This Old Haunted House

Beware, all ye remodelers!

Turns out, your home can kick up more than dust. Just in time for Halloween 2007, the Web site for This Old House has reposted last year’s infinitely entertaining and informative Haunted Houses slide show, which featured 14 infamous domiciles bedeviled by both ghosts and contractors. Among the spooky overhauls you'll find online are:

Hampton Lillibridge House
Bought by ill-fated antiques dealer Jim Williams of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil fame, the Hampton Lillibridge House is known for eerie accidents and benign spectral activity. A worker was crushed during the relocation of the Savannah, Georgia, home, originally built in 1796, and Williams died of heart failure in the same spot where he allegedly shot and killed his former assistant. Continued spooky happenings at the Georgian-style home include the disembodied sounds of footsteps and a Dixieland band and well-dressed spirits roaming the premises.

Makens Bemont House (shown)
This gambrel-roofed abode in East Hartford, Connecticut, built in 1761, houses a hard-working contractor you can’t hire within this realm. Huguenot saddle maker Makens Bemont and his family lived in the house from the 1760s to the 1820s. The restoration of the house 150 years later brought on the ghostly sounds of hammering and falling bricks.

Wildflower Inn
While converting their 1898 Colonial Revival in Falmouth, Massachusetts, into a B&B, the owners apparently awoke a young female ghost when they moved some attic contents into a guest room. The ghost, nicknamed Ada, reportedly fills her afterlife hours by moving workers' tools, pulling mirrors off the walls, and flushing toilets and turning on the faucets. (If you’re reading this, Ada, all that water wasting is terribly ungreen.)—Helen A.S. Popkin

Essential information: Avoid earthly renovation nightmares by following our expert advice and recommendations. Whether you need a handyman for a simple repair or are planning a full-scale remodel for your kitchen, you have to make wise hiring decisions. After all the effort you've put into buying your home or designing your dream kitchen, don't be less than thorough when booking pros for your jobs.

Photo courtesy of the Historical Society of East Hartford