Forgive me up front for this article cause it’s not about any ghost or paranormal activity. It has to deal with an old college friend of mine that live up around the Reno Nevada area.
We kept up from time to time since going to college together and now with social media it’s so easy to see what old friends are up to. Anyways I saw a post in his Facebook page not to long ago that had me at first thinking he may have some activity.
So I emailed and told him I wanted to fly out and see him. Not only could we catch up again in person but I told him I had something else in mind too. So I booked a flight and he picked me up from the airport.
After some drinks and a good meal, I told him I wanted to setup some monitoring in his house. You see he had posted on his Facebook page that he thought he had ghost up in his attic. Once I disclosed what I wanted to do he laugh and said he had wanted to ask me but was sort of too embarrassed.
It actually happens a lot. Many people are too embarrassed to reach out and ask for me to investigate, especially when it involves their home. After we laughed and I told him how I would go about my investigation we finished up and went back to his house.
Several times during the middle of the night he would hear some strange bubbling or boiling sounds. At first I thought it may be his water heater, but he didn’t think it was. Despite his comment I decided to put a mic close by his water heater to capture any noises around the area.
Once I was done setting up, we grabbed a few beers and spend some more time catching up on his back yard deck. Of course we told stories from our college days and discussed friends and girls from back in the day. You know typical guy stuff.
It was getting late and I was eager to see if my equipment had captured anything yet. We went inside and I look through some of the data I collected so far, but nothing had showed up. My buddy was tired and he said he would leave it to me to discover whatever was making the noise. He headed off to bed.
For the next few hours I waited and waited. The sleepy feeling started to set in as it normally does when working through the night. But at around 3:20 I started to pick something up from the mic close to his water heater. It lasted for about 3 minutes then stopped.
By now I was pretty much wide awake and had my head phones on tight so I wouldn’t miss it if it happened again. Sure enough about 3:52 the noise came back. But this time I proceed up the attic to investigate what might be causing the noise by his water heater.
What a letdown! As I approached his water heater I could clearly tell the water heater was the source of the noise. No ghost, no paranormal activity, just a stupid water heater.
I figured I’d just wait until the morning to tell my buddy the news. But just in case I left everything still connected. I ended up going to sleep in his guest bedroom for the night.
The next morning, I decided to have a little fun and tell my buddy he had a bigger issue then I could deal with and I would be calling in re-enforcements. Little did he know I had gotten up a little earlier then him and had done a quick Google search for plumbers in the local area. I stumbled upon Paschall Plumbing & HVAC on the first page and phone them up. I inquired if they dealt with noisy water heaters and they gave me a few ideas as to what was causing the problem, but most likely it would need to be replaced.
At any rate I scheduled an appointment for later that afternoon. So during breakfast I had my buddy going. Of course I made up some things and told some tall tales. At first he thought I was bluffing, but I proceeded to play back some old recordings and saw his eyes get really big. It was then I knew I had him. I explained I had reached out to a friend who lived in the area that had a little more experience with this particular paranormal activity and they agreed to stop by this afternoon.
So I patiently waited until guy from Paschall Plumbing showed up. Just like clockwork, the service guy showed up right at 2pm. I told my buddy to go answer his door and oh what a surprised look on his face when he some this plumber guy.
The service tech said he was here to look into a water heater problem. About the time he said that I busted out laughing and it was then my buddy knew I had gotten him. After a few interesting moments he agreed to have the guy look at his water heater.
And apparently there was a problem with the water heater. Something with the heating element and having some old build up inside. After the tech sort of back washed the water heater and replaced the heating element he told my buddy he should no longer hear anything strange noises.
I have to say the tech from Paschall Plumbing & HVAC did a great job and I would highly recommend them for anyone reading this from the Reno NV area. I’ll be sure to link up their website and provide their phone number for you. 775-825-6500
I hope you enjoyed my post. It was just too good of a story not to share.