Jersey’s untold ghost stories: Part four

This is part four of a five part series leading up to Halloween weekend. Each day we offer a true story as told to us by a NJ101.5 listener of things they cannot explain. They are in no way paid for their stories and they swear to be telling the truth.

Joe's family home is in Matawan. Like so many of these stories, the house itself appears ordinary. No creepy shutters hanging off by one hinge. No creaking doors or gargoyle statues or wrought iron fences. Yet what happened for several years inside this house was anything but ordinary.

Strange phenomena began to occur that no one in the family could explain. The activity always centered around gadgets and electronics. Televisions would turn back on the moment you left the room. Electronics would turn on and off in the middle of the night. Lights would go on and off by themselves. Joe was not the only one who experienced these things. Everyone in the family had it happen to them. One night Joe walked into the kitchen and flipped on the wall switch but the ceiling light over the kitchen table didn't come on. Figuring the lightbulb had burned out, he went back down the hall to a closet to grab a new one. When he came back to change the bulb, he found the socket empty. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he realized the bulb had unscrewed itself from the socket and fallen. Pieces of it were everywhere. He swears it had not been loose.

The strangest occurrence also happened in the kitchen. The family had a blender on the counter but never used it. It always sat with the cord wrapped in a tight circle around its base as if freshly pulled from the box. One morning Joe woke to a hellacious sound coming from downstairs. When he got to the kitchen he found the blender with the cord plugged into the wall and set to the highest speed, causing quite a racket. He questioned everybody in the home and every single family member swore they had never touched it. Had never even plugged it in. They were all as freaked out as Joe was.

At this point, so unnerved by the constant events of the last few years, the family decided to invest in a security system. It would sense motion, record all events even in darkened rooms, etcetera. Without explanation, the moment they installed the security cameras all activity stopped. Nothing more happened from that moment on. While things have remained quiet, I'm sure they wonder what will happen if they ever decide to take out those cameras.