When I was handling the sale of my mother’s Arizona home after her death, the real estate agent and I were perched on the kitchen counters doing the paperwork, because the furniture had already been moved out.<\/p>\n
Working through a long sale-listing questionnaire, I came to a question asking if the property were haunted. “You’re kidding!” I said.<\/p>\n
“Oh no,” he said. “That’s Arizona law. You have to disclose if the house might be haunted. It’s based on a court case from some years back.”<\/p>\n
I checked “No.”<\/p>\n
But what if you are the buyer? You have found, perhaps, your perfect restoration project. “Everything is going smoothly until your electrician meets you at the top of the basement stairs and tells you you’re going to have to find another electrician. He’s not going down in the basement again. Ever.”<\/p>\n
So writes M. Elwell Romancito in a recent issue of Enchanted Homes<\/em>, a slick magazine of Taos, New Mexico-area real estate ads published by the Taos News. <\/em><\/a>Also known as Melody Romancito, she is an artist, muscian, journalist, audio-video editor<\/a>, ghost hunter and exorcist<\/a>, which just goes to show that to live the bohemian life in a place like Taos<\/a>, you need a few arrows in your quiver.<\/p>\n Her suggestions range from tidying tools and clearing remodeling trash (“This goes a long toward appeasing spirits who take to hiding tools.”) to keeping a journal of times, dates, and nature of each paranormal occurrance.<\/p>\n Antique furniture should also be regarded with suspicion: “Inquire about the history of an item before buying it.”<\/p>\n While “several locals have reported that bringing in Tibetan Buddhists for a house clearing . . . has been effective,” if things get tough, contact some other religious leader or “do a Google search for ‘Taos psychic medium.'”<\/p>\n I tried that and got 10,600 hits. Of course, a lot of them were actually in Santa Fe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was handling the sale of my mother’s Arizona home after her death, the real estate agent and I were perched on the kitchen counters doing the paperwork, because the furniture had already been moved out. Working through a long sale-listing questionnaire, I came to a question asking if the property were haunted. “You’re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[97,32],"class_list":["post-8270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ghosts","tag-new-mexico"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-29o","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12547,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12547","url_meta":{"origin":8270,"position":0},"title":"Monetize Your Doll Collection: Add Ghosts","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 5, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"People are always trying to make money off podcasts, Instagram, etc., but have you thought about dolls? Haunted dolls, that is. And who is to say they are haunted? You, the seller! \"On eBay, a Fantastical, Earnest World of Haunted Dolls\" in the New Yorker. But whether any of these\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"dolls\"","block_context":{"text":"dolls","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=dolls"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/haunted-doll-169x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1239,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1239","url_meta":{"origin":8270,"position":1},"title":"Dining above the Dead","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I opened the Ca\u00f1on City Daily Record on Monday and learned that M. and I have been dining above the dead.One of our two favorite cafes in the nearby town of Florence, Colo., is the Aspen Leaf Bakery, which, it turns out, is the second-most haunted locale in that county.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0936564296","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":521,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=521","url_meta":{"origin":8270,"position":2},"title":"The National Guard as exorcistsFrom\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 21, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The National Guard as exorcistsFrom The Mystery of the Haunted Vampire via Relapsed Catholic, a cheesy local TV news report on National Guardsmen exorcising \"little girl\" ghosts from an abandoned New Orleans school. Think of it as the military version of \"the priesthood of the believer.\" (Fast connection needed)\"Voodoo, cannibalism,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7432,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7432","url_meta":{"origin":8270,"position":3},"title":"Wiccan Ghost-Hunting in India","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"If you are of a certain age \u2014 or if you hang around the \"occult\" section in used-bookstores \u2014 you might remember the ghost-hunting team of English witch Sybil Leek (1917\u20131982) and American parapsychology author Hans Holzer (1920\u20132009). They were both writers, but the books appeared under his name, such\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"ghosts\"","block_context":{"text":"ghosts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=ghosts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":655,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=655","url_meta":{"origin":8270,"position":4},"title":"The Unsettling Wisdom of Dreams","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 26, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"As some of my readers know, my oldest sister died in February. She was living in Lithuania, and I had not seen her for two years, although we were in touch by letters and email until just a few days before the end. In fact, one thing keeping me from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"dreaming\"","block_context":{"text":"dreaming","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=dreaming"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9933,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9933","url_meta":{"origin":8270,"position":5},"title":"Pentagram Pizza with Idolatrous Sprinkles","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 30, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"That's our idol, and we will see you in court!\u00a0 The Satanic Temple is going after Netflix for using their Baphomet in the new \"Sabrina the Satanic Witch\" series. (OK, its real name is Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.\u00a0 Via The Daily Grail.) I think I blogged her before. Or I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/pentagrampizza.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8270"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8276,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8270\/revisions\/8276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}