Something in the House Started Writing His Name

Keith Linder and his girlfriend, Tina Davis, had just received the keys to their new house when they heard a child coughing. They were standing in the living room, talking about where their furniture would go. Nobody else was supposed to be inside, and neither of them had children.

Keith searched for the source of the sound but couldn’t find anyone. It was a strange way to begin life in a new home, but the couple had no reason to think it would happen again.

The House Was Almost Brand New

It was May 2012, and Keith and Tina had moved into a rented house in Bothell, Washington, just outside Seattle. The place had been built in 2005. It was a comfortable, modern home, and Keith was excited about moving in with Tina after getting a promotion at work.

A few weeks after the coughing incident, the couple were watching Netflix when a hanging plant reportedly rose into the air. Keith said he watched it floating before it came back down.

Soon, doors began slamming without warning. They would go to bed with the kitchen cupboards closed and wake up to find every door hanging open. Lights switched off while they were using rooms, and footsteps could be heard upstairs when nobody was walking around.

Keith began recording what happened. He set up cameras and sound recorders because he wanted to catch whatever was causing the trouble. But one afternoon, he saw something that frightened him far more than an open cupboard.

A Gray Woman Appeared Upstairs

Keith was sitting in his upstairs office during the summer of 2012 when the light suddenly went out. He rolled his chair backward to look into the hallway. Standing in the doorway was a small woman wearing gray clothing, with shoulder-length hair and a pale face.

She looked solid, like an ordinary person standing in his house. Keith watched her turn sideways and move toward the laundry room door. She appeared to have trouble getting through it before suddenly rushing down the hallway.

Keith jumped up and followed her. But when he reached the hallway, she was gone.

He searched the upstairs rooms and couldn’t find anyone. He later began calling the figure the Gray Lady.

For the next couple of years, Keith continued recording strange activity. Objects disappeared and turned up in unexpected places, furniture moved, and he sometimes heard voices when nobody was speaking. Eventually, he began asking religious leaders for help.

The Bibles Started Burning

Keith and Tina had been trying different ways to make the disturbances stop. They contacted local churches and invited people to bless the house.

Sometimes the activity seemed to settle down for a few days. But it always returned.

Keith said three of his Bibles were badly burned during the haunting. He also described clothing developing scorch marks while he was wearing it.

Other objects were thrown around the house. Scissors reportedly became stuck in a wall, and Keith sometimes returned to his office to find furniture overturned and belongings scattered everywhere.

He was becoming frightened of what might happen next, especially when heavy objects began moving. But the most threatening incident came at Christmas.

Someone Left Him a Christmas Message

In November 2014, Keith received a prayer card and a protective necklace. He hoped the religious items might help keep the house peaceful. Both eventually disappeared.

On Christmas Day, Keith found them again. According to his account, the card and necklace had been nailed to a doorframe.

Someone had written a message on the card using a strange black material. Die KL.

Those were Keith Linder’s initials. He had already seen odd writing and symbols appear around the house, but finding a message addressed to him was frightening.

Similar words reportedly turned up elsewhere, including inside his car. Keith also found numbers and crude drawings written on doors and walls. He had no idea who was leaving them or where the black material was coming from.

The Gray Lady Came Back

In January 2015, Keith was sitting in the kitchen when he noticed something moving near the staircase. A face and two hands appeared from behind a wall.

He recognized the Gray Lady, but this time he could see her face more clearly. Her eyes seemed to be bulging, and she looked much more frightening than she had during their first encounter.

The figure disappeared behind the wall. Keith immediately heard footsteps racing up the stairs, along the hallway and into the upstairs bathroom. He hurried after the sound, but once again, nobody was there.

By now, Keith’s story had attracted attention far beyond Bothell. Paranormal investigators were visiting, and a television crew from Ghost Adventures came to film an episode about the house. The program, called Demons in Seattle, didn’t capture the evidence the crew had hoped to find.

Keith was furious with how the show portrayed him and Tina. He insisted they were telling the truth and decided to keep investigating without the television crew.

Two Investigators Spent Days Inside

In January 2016, British investigators Steve Mera and Don Philips arrived at the house with recording equipment, cameras and motion sensors. Unlike a television crew working on a short schedule, the two men spent an extended period investigating the property.

They reported hearing strange voices and recording sounds they couldn’t identify. They also said objects moved during their visit, including a smoke detector that was knocked from a wall.

Philips crawled beneath the house with recording equipment. When he listened to one recording afterward, he said he could hear a voice repeating that it wanted more. The investigators collected hundreds of recordings they believed contained unexplained voices.

After reviewing their findings, Mera and Philips said they believed the house had an intelligent haunting. They returned later in the year to continue investigating. Keith felt that someone had finally taken his experiences seriously.

The Strange Writing Wasn’t Finished

By October 2016, Keith had decided to move out. He had spent four years dealing with the disturbances and wanted to begin again somewhere else.

But the house was still producing surprises. During another investigation, the men noticed wet streaks running down a wall beneath a painting. According to Mera, the wall contained no water pipes, and nobody could find where the liquid was coming from.

Keith also wanted to find out what had been leaving the black markings around the house. He removed one of the marked doors and took it to a store to have the substance examined. According to Keith, he was told it appeared to contain calcium rather than ordinary paint.

He thought taking the door out of the house might finally get him an answer.

Later, he found similar black splatters on the cover over the back of the truck he’d used to transport the door.