Social Landlords Use Exorcists To Deal With Supernatural Complaints

Most social landlords take complaints about haunted properties seriously, contacting priests and spiritual mediums, moving people up housing waiting lists and even transferring tenants.

Requests made by Inside Housing to every council in England under the Freedom of Information Act combined with a survey of the 100 largest housing associations revealed that 16 landlords have received 73 reports of ghosts and related paranormal activity.

Nine councils and housing association said they either have already, or would, contact an exorcist or spiritual medium. A further six have either already moved tenants or said they would be prepared to move tenants that were especially badly affected by alleged hauntings.

Three housing associations also said that their offices were said to be haunted, and Lambeth Council said its town hall was rumoured to be haunted. The true extent of haunting complaints is likely to be much greater as most councils did not have the information available to respond and only 15 housing associations replied to the survey. However, of those that responded, all 15 associations said they would treat reports from tenants about ghosts seriously and sympathetically. Landlords said they took complaints about ghosts seriously because of the impact the stress of experiences had on tenants’ health and because some tenants were especially vulnerable – sometimes having mental health problems. FOI correspondence revealed examples of family members being prescribed tranquillisers because of stress-induced psoriasis as a result of alleged hauntings.

• Sheffield Council, which experienced an incredible 47 complaints of hauntings in the past 10 years, gave one family a priority move to get a council house in the wake of a testimony from a housing officer at the council who claimed to witness paranormal activity in the family’s private rented flat. 
• Broxtowe Council received two reports of hauntings in its properties over the past decade; phone logs reveal that just last year a tenant complained he had been experiencing ‘paranormal activity’ at his property, where boxes had been ‘flying around the room’. 
• Similarly, Bromsgrove District and Redditch Borough Council had a property exorcised in January 2007 after a mother believed her child had been possessed.
• A spokesperson for 66,000-home Circle Group, which received one complaint of a haunting, said: ‘it was a very serious and delicate matter, as the customer involved was badly affected by the experience.

‘The customer was dealt with sensitively and taken seriously, as we would with any customers concerns – I understand that an exorcism was offered.’

Associations that have not received any complaints about ghosts also said they would take reports seriously. A spokesperson for 30,000-home Orbit Group said it ‘may facilitate a transfer or a management move if the issue was unresolvable and it was causing distress’. Similarly, 12,000-home Contour Homes says it would investigate complaints, potentially using recording equipment, and ‘if there was no possible resolution other than moving the tenant this would be considered’.