Friday, November 01, 2002 NAVIGATION Hauntings keep B&B rooms full — guests or ghosts By STACEY S. MANNING THE KENTUCKY STANDARD By STACEY S. MANNING THE KENTUCKY STANDARD Shortly after Joanne Hobbs bought an old farmhouse off Bloomfield Road, strange, unexplainable things started happening. While the 1785 house was undergoing renovations, the electrician would get frustrated because things he fixed were suddenly undone. Doorbells would ring when nobody was there. Hobbs’ dog, Daisy, would run around the house like someone was chasing her — only no one else was around. On Halloween night 2000, Hobbs and Daisy were alone in the house when Daisy started to act strange. Hobbs was grinding cranberries as Daisy ran around frightened with her tail between her legs. Hobbs feared the noise was disturbing the dog so she stopped grinding. But the noise that was disturbing the dog didn’t stop. Hobbs heard what sounded like a snapping noise moving throughout the kitchen. “Daisy went berserk,” Hobbs said. Picking up the dog, Hobbs left the kitchen and moved into the dining room. The snapping sound intensified until it sounded like it was right behind her. “Will you all quit? You’re scaring Daisy to death,” Hobbs said. The noises stopped. The smoke detectors in the home have been known to go off for no reason. One evening one of the smoke detectors on the stairwell landing kept beeping. Hobbs pulled the smoke detector down, removed the battery and replaced it with a new one. The beeping continued. Unable to figure out the problem, Hobbs decided to unplug it and have the electrician take a look. He removed the smoke detector and its battery. To everyone’s surprise, it started to go off in his hand, even without a power source. A visitor to The Homestead became a believer of the supernatural when one evening he went out to his truck to get a camera only to find the truck running with no keys inside. Sitting on the couch one evening, Hobbs saw a small, cloud like mist move from the window to the fireplace and disappear. “I hear things all the time,” Hobbs said. Hobbs continued to deal with the spooky occurrences until one day she crossed paths with certified ghost hunter Patti Starr. Starr, a former manager of The Old Talbott Tavern and current Lexington resident, noticed The Homestead one day when she was driving by. “When I drove by, I thought, ‘If there is any house that is going to be haunted, it’s going to be this place,’” she said. Hobbs invited Starr into the house to look around. “I wanted to walk through and feel the place,” she said. “It’s all good energy.” Starr has done two paranormal investigations at The Homestead, and plans another Halloween night. Both investigations so far have been a success. In photos taken during the two investigations, Starr has captured numerous ghost orbs. Orbs, according to Starr’s book, “Ghost Hunting in Kentucky and Beyond,” are “globe-shaped lights of energy caught on film usually during a haunting or other paranormal experience.” Starr believes the orbs represent the spirits of persons who have died. At least 10-20 spirits haunt The Homestead, Starr determined after using dowsing rods to make contact with some of them. “I’ve never felt any sadness. I’ve only felt confusion,” she said. In addition to photos and dowsing rods, as Starr does an investigation, she records both audio and video. In Starr’s first investigation, she got several unexplained voice recordings including someone saying “Matthew” while she was walking toward the family cemetery and someone saying “you got it all” when she asked permission to take pictures of the spirits. Starr also recorded another voice — the name “Jason” in one of the rooms downstairs. Starr feels the spirit is there to watch over Hobbs. The voices were not anyone involved in the investigation and were not heard until the recordings were played back, Starr said. She has also captured orbs moving across several rooms in the house on a night vision camera. “We got some good stuff,” she said. To get similar results in two investigations almost a year apart, provides some “very valid information,” about spirits being in the home, Starr said. Search: