Most people love a good haunted house story and it seems that the more lurid it can possibly be, the better.  Everyone has probably been exposed to the typical ghost story involving a haunted house with a terrifying specter that sends residents running out screaming, but, alas, these are just stories…unlike many others.  Putting urban legends and pure speculation aside, there are known occurrences – a plethora of them actually – that involve the paranormal, many of which have been reported for years and have been documented by paranormal investigators.  Stereotypical ghost stories have the tendency to produce a feeling of the far-fetched whenever the word “paranormal” is brought up, but what you’re about to read are not your typical legends and fables.

All throughout the country there are houses of all different styles and time periods, which have been home to people from all walks of life, from the most ordinary farmers to the wealthiest businessmen and high society families.  They may all share quite a few differences, but they all share one common trait: they’re haunted.  Now, don’t necessarily start producing visions of terror at the thought of haunted house, as not all hauntings are malevolent.  In fact, most haunted houses don’t come with any type of negative activity, even though the word “haunted” has definitely acquired a negative connotation.  Many haunted houses are simply the eternal homes of former owners/residents, all of whom are either friendly or oblivious towards the living.

Of course, the negative imagery of a haunted house exists for a reason, and some of the houses provided in this list of 38 homes offer up the kind of hauntings you most likely would never want to encounter in your own home.  Sometimes, especially when traumatic deaths occur (think murder and suicide here), spirits tend to hold a deep hostility to anything and anyone around them.  This hostility can manifest itself in some disturbing ways, such as outright violence towards the occupants or visitors of a house.  Experienced by guests of houses that are now hotels, by staff members of those turned into museums or business spaces, and by paranormal investigators out to discover the truth, the houses listed here exhibit enough of a diverse range of hauntings to make you sit up and rethink your views on the topic.