Back in January/February of this year, I spent five days investigating a property in Hull, England, known informally as ‘The Hostel,’ but more simply as 39 De Grey Street. I had read a lot of stories about this house in the British national press (much, I suspect, wildly exaggerated) and wanted to see what I could find out myself. The property owner, a very friendly chap named Andy, kindly let me and a few fellow paranormal investigators have the run of the place.
It rained for almost our entire stay (par for the course in England in January) and the rain coming through the somewhat leaky roof provided a constant backdrop to all of our audio files. Nevertheless, we did catch some interesting EVPs, such as this one, which sounds like either a baby crying or a cat miaowing in one of the upstairs bedrooms.
The only people present in the house at the time were myself and fellow investigators Lesley Bridge and Nat Wilson. Although there are pigeons roosting in the rafters of the garage enclosure, this most definitely does not sound like them (we got very used to the sound by the end of the week) and none of us heard anything at the time.
Some people have voiced the opinion that the house isn’t haunted at all, claiming that it is all simply an attempt to make money. Yet a local man I spoke to insisted that Number 39 had maintained a reputation for being haunted for the last few decades.
The house was deathly cold, which we offset a little by using a pair of electric heaters whenever possible. Detecting the cold spots and draughts that paranormal investigators usually look for was made difficult, if not impossible, thanks to the chilly interior.
The number and variety of spirit entities at 39 De Grey Street are said to be many; they include a malevolent, tyrannical male, a younger man who is believed to have hanged himself upstairs in the attic, a tragic young woman who lost her child and still looks for it up on the second floor, and multiple children. An image that was found daubed on the wall of the living room has been claimed by visiting mediums to be the nasty, angry male entity that dislikes visitors and will try his utmost to get them to leave.
The front door has multiple locks and bolts keeping it closed. A few months before our visit, concerned local residents had called 999 when they saw the figure of a young girl staring forlornly out of an upstairs window. As the house was known to be abandoned, they were worried as to why she would be in there. When responding police officers battered down the door, they found the house to be completely empty…
To those who would claim that 39 De Grey Street is not haunted, I would add that we experienced a number of bizarre events during our time there. One night, we heard a loud knock on the door. By the time we got there and unlocked everything, the street outside was deserted. Was it a ghost or just a passer-by who was trying to spook us? Fortunately the exterior of the house is fully covered with CCTV cameras, and when we played the recording back, the hoodie-wearing young man who pounded on the door and then fled down the street looked very real indeed.
Yet when the same thing happened the next night (we once again opened the door to an empty street) the footage picked up nobody at all. Andy wound the video file back twenty minutes before the thudding and found nobody at all approaching the house. Many other strange occurrences took place during our five day investigation.
The full story appears in the second volume of my ghost hunting memoirs, These Haunted Hallways, which is due to be published next September by Llewellyn Worldwide.
One of the nicest things about our stay was the warm and friendly greeting we received from two lovely young ladies, Imogen and Grace (the daughters of Andy the property owner) who kindly made us some 39 De Grey Street cakes. Thank you for giving us such a sweet welcome, girls!
