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Have you ever had a bad feeling about a place?

last year

Elmer's post about the best day of your life, got me to thinking about this. I went on a trip across the country in 2023 and went to a couple places I'd always wanted to see. One of them was Crater Lake in Oregon. The place is beautiful but it gave me the creeps and I don't know why. Even thinking about it now is giving me goose bumps.


At first I thought it might be because I'm afraid of heights but I didn't have the same reaction to other places, like walking on paths near cliffs on the coast of Washington. Have you ever just got the heebie jeebies about some place you've gone for the first time?

Comments (26)

  • last year
    last modified: last year

    Mummy museum in Guajanjuato - creeped me out big time - much more than I had expected.

    Otherwise, Guanajuato is one of my favorite places in Mexico, and I loved the rest of it - especially the music festivals, put on by the music department of the university there.

    Kathsgrdn thanked Lars
  • last year

    We loved Crater Lake...no creepy feeling there.


    I did feel very disturbed in a clothing store one time that was all black...walls, ceiling, with weird lighting. I was so uncomfortable, I couldn't shop there.


    I can't remember a creepy feeling, but I remember being so uncomfortable in GF's new house. It wasn't until after I left that I realized what was bothering me. The whole house was asymmetrical ... no front door but a side door ... driveway on opposite side of the house and right near the lot line... and placed all on one side of the property. The improper massing, balance on the lot and weird placement of the rooms was very disturbing to me.

    Kathsgrdn thanked Annie Deighnaugh
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  • last year

    When we were out house hunting, there was one house that I went into and had to leave almost immediately. I have no idea what the deal was about it but it gave me the creeps. The house ended up being just down the road from where we live now and people live there now and have been there since they bought it after we looked at it. I doubt the house is haunted because they have been living there since 2009. I guess something was just telling me that wasn't the right house. I do know they had to have their entire basement torn out due to a drain issue. I wouldn't want to have to deal with that!!!!!

    There was this other time then I was out walking my dog that I was standing under a tree(dog was busy sniffing) and got a real bad creepy feeling that I needed to get out of there. Didn't think a whole lot of it until the next day when I was out walking in that same spot was a very large limb that had fallen!

    Kathsgrdn thanked arkansas girl
  • last year

    That happens to me. Sometimes it’s just an uncomfortable feeling, not a creepy feeling. I know immediately whenever I step into a new place.

    My sister has a beautiful, huge house. I cannot relax there.

    My brother had a house once. That one had creepy vibes. I felt it, and so did my son who wasn’t even a year old. He was a happy baby and rarely cried. He was really upset. My daughters were 9 and 6 at the time. They felt it too, but my son had a reaction that only a baby can pull off.

    Kathsgrdn thanked Michele
  • last year

    Yep. Got off a plane once in a place I had never been to before, looked around and instantly hated it. Every fiber of my being was screaming NO, THIS IS BAD!


    I ignored it, because I am adult and had stuff I needed to do. 😄 I was only there 2 days, but it was perfectly fine. No clue what happened inside my head that day. I understand the "gift of fear" thing, but this wasn't that. I was perfectly safe. However something indeed clicked me into heightened alert from the moment I saw the area, and I didn't relax again until I was back on a plane home.


    I crossed it off my list of retirement destinations though. 😆

    Kathsgrdn thanked Ally De
  • last year

    Forty years ago I participated in a fun weekend event that took place at a historical village in Zoar, Ohio. It is a charming little town, but every time I drove to the town it gave me the feeling of doom and gloom - it felt like something was very wrong with the town itself. I asked someone I was with if they thought that maybe under the cover of appearing to be so genuine, sweet and historical that something truly awful goes on after hours. I will never forget the look I got, her response was that she felt uncomfortable and almost overwhelmed with bad feelings when everyone else there was enjoying themselves. It was a weird weekend, still a little unsettling to think about, and I can't tell you why.

    Kathsgrdn thanked Jeb zone 5
  • last year

    I can't really say I have had that experience. When I read the initial post and saw Crater Lake I immediately remembered a missing child ... ( I'll look it up now) who went missing and was believed to be there.... Well, when I went to look it up, the case I was remembering was from 2006 but apparently there were others... DD1 had moved to Portland in around 2008 so this was fresh in my mind. I seem to remember some discrepancy or something about the mother but I don't see any references. Anyway

    Link to Poster for Missing Child Samuel Boehke


    Anyway again, I don't think I've had that experience.

    Kathsgrdn thanked salonva
  • last year
    last modified: last year

    Visited Gettysburg, Pa to the Civil War Battle Field...where more than 50,000 soldiers

    were killed, wounded or captured. Absolutely nothing there...but I was sure I

    heard low voices and crying noises. That was over 30 years ago, and I still think about it. I asked a friend

    who was with us if they had heard anything. I just got a puzzled look back, and

    "uh no..like what?" I just said, oh nothing.

    Kathsgrdn thanked Uptown Gal
  • last year

    Uptown Gal, when I was a kid my family visited Gettysburg too, (my father took the family on lots of American historic vacations) - I saw a picture of the war dead on the battlefield at a museum while there, and as a seven year old child got chills through my body because it was though I was in that picture or felt that I had seen the picture before, or knew exactly what kind of day it was and what the air smelled like when the picture was taken. Going to the actual battlefields was a Deja - vu experience for me. It could have been that I was young and knew a little about American history and a lot about Daniel Boone fiction and comic book characters. I also thought it would be cool at eight yrs old to be like the Dennis the Menace character that was on TV or to live on Gilligan's Island. I could have been living out history while in Gettysburg in some sort of a childhood hallucination. Yeah, that explains it!

    I once had a native Indian man tell me that there were good spirits on my property and asked me if he could build a sweat lodge on it. I declined but it was good to hear that!


    Kathsgrdn thanked Jeb zone 5
  • last year

    Nicole/Black Forest Colorado Z5A


    Not I...but...I met a neighbor, she's an acupuncturist by trade. She came over and we walked the foot trails together. She claims she can see Ute Indians who were known to inhabit this area back in the day. They left behind bent trees as land marks for travelers, to honor the dead or honor spirits. Ute Prayer trees as some are labeled. She sees their spirits walking around, after a battle. They're very disheveled, injured, in shock. I purchased a book that details the practice of bending trees. But no where does it say there was a battle. I told her this. She shook her head and said, "the white people that lived here didn't want them hunting on their land and killed them." She put her house up for sale, practically gave it away in her haste to move to a kinder environment.

    Kathsgrdn thanked HU-376768088
  • last year

    Ringling Bros. Circus museum in Sarasota back in the 1960s/70s - there were all these giant crude papier mache heads - like the ones from old Mardi Gras parades. As a kid that creeped me and my sisters out big time - along with lots of other weirdnesses. I remember it being kind of dark too, which made it even spookier.


    The Ringling mansion also had a very creepy feel to it, as I recall.

    Kathsgrdn thanked carolb_w_fl_coastal_9/10
  • last year

    ok well to validate somewhat @Uptown Gal... I went to Gettysburg as a child and remember it and being somewhat bored. We went last year for a daytrip and I thought it was stunning and worthy of revisiting. I mentioned to DD2 who reminded me that a friend of hers had her wedding there- and DD2 stayed in some air bnb.. she said the doors kept creaking open and slamming shut all night and everyone was talking about the spirits there.

    There's definitely something with Gettysburg and all the dead.

    Kathsgrdn thanked salonva
  • last year
    last modified: last year

    A small country cemetery. Go figure, right?

    Normally I love cemeteries and really enjoy visiting them. Several years ago I was alone at this cemetery, looking for a particular ancestor. I had never been there before. It was a bright beautiful day, warm and sunny and the cemetery was adjacent to a paved road atop a hill. Not remote, dark or dreary.

    Just walking along, looking at headstones, when I saw a name I recognized of a young woman who had been murdered 10-15 years prior. (I know her mother.) In the same instant of seeing her name, I felt a black cloud of fury/anger/rage above me. Almost real enough to touch, like I was about to walk into it. Rolling, ominous, threatening.

    Needless to say, I hightailed it out of there. I returned last summer, to see if it was still there. I felt nothing. It was gone.

    The only time I’ve ever felt anything like that.

    Kathsgrdn thanked littlebug Zone 5 Missouri
  • last year
    last modified: last year

    Just the opposite. I'm not much on woo-woo stuff, but I once viewed a house for sale and it felt so loving and kind and welcoming to be there. I begged my parents to buy it, but before we could even consider it seriously, it burned down. I was a busy teenager so I never took the time to find out anything about the past owners of the house.

    Kathsgrdn thanked Fun2BHere
  • last year

    I live and grew up a few miles from Gettysburg and while I have had no bad feelings there, and I have been there 100s of times, it is very well known for these experiences. There are ghost tours and lectures all the time. 7000 soldiers were killed and 35,000 were hurt in a very small area. My house even has a part of that history although we are almost 30 miles away. The owner of my house was shot by Confederate soldier snipers from a nearby railway and my library and historic church 1/6 of a mile from my house housed injured soldiers.( My daughter was married there) Lots of history and many have experiences of that time over the years that have passed.

    Kathsgrdn thanked lily316
  • last year

    In the sense you describe, no. I'm a non-believer and skeptic when it comes to things like so-called "paranormal" instances, or superstitions and similar things. I've had a few experiences with anticipating possible personal danger, in my college years (as an example) when having gone to areas or done things that with better judgement I would have avoided. I don't get "feelings" about places and ignore people's even sincere expressions of thinking they have same.

    As for Crater Lake, we went there once on a West Coast road trip with a new car. I was disappointed. Perhaps because of all the hype I'd heard, I expected more. We stayed at the old lodge there and that was interesting. I wouldn't go back

    Kathsgrdn thanked Elmer J Fudd
  • last year

    No. I've visited any number of places where terrible things have happened in the past. We're surrounded with them here but none of them have had any effect me other than the normal, explicable, empathy which comes with imagining people's suffering. My own house is 200 years old and I'm pretty sure many people must have died in it, quite likely in my own bedroom. But I get no 'feelings' here.

    Kathsgrdn thanked floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
  • last year

    I don't think I've been any place where I've had a reaction quite that extreme, although i have put myself in a bad position more than once. We took the aerial tram to Mountain Station at Palm Sprigs once. They had warned us there could be some delays as some scenes for a movie were being shot there that day and we went anyway, I hadn't understood the delays might be while we were stopped in the swinging tram car half way up the mountain and it was completely full of strangers standing should to shoulder. I was breaking out in a sweat, wanted to be either back at the bottom or at the top, anywhere but that crowded car. When we did get to the top the air was thin making it hard to take a deep breath and enjoy myself. I told DH to go back to our hotel, repack my bag and just send it to me because i was not getting into that tram car again for the ride down.

    I love Crater Lake, especially from the vantage of a boat. But - I have put myself in a bad position in a boat more than once. A foggy rough ocean with little to no visibility, more than one bar crossing where it would have been more prudent to wait for a little better time in the tide change.

    I do have one bridge I occasionally cross that has sent me into a semi-panic attack if I'm at the wheel. I'm fine as a passenger. I make myself drive across it every once in a while just to insure it does not get the best of me. I talk out loud to myself all the way across.

    A nephew has bought a house I particularly dislike but its the floor plan, not an aura or feeling of being haunted. Nice neighborhood, on a golf course. I think whoever designed it must has been a drinker. Step inside the foyer and there are a couple of stairs down to the door to the garage. Or, a couple of steps up to the wing that is the bedrooms. The family room off the kitchen is sunken, and the opening from the formal dining room leads to yet another sunken room - the living room. Both the family room and the living room have fireplaces (no shared chimney) so raising the floor would be an expensive venture. The entire house feels like an invitation to fall - and its on a flat not hilly lot.

    Kathsgrdn thanked morz8 - Washington Coast
  • last year

    Floral: I too live in a very old house built in 1840 and I have never encountered any bad vibes although I am sure people have died here. The original owner/builder who was shot by Confederate snipers by his outdoor pump might have but it was never clear if he succumbed to his injuries.

    Kathsgrdn thanked lily316
  • last year
    last modified: last year

    My husband has a house in the middle of 40 acres of woods that he bought long before we met. The driveway is a quarter mile of dirt road through the woods leading to a small country road. Very isolated -- no cell service (except by internet which often goes out,) the volunteer ambulance parks about half an hour away, 45 minute drive to a third rate hospital. The house has floor to ceiling windows all the way around, no curtains. People hang out in those woods. (There is nothing else to do up there. You can see dropped beer cans and ruts from their ATVs.) Everyone there seems to have guns and big dogs, all went to the same high school and are just half a step from marrying their cousins. We spent the Covid year up there and I was nervous the whole time. The whole place gives me the creeps. In an effort to adapt, I joined the local Facebook page, where I learned how much the locals hate "citidiots." The sad thing is, I used to like nature and hiking. Now I don't care if I never see another woods.

    Kathsgrdn thanked Jupidupi
  • last year

    I would have been creeped out in those woods too. I know the type you're talking about. The good ol' boys. Try hiking somewhere like the Appalachian Trail where I go every day. I have only seen lovely friendly people with the same interests.

    Kathsgrdn thanked lily316
  • last year

    The worst creepy but perhap panicky feeling i ever experienced was on a submarine. I am generally not very claustrophobic as long as i know I can get out.

    Anyway, we were taking a tour of a sub and there were a lot of people going through. Ahead of us was a bunch of rowdy teens acting up and not moving forward. Behind us were other tourists who werent aware of the bad behavior ahead. I couldnt go forward or back and no one was moving. Closest I ever came to hyperventilating. I guess thats not exactly creepy.

    As for creepy places, my friend bought a little twin built in the 1700s. To get to the basement you had to go through a very small hole in the floor and down some steep narrow steps to the dirt basement. If someone slammed the hatch while you were down there you would never be seen again. It really gave me the creeps and i disliked the entire house for that reason.

    Kathsgrdn thanked dedtired
  • last year

    jupidupi, that place sounds AWFUL. Sorry you were stuck there.

    Your description is consistent with my bias about such places because of what too many remote locations are like and don't have.

    Kathsgrdn thanked Elmer J Fudd
  • 9 months ago

    @Kathsgrdn.....Everyones looking for you? How are you doing?

  • 9 months ago

    HU-376768088 is me...if I come into HOUZZ another way...