I’m in a PoC writer group and in the group, a person, who shall be named “Bops”, posted that they were writing and heard a knock on their bedroom door.  No one is home but them.

One of the mods commented that either a family member is home, Bops’ imagination or a ghost. Bops mentioned a) she is truly home alone and b ) the knock sounded real. The mod suggested that maybe Bops had a wooden home, they do settle and make noises.

Bops has a cement house…and this isn’t the first time it happened; lights turn on by themselves in the middle of the night, and a water bottle once flung itself across the room. Oh, and when her parents bought the house, her dad thought dirt from the cemetery would be awesome to coat the house grounds with – because free dirt. Hey, the dead got six feet of it and aren’t using it, why not?

Everyone, cue the music!

The mod suggested sage because that what she hears get suggested everywhere (thanks to the “witch/’brujeria'” fad), I suggested she clean her floors with lemon water and cinnamon oil. But since it is house grounds, the “easiest” option is scoop up the offending dirt and put it back – most people don’t like their final resting place to be treated like Home Depot so that’s most likely why the spirit(s) is(are) mad.  Since that is most likely not doable, I suggested a bevy of other things for in and outside the house.

I generally get “omgz, mah house iz haunteeeeeed” letters in my inbox that sound less like hauntings and more like they may just have mice or bad pipes. This sounds like an actual haunting, clear cause (yinked graveyard dirt) and everything.

Moral of the story: If you want free dirt, get a compost bin and leave the dead alone.