The Bathroom: Movements of the Paranormal Kind…

Bathrooms …they can be some of the most haunted places in the entire house. We’re literally locked away from everyone, in a room with weird echoes (ok, only if you’ve got tiles).  Then, there are the mirrors to consider. Who likes looking in a mirror at night with the light off? NOT ME, that’s for sure, that’s just asking for trouble. If that wasn’t enough, the sound of dodgy plumbing and pipes make even the hardiest of us jump out of our skin with the groaning noises they produce, right when we’re in our own little 3 am world of answering nature’s call.

For those of us with an over-active imagination, we start to think about all the movies we’ve seen where the hero has to get up in the middle of the night to answer that call (insert favourite movie that comes to mind – mine is The Sixth Sense….that poor kid!!). While we’re in there, over-imagining ourselves into a complete state of anxiety, where we can’t make our pee come out any quicker if we tried, pulling back a shower curtain suddenly seems like the bravest thing in the world to do.

I once worked in Charleville, outback Queensland, and was living at the Hotel Charleville’s accommodation upstairs until my contract expired. The hotel was supposedly haunted and I was fascinated to hear the story of the young woman with a 1920’s bob hairdo who was spotted fairly regularly upstairs looking pale and sad. I spent my time at this hotel hoping to see her, while simultaneously being petrified that I actually would.

One night after getting out of the bath tub I grabbed my towel, only to find that it was wonderfully warm to the touch. This was strange, because the rail on which it was hanging wasn’t heated and my bathrobe, made from the same material as my towel, also hanging on the rail, wasn’t warm at all.  My warm towel phenomenon continued sporadically over the next few weeks. I tried hanging the towel in another spot, hanging clothes in place of the towel, leaving the door open, closed…. No matter what I did, it was only ever my towel that was warm, no matter where I put it.

Being a firm believer in the paranormal I like to think that it was the ghost of this sad, lovely lady, letting me know that she was there in the gentlest way possible without scaring me half to death. If that’s the case, it worked!

Didn’t think there was room for the paranormal in the toilet or bathroom? Think again; you could go code brown if you’re not careful…