Old houses, I thought, do not belong to people ever, not really, people belong to them.
— Book author Gladys Taber, (1899–1980).
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Always wanted to live in an old Victorian-style house. Glamorous 12-foot ceilings, glass transom doors, polished hardwood floors, lots of charm.
Then one day, I bought one. With all of the above and more. A tall, elegant structure built in 1900 and towering over the newer homes around it.
Soon settled in, we relaxed one evening watching a Blockbuster rental. “The Money Pit.” You remember it, 1986. A couple buys an elegant old country estate, and it was bliss until doors fell off hinges, staircases tumbled, and a bathtub fell through the floor.
While the house I bought thankfully wasn’t that bad, it did come with its own set of setbacks and surprises. Mostly, co-inhabitants that started with attic squirrels coming and going via oak tree limb freeways and aging eaves along the rooflines edges.
“No problem.” I thought. “I’m smarter than a few fuzzy-tailed rats.” After a Saturday spent repairing rooflines and tree trimming, I declared it done; save for checking repaired spots inside the attic. Access to that cavernous space required climbing through a closet hatch and traversing a long, 4-foot high crawl space.
Once there, I found myself eye-to-eye with one remaining squirrel who apparently failed to get the eviction notice.
We quickly registered each other’s equal feelings of unhappiness regarding our current standoff in the attic.
“OK,’ I muttered to myself. Scare the squirrel away, reopen the nearest hole, and shoo him out. The squirrel had other ideas however, primarily making evil hissing noises and assuming attack stances that my lack of nature never knew a trapped squirrel could execute.
After careful dancing on both our parts, I succeeded in my plan, and the squirrel succeeded in his escape.
I had almost recovered from the squirrel soiree when I was introduced to another co-occupant, equally enamored with my arrival.
It started with minor distractions. Nightly sounds of someone walking in the attic and a “possessed” bedroom light. A that point, surprisingly less troublesome to me than being trapped in an attic with a deranged squirrel.
I blamed the happenings on “George,” a nickname I assigned to the unseen inhabitant. Just to give him some personality.
I concluded that George occupied one large bedroom adjoining a dressing room and bath I used, and I accused him of seeking attention with the overhead light thing: randomly turning it on. Switching it off worked, but he would switch it on again at the least expected time. Often in the middle of the night.
Fearing faulty wiring, professional help was summoned. After thorough testing, nothing was found to be out of order. In fact, the electrician argued that events such as I described were electrically impossible.
Apparently, however, George failed electricity 101.
The phenomenon continued. I soon learned to just ignore it. Sometimes waking up the next morning to find the light on, I simply reached inside the door and swtiched it off on my way to the coffee pot. Offering a cordial, “Good morning, George!”
Less easy to dismiss were things like the quiet early morning I caught sight of a kid’s football rolling through the door between that bedroom and the dressing area where I was standing. It appeared to have fallen off a bookshelf across the room, slowly rolling along the floor, through the door between the two rooms, and stopping. At my feet.
OK, so what made it fall off the undisturbed shelf, and at that early morning moment? A football that neither rolls easily nor straight, navigating perfectly across a large bedroom floor, through a door, and stopping? Right at my feet?
I laughed. Nervously. “George, I don’t have time to play ball. I have to go to work.”
Another morning, again quietly preparing for work in that same dressing area, I laid a washcloth on the lavatory and exited the bathroom, making a U-turn to open the closet. As I paused there, the washcloth flew out of the bathroom and landed on the floor near the closet. Again, at my feet.
And as was typical, I was the only one in the house awake—an assumption I verified. Allowing my heart rate to slow down, I looked around and said shakily, “George, you gotta cut this out, man. If you have something to say, just write it on the wall and I’ll get back to you.”
Similar small oddities continued over time, without explanation, to which I became accustomed while vocally blaming George. And assuming he was hearing me.
We sold the old house a couple of years later, and never watched “The Money Pit” again. But I’ve often wished our stay there could’ve been longer..
Pending George’s approval… of course.
—Leon Aldridge
Credit: Art at top of the page — Pen and ink rendering of “George’s Place” in Center, Texas (where I lived for several years in the late 1990s) by J. Stan Routh, acclaimed architect and artist known for his “Places People Remember” collection of ink, pencil, and watercolor renderings of country stores, little churches, old homesteads, mills, bridges, barns, homes and other architectural structures throughout Louisiana and surrounding states. https://www.stanrouthart.citymax.com/index.html
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Leon Aldridge is a veteran editor, publisher, and communications professional, currently enjoying semi-retirement while awaiting his next challenge. His columns appear in: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.
© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2026. Feel free to use excerpts with full and clear credit given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling.’
A Story Worth Telling 