A family’s chilling account of escalating paranormal activity in their Edinburgh flat culminated in a terrifying Christmas night that drove them to flee their home forever, writes JOHN S TANTALON
From time to time, a story arrives that completely catches my attention.
An Edinburgh family contacted me through a mutual acquaintance. They had previously lived in the Lochend area of the city and informed me of a story possibly of interest.
Miss A and her husband moved into the property on Restalrig Crescent in January 1988. The building was a traditional Edinburgh setting — a six-tenement property constructed in 1925.
The couple and their one-year-old son settled into the two-bedroom house and progressed through an uneventful year.
Christmas arrived, and with it, the family’s first evidence that something was not right in their new home.
It was in the days leading up to Christmas when Mr A complained about their young son interfering with his bath time routine. He stated that the boy must have turned the bath taps off, resulting in a cold and half-full bathtub.
Mr A was enraged by the toddler’s actions and insisted that his wife keep a better eye on him.
The fact of the matter is that the young boy had not left his mother’s side. He had not ventured anywhere near the vicinity of the bathroom that evening.
The year 1989 arrived, and the instances of household instruments being tampered with continued.
Although Miss A insisted that their son could not manage to turn off bath taps or reach light switches, his father disagreed.
Over the coming months, a steadily awkward chemistry materialised between the father and his young son.
Somebody would blame anything slightly unusual on the youngster — and there was much to blame.
Lights would be switched on in the dead of night, with the family waking up in the morning to find no credit left in the electricity meter.
Mr A, in a vitriolic rage, would bellow at the unaware toddler each morning, blaming him entirely for the mysterious late-night events.
The child’s grandmother, who sided with her frustrated son, joined in with the accusations.
“It was almost as if something was turning them both against him,” she insisted.
“He was only small and could not have even reached the light switch, but both of them teamed up against him,” she recalled.
As the 1990s commenced, the events began to form a more sinister pattern.
The woman remembers that the room she and her husband occupied was always cold. Not damp — but cold — almost as if something within the room was keeping it at a constantly low temperature.
The family cat, Gizmo, refused to go near the bedroom and hissed when bypassing the bathroom.
Possibly one of the most frightening incidents involved waking up each morning to a solid man’s handprint visible on the bedside cabinet — and sometimes the windowsill — only for it to vanish, as if whoever had left the mark had departed with her awakening.
On a side note, her husband was not always present when this chilling action would occur, rendering her alone in the confines of the bedroom.
Miss A became an active community member and spent much time volunteering at the nearby Lochend Community Centre.
Although interested in community issues, her main reason for involvement was to be as far away from the property as physically possible while her husband was at work.
She remembers an unmistakable air of menace throughout the vicinity of the building around the mid-1990s.
A catalogue of ghoulish events descended across the street, specifically within the stairwell in which she lived.
A tragic event occurred one bleak afternoon — the body of a man was discovered dead within the stairwell that day.
Miss A recalls the horrific scene as she returned home to a sea of blue lights and police activity that early evening.
Her deceased neighbour had been discovered by a family member within the stair.
On another occasion, her child stated that he was too scared to climb the property’s stairs.
This was due to an elderly neighbour staring at him from the stair window — the same area where the tragedy had previously occurred.
Enraged, she contacted each of the five separate neighbours. Still, when confronted, not one of the occupants fitted the description of the menacing older man who had scrutinised her son from the stairwell.
In the autumn of 1996, the terrifying events of the Restalrig Crescent property came to a chilling crescendo.
A woman selling trinkets door-to-door visited the property and warned the resident of impending danger. She also disclosed other unknown factors within the family.
The woman refused any form of payment but pleaded for Miss A to ensure the children’s safety from whatever resided in the property.
Although stable and continuous, the events seemed to balance out in the lead-up to Christmas 1996.
They did not feature the same level of shocks as in previous years. Miss A insists they were so sick and tired of the events, they would have accepted any other property in exchange.
With a young daughter now in the family, she would visit parks and friends and sit in nearby Leith Links in the fading afternoon light, waiting for her husband to finish work and return home.
She became used to the strange voices within the stairwell as she struggled with the child’s pushchair to the landing of her house.
Each time, the persistent angry conversation from above would result in nobody present to be seen.
In the week leading up to Christmas, the family’s luck would change.
They received the offer of a transfer to a ground-floor bungalow. The new location, although not far from the district, was, in her words:
“Far enough away from that terrible house.”
The days leading up to the move proved to be a nightmare. It was almost as if the house knew they were leaving and tormented them with a constant feeling of dread.
The keys to the new property arrived on Christmas Eve.
They would have moved that day but decided to remain so the children could enjoy as pleasant a Christmas Day as possible.
She recalls visiting the zoo at one point that day, as opposed to sitting in the dreaded house.
Excuses were made to the frustrated children, who could not play with their newly presented Nintendo games console.
As the evening progressed and the family attempted to settle down, all appeared well in Restalrig Crescent.
After an exciting day, the two children retreated to bed happy with the day’s Christmas festivities.
Relieved by the non-eventful nature of the day, the couple set about shutting down for the evening and retiring to bed.
Her husband was already in the bedroom as Miss A approached the corner of the living room to switch off the Christmas tree lights.
It was at this point that she noticed something unusual.
The closed curtains by the tree moved — in a manner as if somebody or something stood behind them.
The terrified woman could hear, through the still of Christmas night, the distant sound of breathing from behind the curtains. The sound of a man — growing louder with each terrifying breath.
Petrified, she attempted to back away from the dim light of the tree and call out to her husband.
She could not.
All she could do was watch in terror as the long velvet drape continued to move in the corner of the room.
Eventually, she managed to defeat the startling paralysis and scream with all her might.
Her husband leapt from the bedroom and ran to the darkness of the living room. He reached for the light switch.
The area was now illuminated, revealing the image of his terrified wife cowering in the corner. Her trembling hand pointed towards the long dark curtains by the tree.
Slowly, he approached the drapes. With a shaking hand, he reached out to open them.
As the heavy velvet curtains slowly parted, both he and his wife stood stunned — yet not entirely surprised — to find that nothing at all stood by the bay windows.
The terrifying events of that Christmas Night in 1996 would be the last the family experienced in the foreboding Restalrig property.
On Boxing Day 1996, they were gone.
They moved the children into an uncarpeted and barely furnished nearby house — the home in which they still reside today.
The new property was the answer to the family’s prayers. They have witnessed nothing akin to the disturbances of Restalrig Crescent ever again.
Severing all ties with the street, the family were finally free from the nightmares of 1988 to 1996.
In the 24 years since they moved, she has never ventured to Restalrig Crescent or the property again.
Although curious about the details of previous owners, she has remained reluctant to investigate.
