The family of Kathleen Dombvski moved into one of the apartments in the house in 1977, and they experienced something odd on their very first night. "We had the kids' beds set up for them, but my husband and I slept huddled on to the couch together," she told me. "In the middle of the night, I woke up and heard something rolling around on the floor. My husband was also awake, and his first thought was that our Irish setter was chasing something. I pointed out that the dog was right beside us, lying on the floor.

"I got up to see what was happening, and I saw a piece of dry dog food rolling around by itself. It was the craziest thing, because I couldn't understand what was making it do that. I picked it up and threw it away, and we had no more trouble that night."

Two days later the second mysterious event occurred, and it was uncannily similar to the rhododendron episode described in the Independent Record article. "We had about eighty plants in the dining room," Kathleen said, "and one of them, a spider plant with lots of 'babies' trailing from it, suddenly flew straight up in the air, came back down, and wobbled for a second or two. I stared at it, wondering what in the world had caused it to shoot up like that."

While Kathleen's family was living in the house, two other incidents occurred that were also reminiscent of those reported in the newspaper story. The vacuum cleaner once switched itself on, just as the caretaker's had done. "My husband and I were standing in the living room when the sweeper started up in the kitchen," Kathleen recalled. "No one was even close to it when that happened."

The other similarity involved the disappearance of candy. The Dixons reported that sweets vanished from trays, and Kathleen recalled the experience of a woman who lived in the basement. "This lady loved M&M's, and she always kept a clear glass bowl filled with them," Kathleen said. "One night after she had gone to bed she was awakened by the sound of someone scraping the sides of the candy dish, then letting the M&M's fall back in.

"She got up and noticed that half the M&M's were gone. She thought that somebody must have come into the house, so she turned on the lights and checked the doors, but no one was there. The next night the same thing happened, and she decided that a band of M&M loving mice might be to blame. To keep them from getting her goodies, she cut a piece of paper to fit tightly over the top of the bowl, just below the rim.

"A couple of nights later, she heard the same sound of candy rattling around in the bowl," Kathleen continued. "She listened for a while, then got up to see what had happened. The paper was still in place, but every one of the M&M's was gone. They lady moved out of the house shortly afterward."