue ball while I was there was their way of proving that they really did exist.  Again I restate - this lady had never been in this house before and had only moved to this town a few months prior to all of this happening.  We sat down to discuss the blue ball and everything while still in the attic.  She looked over at a picture of Doc’s first car and she became very pale - almost green - and she said she felt very sick.  She immediately wanted to know where the car was and if the family still had it.  Pooky told her that Doc sold it long before she knew him but did not know who it was sold to or who had it.  Images of twisted car parts, fire and body parts were given to her by that picture.  Her theory was as the car had meant so much to Doc and had meant to much to the last owner of the car that there was a connection between the two of them and that is why she was given the images.  Whoever had the car last did not come to a peaceful end with it. 

During conversation rehashing the information given and trying to calm everyone down. she said "Your house numbers add up to 11, don’t they?"  They do, as they are 623.  Well, the lesson learned from that discussion is that 11 is a spiritual address.  Our house happens to have a spiritual address and is a very active location.  The house is a hub for guests that are passing through on their way from one destination to another.  A guest that may be in the house one day may not be there the next day.  Their reasons for stopping by very from guest to guest.  Some just want to be acknowledged, with others, your guess is as good as ours.  The majority of the guests agree with each other in the fact that they do not like or appreciate the webcams.  This pretty much ended the evening and Pooky had one of her daughters sleep in the attic with her the rest of the week until Doc arrived home. 

A few weeks later she came back for another visit when Doc was home.  The northwest attic closet was even more overwhelming for her - it almost made her sick.  At this point in time, the northeast corner of the closet was acting as a doorway for our arriving and departing guests.  What was kind of funny was directly in front of the spot she pinpointed was Doc’s old military boots.  She also tried to open her sensations to Doc so that he could experience what others of us felt.  He was able to feel the energy

running between the two attic closets that have the stairway separating them.  You will need to ask him for more specifics on what he felt during that.

After this fun, we were all sitting down in the living room just talking, except for one person standing.  It was obvious something was bothering her as she kept staring up into a corner of the living room.  She finally asked the person in that area to move as there was a lady coming down stairs in that corner and she was going through their head and it bothered her greatly.

She has not been over since, but while the freaky feelings and such continue their cycles, they are not as extremely uncomfortable or terrifying for Pooky as they were.  Anymore, if it’s a feeling of being near someone she does not want contact with, she just says that she wants to be left alone and to come back another time.  Typically, they listen and all is ok.  Other times, she knows that there is someone else around, but it’s as if the guests just want to be near someone as if a friend would sit and watch TV with you in silence and that’s ok.  Eventually, they will just move on when they are ready.

Pooky did find some sense of justification or whatever a few weeks ago.  Footsteps have been heard in the attic above the attic bedroom by both Pooky and Doc at the same time.  However, during the night in question.  Pooky had to run to Wal-Mart and came home to find that Doc and the dogs had gone up to bed or so she thought.  The next thing she knew, she heard the three of them running down the stairs so fast that she was amazed that none of them fell.  Come to find out from what Doc said, he was in bed and heard someone cross the bedroom area and start messing with Pooky’s dresser stuff as if they were getting in the jewelry box - but he did not see anyone.  The dogs also heard it and started reacting.  All Pooky could think was - yes, it finally happened to someone other than me.

Well, that’s a brief, ok, not so brief, summary of some occurances of the house along with some of the history.  Hopefully it will answer some of your questions, but if it doesn’t, all I can say is for every question answered, Pooky has another 20 questions for the house so join the line.  Maybe someday we will know what it is that the guests and/or house want and Pooky will know what it is in the house that she feels called to put back the way it’s supposed to be.  Until then - enjoy.