Saturday, November 22, 2008

"HOUSE OF FEAR"





Look at this house.  What do you see...a lovely warm and welcoming house.  It's so beautiful.  It caught our eye on the internet and from the moment we saw it we wanted to live in it.  

The lovely family(s) who own the farm "Mas Le Lafon" (father and Mother in their 80's in one house and across from theirs lives the son and his wife and their 2 teenage daughters), is about 1 1/2 miles up the road from us, we were introduce to them by J&C and P&N, who own a house about 1 1/4 mile up the road from us (they are from Holland), we have been to J&C's house for drinks, the daughter of the farmer and her husband's weekend home, this amazing restored barn up the road and to the son & his wife's home last weekend.  They beep when they go by our house or stop by for a quick hello.  They are all lovely lovely people and we are happy that we have all become friends.

One night we all got talking about "les costes" the house that we are living in.  And we were told many stories about it.  It's in the wood and was an old barn.  Now there is a clearing in the woods and around the house and there is  a driveway (dirt) that goes through a meadow to get to the house but 100 or so years ago it was much more covered by the woods.  We were told there were bandits that used to live here and rumor is they killed people in the area, everyone was afraid of the house (and the bandits too i'm sure).  After the bandits there was man who lived here who made clothing,  on the 3rd floor was the hay for his animals, middle floor was his and our bedroom (the bottom floor) is where the livestock lived...very typical we hear.  Seems everyone in our valley believes that our house is/was haunted and calls it 
"the house of fear". 

Great, I'm living in the house of fear the haunted house of fear.  Although I told them that even though there were bandits living here 100 years ago, we were trés gentil!  None of them have been in the house since it's been remodeled and are very curious to see what it looks like, so we have invited them over next week to come and take a look - they are very excited and a bit anxious to enter "the house of fear" but hopefully after their visit they'll change the name.

17 comments:

Randal Graves said...

Bandits are doable. At least it's not a former summer residence of Gilles de Rais. ;-)

M said...

Wow, when younger I always fancied living in the house occupied by The Munsters, or The Adams Family, but I think living in the {drum-roll} House of Fear, would be pretty cool too.

Bruce Anderson said...

Yikes to Gilles de Rais...never heard of him before, but looked him up and he was a very bad guy....hanged at 36. Said he killed between 80-200 people in 5 years. I'll take the bandits and ghosts.

Bruce Anderson said...

Michelle - well you are welcome to catch a flight to Toulouse and come and stay in house of fear my friend. I think the neighbors think we are pretty brave for living here, they all seemed really freaked out about it. I haven't seen any ghosts or felt any presence, except for the bees and spiders (unless they came back as insects).

La Framéricaine said...

Very cool...

And so nice of you to invite all the neighbors in to begin the house's "rehabilitation."

Have fun!

Heidi said...

Wow! What an adventurous life you're leading! And living in a 'house of fear' - very adventurous.

Linda Sue said...

SO COOL! I,too, want YOUR life! If your house of fear is haunted it is probably the livestock ghosts that come back to live in a better place, now that is facified!
Wonderful Blog!

Non Je Ne Regrette Rien said...

why do people always tell you this stuff AFTER you move in?? lol

Mark said...

How did you sleep the first night after they had told you the story!lol

Bruce Anderson said...

heidi-welcome and thanks for the comments. It's been a pretty exciting couple months, hoping for more to come.

Bruce Anderson said...

Linda Sue - thanks for the visit. I like the idea of lifestock ghosts, being the animal lover that I am.

Bruce Anderson said...

njnrr-good question! Probably because Andy the owner of the house hasn't met the neighbors, he is usually here for a couple weeks here and there and the other time he rents it out to others taking a vacation, so the neighbors never get to meet anyone. I haven't told him the story (rumor) yet.

Bruce Anderson said...

Mark - slept like a baby...must have been the wine!

Bruce Anderson said...

LF - the neighbors are so lovely and they are so interested in this place that we just have to invite them over.

Dorkys Ramos said...

Oh what a beautiful little house. I don't see how something so lovely could be scary!

Barbara said...

Hi Alicia & Bruce,
Oooh; that gives your house a reputation ! For myself that's more amusing than scary ( I'm not superstitious).
But in the countryside, these old tales can have a long shelf life.
What a lovely idea on the other hand, an open house for your neighbors & friends.

Keep on having fun !

Anne in Oxfordshire said...

Hope they don't tell you any more tales !! Hope you all have fun :-) at your open house!