My Earliest Childhood Memory is a Ghost

Surrounded by love and cemeteries.

Photo by the author, taken in Leipzig, Germany.

Few things excite me more than a good ghost story, especially when I’ve tricked someone into telling me one by filling their bellies with liquor. It’s sad so many people are afraid of being perceived as stupid for believing in ghosts, but fill them up with a bit of liquid courage and they’ll come right out with it.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about my earliest childhood memory, which just so happens to be a ghost. I’ve been obsessing over it, digging for information about my old house. If you thought you saw a ghost in your house, wouldn’t you be curious to see if anyone died in it?

I partially grew up in New Jersey (we moved when I was 8), and the state does not require a seller to disclose if someone died in the house, be that through murder, suicide, or natural death. While researching if I could find or request public records of the property, I ran into an awesome website called DiedInHouse.com.

For $11.99, Died in House will run a comprehensive report that gives you:

• The names of all the previous owners and whether they’re deceased
• If someone died in the house and how they died
• If your house was ever a meth lab
• If there was a documented…