During the summer of 1984 we moved into the house my family would spend the next 10 years in. My baby sister had just been born in July and we were a growing family. I was getting ready to go into the 2nd grade.

Our house was the first house built on our street 95 years prior. It had been inhabited by a Latvian family who had moved to Michigan to farm the land and in those 95 years, 4 generations of the family had lived there. The most recent was the original builder's great grandson and his wife, who had raised seven children in this three bedroom home. When we bought the house it had been converted to electricity and running water but the wires and pipes ran on the outside of the walls.

During the 10 years we lived in our house on Maple Avenue we remodeled every room at least once. The major construction work that took place at our home included knocking down walls, putting in new wiring and plumbing, putting a whole new roof on the house, building a deck, and various manifestations of yard work. We did everything from cutting down trees to putting in a pool. Any experienced ghost-head knows that when you remodel, it brings out the spooks. I don't think the spirits enjoyed the changes--or the noise. That year and for many years following, my family experienced eerie visions, disembodied voices, apparitions, bangs on the walls and floors, footsteps, and other random odd phenomena. This is just one of those stories.

When I was a teenager I really wanted a Ouija board for my birthday. My parents bought me one and I had a little party. I invited a few friends, who all knew about the strange things that happened in my house, and they were excited at the chance to use the game. You see, I considered this to absolutely be a game. I never thought the thing had any powers--it's a cardboard slab with a plastic arrow. I still feel that way. I feel it is not mystical at all. It's Milton Bradley. However, something happened the first time I used it and after that, at least three of the friends who participated in our little Ouija experiment would never stay overnight at my house again.

We were alone in the house. My parents went to the movies and my sisters were at a friend's house or something. My friends and I went to the basement, which is where my bedroom was. I was known for tricking people. I would knock on walls in the middle of the night and wake people up with eerie noises just to freak them out. I was not trusted, to say the least, so my friends immediately didn't want to play with the Ouija. They "knew" I would do something to scare them, but I pulled it out and convinced them to play. We started to try to contact spirits and the plastic device never moved. We sat there for several minutes, trying to become one with the spirit realm with no luck. Then, the crying began.

We distinctly heard a baby crying. My birthday is March 5th. I live in Michigan. During this time of year in my state, the ground is frozen solid and usually covered with at least 6 inches of snow. This could not have been the sound of a cat in heat or of a neighbor's baby crying. All the windows were closed because it was very cold. We heard this sound inside the house and all of us were frightened. My friends got mad and accused me of rigging something. I told them I had nothing to do with it. We all listened for more sounds and heard someone walking upstairs. I thought maybe my parents had come home and we didn't know it. Maybe what we heard was the TV or radio. So we all crept up the stairs in total fear and found the TV and radio off, the lights off, and no one around. Two of my friends called their parents and went home. The third and fourth stayed but the third one never came back to my house.

We continued to hear the crying on and off every few minutes, even upstairs. We tried to find the source of the sound, and it was always in the next room. It seemed to be moving away from us all the time. We turned every light in the house on and listened to the crying. It was one of the most bizarre things I have ever experienced. After that day I never heard the crying again.