Life after Death

[Angus]

The floor-boards above my head were less then an inch thick, and while I stand six feet high, it was about a foot from my head to a person right above me. Not only could I guess the weight of a person upstairs, I would know the difference between the shoes my old granny was wearing. Oh, I had years of training, but you'd only need a day or so to get the basics.
Through the floor I could hear the phone, the TV, when the pan was put on the stove, when glasses were washed in the sink, all simple noises.
In short, just imagine. Someone walking on thin boards less than one foot from your head. Cannot be that difficult.

[Ghosth]

I'm with angus, we used to have someone who "walked" the upstairs with big loud footsteps. Especially if he was upset about something.

When we first bought the house we tore a lot of stuff out, did extensive remodeling in the kitchen. Lots or rewiring in other rooms. Painting almost everything in the process.  After some weeks of this you could almost feel it when you walked in the door. Something in the house was not happy at all about all the mess and construction. To the point that he was somehow causing my wife and me to fight and argue constantly if we were in the house. Walk outside and the high tempers vanished.

So I walked up stairs, and had a bit of a talk with it.
Carpets coming in tommorow, painting is done, kitchen will be finished by this weekend.
Ease up and give us a chance, please.  For the next week the house had kind of a waiting hush feel about it.
But as carpeting went in, and the last of the mess was cleaned up things quickly settled into a routine.

However a couple of times a month I would clearly hear footsteps on the floor above. House is a story and a half.
Attic space is finished, however with no heat or cooling up there we always just used it for storage. Only one door leads up there from the living room.

Several times after hearing the footsteps I would rush up the stairs and see nothing.

Eventually he settled into a quiet routine. A big 3 way argument or fight would almost always have him showing his displeasure in some way.  He did knock on my daughters basement room door once, like he was asking permission to enter. The next night the TV that was always turned on while she slept, was turned off in the middle of the night. No one else entered the room.  Don't think he liked the TV being on for some reason.

I only saw him once, around 2am got up to go to the bathroom, looked out the hall across the living room and saw him silhouetted against the window. Just a dark man shape that I could see through, yet I could see there was a "shadow" there.

After my daughter moved out he went away, we havn't heard the steps on the floor since.
Not sure why he was so protective of her. But that's the way he seemed to be. 

He did seem to have a pattern. Starting at the west end of the upstairs. We'd clearly hear him walk one room.
An hour or 2 later we'd hear him in the next room. After midnight our daughter sometimes heard him on the main floor.

Once while 4 of us were having a heated animated discussion in the office he reached through a wall, and a bookcase solidly packed with books to brush my wife's hair.

Needless to say she freaked. I went back upstairs and had another talk about what was "allowed". No more problems.

[Die Hard]

The number of people who attribute ghosts or paranormal phenomena to boringly mundane circumstances, even in 2009, is still quite staggering.

Your average staircase is made up several different types of wood, which absorb moisture/thermal energy at different rates and thus expand/contract at markedly different rates. As the temperature decreases during the onset of night time, the relative humidity changes, and the wood starts to contract but at different rates. This quite easily explains creaking noises, not just in staircases but floors, doorframes, ceilings, roof joists etc. You can often get some more significant noises occurring where wood or metals/alloys are hard bolted to plaster/masonry where the coefficient of expansion of the two materials is markedly different.

Many of the more significant sounding bangs/thumps can be easily traced to heating/boiler systems with the odd air bubble trapped in the pipework, settling down to thermal equilibrium, even the cold water pipework feeding the taps, toilet cisterns, etc can make a fair bit of racket if poorly designed or shoddily installed/maintained.

Consider that your average house is made up of many different materials, all of which absorb different types of energy at different rates and expand/contract at different rates for a given amount of energy. It would be far more surprising if the house did not make any noise as it did so.

I live in a old house mostly made from wood... a lot of different types of wood. Come nighttime there are so many "ghosts" around I can't count. The old staircase to the third floor where our bedrooms are is especially active at night.

[Angus]

House creak is very different from very very VERY clear footsteps. Been living in various houses, mostly wooden for more than 20 years now.
I have heard steps on a concrete floor once, but I was quite young at the time. First time it happened. I woke my brother up so he could hear as well, since we were sure someone was in the living-room, - a guest perhaps. We could hear the steps as well as cloth "brushing" a bit. Trousers that is.
Anyway, we found nothing. The house was empty.
In my "ghostbusting" attempt, I was actually in the staircase itself while the "walking" continued. Now, why would the noise always stop when one looks at the source?????

[Die Hard]

Why do you think it was a ghost and not a goblin or a troll? Hell, you could have chosen a number of more interesting mythical creatures, why not be more creative?

[Angus]

Did I use the word ghost?
It was the "walker", aint that good enough?
Anyway, the Ghosts are supposed to be invisible when they want to. Goblins and trolls not.
Maybbe a shy alien 

[indy007]

Does it not occur to anybody to setup a camera to capture these repeated "walkers" ?

[Die Hard]

Did I use the word ghost?

Yes.

Maybbe a shy alien 

That would be more believable... though not by much.