A Haunted Flower Shop

With Halloween just around the corner, Kevin and I ventured over to Fort Mifflin in Philadelphia for a Candlelight Ghost Tour this past Saturday night. We love all things ghosty and even have some of our own equipment. Although we weren't really able to really investigate this location, we still enjoyed it and hope to go back! 

While we were there a young lady was letting us listen to EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) and showing us pictures of ghosts caught at the Fort and it got us to thinking about our Yardley, PA shop. For the first 10 or so years we were located inside a small strip mall but for the last 9 years our shop was located inside a very old, free standing building that was built in 1814 and we had a resident ghost!! The store was pretty tiny, only 800 square feet divided into 3 small rooms, 2 with fireplaces and the work room in the back. There was a very loud bell on the door so we always knew when someone came in.  I know not everyone believes in that sort of thing but if you ever worked in our shop, you would be a believer. Here's a few stories to show you the reason we believed!!

Kevin would often work at the shop, sometimes as much as one full day per week. He'd bring his computer and work in the back between customers (no phones or delivery there, all came out of our Princeton location). When he would come in, everything would be in it's place, including 3 large 8'x10' bridal photos on top of our cooler. When he'd get up to help a customer, the photos would be turned completely sideways facing the wall. At first when it happened he didn't think much of it but it would happen over and over again. He thought perhaps it was the slamming of the frig door (which was a slider) so he tested that theory but nope, they did not move. As time went on, he realized they moved almost every time he was there, even when he had not opened the frig.

At one point we had the cutest table top water fountain in the shop for sale. We thought the best way to show customers the piece in the hopes of selling it, was to fill it with water and turn it on. It had a rather large bowl at the base and a figure of tall female angel. One day I got a call from Kevin who was pretty upset. He said that he was working in the back room when he suddenly heard the fountain motor straining so he went up front to see what had happened. He noticed that the bowl had no water in it and there was a puddle on the floor. He looked at the fountain but couldn't really see how that had happened so he cleaned up the water, refilled the fountain, turned it back on and went into the back room to work again. Well, apparently, it happened again!! Water puddle on the floor, motor going but no water in the bowl, no water on the counter, no real reason the water should be on the floor. This is when he called me all upset. I told him not to worry, that it was probably best not to refill the fountain again. Apparently our resident ghost was messing with him again, poor guy. 

 Our employee Sheryl called me once very upset. She said she was in the back working and then she heard a very loud bang up in the front of the shop. When she came out to investigate, there was a box of Yankee Candle Votives laying on the floor, about 2 feet away from where it should have been. Now, here is where it gets weird and might be hard to describe but this was a huge candle display. At the bottom of the display, there was a shelf that was on a slant that held the box with the votives. In order to get the box into place you had to level out the box, up high, place it over the lip of the shelf  and then place the box down on an angle. There was like a guard there to hold the box in place so that it could not just slide off. What she described would have meant that the box lifted up and then out and then down on the floor - facing up with all the votives inside. This was also pretty heavy so you can imagine she was a bit freaked out. 

We had other little things happen in this space so I was pretty sure we had some kind of haunting. One day when I was working the shop an older woman came in to buy some flowers. While I was ringing her up she said to me "You know, when I was a teenager, I used to come to this house to see my friend who lived here". I was like, wow, really that is so cool!! Her next comment was an eye opener.... "You know you have the ghost of little girl here who likes to hide in the fireplace, right"? Well, what could I say other than I did not know that but it made total sense given the little trickster things that happed while we were here. 

You might find it surprising to know that we also had weird activity in our Princeton location too but I'll leave that (and the video we caught) for another day! Happy Halloween everyone!!