Spooked tenants begged to be rehoused, and one town hall booked a spiritualist Housing officers have arranged exorcisms, demanded doctor's notes and even put a ghost warning on a rental advert. A new map reveals how Britain's councils and social landlords have handled tenants who say they're not living alone.
LEEDS, United Kingdom, Oct. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- When a young council tenant in Kirkcaldy said bells rang through his flat at night and a white figure stood at the foot of his bed, he didn't call a priest. He called the council. The case is one of nine uncovered by Bettermove, the UK cash house buyer, in Britain's Haunted Ordinary Homes, a new map of the country's most famous hauntings in everyday homes.
And in January 1994, Fife District Council said it was arranging an exorcism with a spiritualist.
The case is one of nine council and housing association hauntings uncovered in Britain's Haunted Ordinary Homes, a new map of the UK's most famous hauntings in everyday homes. Not every town hall was so understanding.
What councils and landlords did:
- Mansfield, Nottinghamshire: a tenant reported washing hurled around the bathroom and a figure in black. The council asked for medical or psychological evidence. The tenant moved out months later.
- Woking, Surrey: a family said they put up with 17 years of thrown objects, radios switching themselves on and voices on recordings. The clergy they asked declined to help. The family said their only way out was a home swap with another council tenant.
- Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire: a young mother reported voices, a flying shoe and a crucifix that vanished. She fled, and only later learned that a previous tenant had reported the same thing.
- Grimsby, Lincolnshire: a family on the Nunsthorpe estate reported being kicked by an unseen force and a black figure with red eyes. After a local minister performed an exorcism in the living room, the mother said it was "like walking into a new house".
- Liverpool: housing association Plus Dane did the opposite of hiding it. It advertised a three-bed home for £91 a week with a written warning about paranormal activity reported by previous tenants.
Nick Statman, CEO of Bettermove, said: "Most haunted house stories are about the same grey ladies drifting around castles and stately homes. We wanted to know about the ordinary houses we buy every day, the semis, terraces and ex-council houses, and it turns out they have some of the scariest stories of all. So would we still buy a house if we knew it was haunted? Yes, but we'd never do the viewing alone."
Explore the map: https://www.bettermove.co.uk/property-stories/haunted-ordinary-homes/
Media Contact
Steve Holmes, Bettermove, 44 0330 004 0050 227, [email protected], https://www.bettermove.co.uk
SOURCE Bettermove
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