Ha, it's funny you should mention Michael Bentine - recently I read 'The Door Marked Summer' and though personally I'm not into seeking after all that kind of stuff, it can still happen to anyone and things happen that just can't be rationalised. For some years I worked as a cleaner; I'm a loner and liked working alone; a lot of the buildings were old (I know what you mean about atmospheres) and I usually had company. Only once did I feel nervous, on fine summer evenings, and I left that job before the autumn; just as well because the villain had a whale of a time with other women on the team; he/she moved from my section to all over the place, turning out lights and banging on metal waste paper baskets. But that's unusual.
I've seen cats respond to someone I couldn't see; in the 70s when my black cat Sulah died on the road, I was in the front room in broad daylight when a black cat ran between my legs into the room...I didn't have another black cat! I closed the door and searched but no black cat. Sulah was still with us. For a good while her daughter Katie used to go to the hearthrug and jump over a cat who wasn't there! The last time was in the house where I live now; as soon as I moved in I felt nothing but calm and welcome. Two of my charming neighbours rushed to tell me lurid tales about the place being haunted - a previous occupant had been too terrified to live there after two days. The bathroom was haunted! Scaremongers.
After the local feral colony, or part of it, moved in, late at night Tess, sadly departed now, was playing in the bath and froze, staring at someone between me and the door. She was clearly puzzled/scared and I picked her up and thought firmly, 'there's room for all of us.' And so there is.
The funniest episode wasn't supernatural at all. Almost Halloween, waking in the small hours and hearing what I thought was someone moving about in the bathroom, which I have heard before, even with all the cats asleep on my bed and before the snakes, who can be noisy at night. But this wasn't an 'in-viv' noise. Oh well, 'tis the season...but really, old chap, must you? Keeping me awake.
The soft scrabbling and rustling went on and burglars (I'm far more nervous about intruders) sprang to mind although if it was, they were taking a hell of a time nicking my valuable spare shampoo and toothpaste! I use a laser gun to read the temperatures in the snakes' vivariums and if I ever encountered a naughty person breaking into my house I'd have no compunction about shining it into their eyes...I share my bedroom with 8 vivariums and enough infra-red light to see by; all quiet in the vivs, nothing untoward there, and armed with my trusty little gun and feeling like Kinsey Millhone, I crept round the house, ready to take aim, fire...nothing.
Back in the bedroom I turned on the overhead light, just to be on the safe side - and THERE was my ghost/burglar! A fat black and gold tail hung down over the top vivarium in the stack - Shahi! My senior royal python, who'd somehow broken out of his viv at the bottom and was now dangling his handsome backside over the window belonging to Surahi, another very pretty female royal. Well it WAS the mating season! Royals are tubby with slender necks, hence Surahi's name - how he'd made the climb I don't know. He wouldn't go back into his viv so I took him into bed with me to warm him up, where he explored my face with his feathery tongue and fell asleep on my stomach though I'm sure he'd have preferred to be tucked up with Surahi lol.
'Dumb' animals? No way!
Oops sorry Crewella I've just hijacked your thread big time!
