Shereen stumbled upon this blog and wanted to offer her services in the area of house clearings.  I will list her under resources, as I have my friend Roshandra Simon.

Many people in the real estate business have charming, amazing, humorous, or even frightening stories relating to buying and selling “haunted houses”  A lot of agents who’ve encountered such things have found that these perceived “presences” can delay the sale, or deter potential buyers.  Even without an incident that let potential buyers in on the house’s “condition” it can cause a
house to become less marketable.  I have worked with agents and home owners who have held open houses that very few, or even no, interested parties came to.  Then after “shifting” the energies, often the next day, the phone is ringing, appointments for showings are made, people come and make offers.  At one home for sale in a very desirable neighborhood, after receiving numerous calls all week, a strange thing happened the weekend of the open house. On Sat. only 3 people showed up, and hardly stepped in before they seemed to run away.  I got a desperate and frantic call to come to the house Sat. evening to “shift” it.  After the work was done on the house, on Sun. 34 interested people came by, 12 made offers, and a few people just wouldn’t leave. 

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Yesterday I got an email from a nice gal in Orange County who has a connection to a ghost hunting group there. If you’re interested in finding out more, email me and I will put you in touch with Marlitt. Additionally, she has a close friend who’s a psychic in that same area. So whether you want to check out ghosts or get rid of them in OC, we’ve got a source!

If you’re interested in learning how to ghost-hunt, there are plenty of ways to do it. Several people and organizations have devised courses they can sell you. There are books on the topic too. Or you can join your local ghost hunting or ghost trackers society and learn by doing (usually at no cost).

I cannot endorse any of the following resources, but offer them to present the range of options I found online.  If you do a websearch you can find many more of these. How qualified are these folks or institutions? I don’t know. Some may have formally studied parapsychology. Some may have learned from the school of experience. Anyway, here’s a sampling. Enjoy.

First, courses and materials:

Live & in Person Course - an overnight ”bootcamp” for students of ghost-finding is being offered on Aug 11 and 12 in Philadelphia. For more info, see post on the Ghostvillage.com website.

Ghost Chasers International (Patti Starr) offers a $150 home-study course with lots of material you can order online.

The International Ghost Hunters Society has been around over a decade and they have a big online presence with two types of membership: free (limited) and paid (to see more ghost pics, for instance). This couple offers not just one course, but several from which to choose. They have also written a lot of books (and even more articles) on various aspects of ghost hunting. They are perhaps the most prolific “how to ghost hunt” folks on the web. The first course offered is the IGHS Certified Ghost Researcher Home Study Course, which is on CD and for which the cost is $99.

If you’re looking to spend a little less, a book or an ebook might be a good way to get your toes wet with this stuff.

The Ghost Hunter’s Bible by Trent Brandon can be bought online at Amazon and many other venues.

Just to confuse things, there is also an ebook with the same title, but is a totally different book, that also looks promising:

The Ghost Hunter’s Bible by J. Michael Atencio. This one is $6.99 and you download it to your computer when you pay.

Another ebook, affordably priced but apparently pretty comprehensive, is available fro Ghost-Hunting.org for $17.97 (and the author promises a guarantee of satisfaction or your money back). The title is A Ghost in Every House - A Guide to Ghost Hunting, Hauntings, and the Paranormal.

Does free appeal to you? I stumbled upon a free ebook, in pdf form, and will be reading it shortly myself. The ebook has the humble title of Ghosthunting Course (by Thomas Cooney) and is located on the Ghosthound.com website.

Tips from The Shadowlands: Ghost Hunting 101 Tips.

This list should keep you busy for awhile!

What is a ghost? It is simply a discarnate human being (a person without a body), one who’s already lived and died but experienced here on earth. Some folks think of the word as meaning any non-physical being (angels and demons), but that is not correct (Wikipedia discusses the controversy over the word as well as some interesting history surrounding it). All ghosts were once human, with a human body.

Most of the time when we think of ghosts, we’re thinking of seeing someone who’s earthbound. Most likely, if you see or experience a deceased loved one, that won’t be the case at all. Sometimes there’s closure just after death - a wave goodbye, a reassurance that the loved one isn’t really gone … entirely. After awhile, these goodbyes end and the dearly departed does really depart.

Some who have crossed over, and are not earthbound, return to help, to check in on us. These souls are not stuck here. They are simply helpful visitors. I would not call them ghosts but spirit visitors. No matter what they are called, their situation is not the same as those who have not crossed over after death.

Not a ghost: Another thing that can happen is an energy imprint, kind of like a flashback, or a record of history that keeps replaying itself in a loop. In this case, people may witness a reenactment of something that happened in the past. It’s as if the energy of the event was so powerful that it’s somehow stuck in that area (whether a home, a ship, a road, etc.). These historic imprints are not ghosts - that is, they are not beings with whom you could converse. It’s more like a movie that just keeps replaying.

Some folks contend that all ghosts are these imprints. I don’t believe that’s true because many times, these spirit people (ghosts) can be conversed with and helped to leave (hopefully to cross over). If the experience is of a sentient being, this is not an imprint.

In March, I wrote an article for Real Town on ghosts & residential real estate. If you’d like more on the basics of what a ghost is or isn’t, when you are most likely to experience a ghost, and what to do about it, please take a look at my article there:
Haunted Real Estate: A Primer for Real Estate Agents