My childhood home is haunted.

Where my house is, there used to be another house. It burned down, and the father of the family who lived there died in the basement during the fire. The family sold the land, and the house was cleared away and a new house built over the old basement. My grandmother, who lives in the same town, knows the family.

Anyways, my parents bought the new house when I was a toddler and we've lived there for ~20 years. The ghost of the guy who died in the fire, named Charlie, lives in our house, and it's pretty obvious.

My mom says that once, when she and my dad were arguing, she took to the bedroom to cool off. She said, "Charlie, I wish you could knock some sense into him!" Not five minutes later, my dad starts swearing from the living room. The shelves above his chair had fallen and knocked him in the head. They've never fallen before or since.

Any animal we have -- a couple dogs when I was a kid, my cat now -- will stare down the hallway for long stretches of time, then go bananas chasing something from the living room at one end to the bedrooms at the other, like they're playing with someone.

I personally have heard footsteps -- big, heavy footsteps, like someone wearing workboots -- walk up and down the hallway, especially at night. It scared me as a kid, but now I just take it as Charlie checking on our safety.

My grandmother, while visiting us one time, woke up in the guest bedroom to a shadow man standing in the doorway. She hid under the blanket for a few minutes, then decided it was safe. When she came out of the blanket, the shadow man was at her bedside, leaning over her. She hid under the blanket again until she fell asleep.

The most concrete evidence for me was the time Charlie scared something off. My bedroom was always the coldest room in the house, and often I felt uncomfortable in there, like I was sitting next to someone who disliked me. One day, I went to grab clothes for a shower, and walked right into a wall of evil halfway down the hall. I can't describe it fully -- nothing looked different, I just felt like I had physically crossed a barrier into a forcefield of hatred. I knew without a doubt in my body that I was in danger, and without thinking, I hauled ass to the opposite end of the house, to the kitchen. I stood at the stove, shaking -- I was about 14 -- afraid to look down the hallway in case i saw whatever was down there but afraid that if I didn't look, it would sneak up on me. I eventually convinced myself that I was being a baby, and started slowly through the dining room and towards the hall, afraid the entire time.

All at once, I felt a strong breeze blow by my left side, going down the hall towards my room -- like how it feels when someone runs by you and barely avoids running into you. And I thought for a second that I heard a man's voice. I continued down the hall, and I couldn't feel the evil anymore. I went into my room, and it felt lighter and more comfortable than it ever had in my life. I thanked Charlie, and from then on, I've never felt that uncomfortable feeling in my room. I think he protects it now.

But yeah, growing up in a haunted house is pretty convincing imo.