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I love the supernatural.
Zombies, ghosts, things that go "eat your face" in the night - all of these things are my bread and butter and I snarf them down like it's free breadstick night at the Olive Garden. As of late I've really been into haunted houses as I have haunted more than one dwelling in my day and I always find the subject amusing.
But lately haunted house movies have been pissing me off. I've seen a distinct pattern in them and I find myself screaming the same things over and over no matter how new or old the movie in question is. So in effort to save even one of you, my readers, from being eaten by an angry apartment or gobbled by a hungry home - I've developed a list of FIVE important things to always remember when you find yourself confronted by a house that might be haunted. Things like:
Listen To Your Children
It's always the same scenario: A family moves into a new house in a new town in a new state and they either end up bringing a troubled teen or a young child who is too smart for his or her own good. Everything goes well for the first few days, but then strange things start to happen and odd occurrences begin to plague your family.
Doors mysteriously open or close.
Creaking and thumpings can be heard at night.
A rotting corpse ghost tries to eat your kid.

It's always the little things, isn't it?
Then the kids scream. You rush up to their room to see them staring in horror at a closet door as they sob uncontrollably and tell you of all the freaky things they've seen. And even though you've heard noises, found things inexplicably moved, or even have seen phantoms and ghosts from time to time, you do what every parent in a horror movie does: You yell at your kid and tell them to stop being such a trouble making liar.
Now THAT is parenting.
It doesn't matter that the ghostly form of a decapitated drowning victim is playing hopscotch in her closet or that the supernatural might explain what you've encountered yourself - it's time to add some emotional damage to the top of that heaping pile of psychosis you call an offspring. So instead of linking the incident to others that you've witnessed, you can use this together time to beat their spirit into submission so that they form dark pacts with the hell spawn that infest your home.
Good planning.
LISTEN to your damn kids, that weird retarded neighbor boy or anyone who tells you that you've rented out the Manson Family Summer Home. At the worst you'll feel secretly foolish and laugh at yourself, but maybe this way they'll wake you up before the monster devours your sleeping form, instead of just watching with this pissy "I told you so" look on their face.
"Ooooh..you want help Mom? From what? That disembodied soul of the damned crawling all out of sync and crab-like up your bed? She's not there, she's in my imagination. QUICK! Ground me! That'll show her you bitch."
...kids suck.
Look Into The History Of The House
If someone sells you a twenty bedroom house in a nice neighborhood for 11 dollars and box of Good-N-Plenty...

Mebbe you should give the deal the ol' second eyeball before you sign no matter HOW tempting the sugary goodness of the offer.
Ask your realtor about all of the little things that might make this home in the hills too good to be true. Does the roof leak? How's the foundation? Have the last dozen or so families that lived here simply up and "moved" in the middle of the night leaving all of their possessions behind, never to be heard of again?
Because realtors NEVER think that stuff is weird. It must happen all the time from the nonchalant manner they explain it in as they hand you over the keys to your own personal Hell Mouth. They don't find it the least bit creepy that they're giving you a home that comes with still full underwear drawers and breakfast cooking on the stove.
But YOU aren't powerless here. YOU have an option.
And that option is Google.

Google is a miraculous tool that