A Creepy Encounter In Kansas City KS

Back in 2003 my father was in the process of selling my grandfather's house in Kansas City KS. Now this place - the childhood home of my dad - has the kind of back story that reads like a stereotypical horror film. Old house, once owned by casket makers and located within spitting distance of notoriously haunted Wyandotte High School. It's not a particularly remarkable home at first glance, but beneath that unassuming façade lurks a dark energy. Simply put, it's not a very welcoming place. 

Eventually my dad was able to find a buyer for the home and as such thought he was finally done with the property, but the house apparently felt differently. It was Thanksgiving, and my family and I had just returned from a day spent at my other grandparents' home when Dad received a strange call from the new owners. Apparently they'd been locked out. Not in the absentminded way that one accidentally leaves their keys somewhere else. No, it seemed that the dead bolt had been engaged, something that could only be achieved from inside the house. Intrigued, my dad offered to go investigate and, equally curious, I offered to tag along. 

The house.

So there we were, standing on the porch of an empty, possibly haunted house after sundown. We try the front door thinking maybe there's just something wrong with the new owners' keys but as my dad turns the key it breaks, lodging itself firmly in the keyhole. The house just wasn't going to make it easy for us. Knowing that we needed to get inside to further our investigation, we started to look around for another way in. We tried the back door, but it too had been latched. So we turned to our best bet at this point: tools. Lucky for us the back door was much easier to unhinge, allowing us to finally gain access to the home.

Once inside we made for the front door and sure enough, the deadbolt had been activated. But as weird as it all was, we still had the matter of the broken key to tend to, so my dad set to work while I waited inside, the whole time convinced something was watching me (I can't remember exactly why, but apparently I needed to be inside). Eventually my father managed to remedy the key situation and we were able to get out with no more resistance but my god, it was weird. I just can't imagine how both those doors could be latched up without someone in the house to do the latching. Since both lock mechanisms could only be accessed from inside the house the only way for a human to achieve what we encountered would be to hook all the latches and engage the dead bolt and then exit through a window, which seems an unlikely scenario.

Years later (editing this May 26th, 2018 [and again January 2025) this whole experience still stands as one of the strangest encounters in my personal repertoire of unexplained phenomena. The whole thing was just so strange. After that night though we never heard anything more about the house, but we do occasionally still drive by just to see how it’s holding up. A few renovations have taken place over the years but I would say that the property still retains much of the same odd vibe that I grew up with, and I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if future residents have accumulated a few haunted house stories of their own.  Be sure to follow me on Facebook and Instagram!