Stories from the past #2 The Old House; A Christmas Ghost Story

Lesser known facts #1; when a house is truly cursed, there is no getting rid of it. And the Old House is the gift that keeps giving (stories).

Did I mention that I'd sold the (definitely cursed) house?  Yes?  Yes I did.  I sold it to a property developer.   I sold it to them, and I  moved my stuff out, and I cleaned the place, and I handed over the keys. And the Old House was now the property developer's.
This is such an important fact.

And for the first week or so I woke up every morning, happy that I was finally out of the old house.  It was only when I moved out that I realised just how much I'd hated being there. A massive weight was lifted off my shoulders.  In fact I loved being out of the old house so much, that I developed an irrational fear of being told I had to move back.

So the irrational part of me was already expecting the knock on the door when it came.  Ruth, the woman from the property company, appeared on my doorstep on a Saturday afternoon; Could I accompany her to the old house?  there seems to be some kind of problem, and she doesn't know where the house is.

Lesser people would have claimed amnesia, and muttered that it was so long since they had sold the place, they too had forgotten details... I am not a lesser person.

Let's cut to the chase.  The "problem" was that a tank or a pipe, or something that normally carried (a lot of) water had burst.  For the past week water had been pouring down through the house. Not dripping, not trickling, but full scale pouring from the roof downwards. As we stood at the back door, we could only peer through a sheet of water upwards to the very roof itself, for the  flood had brought down both the bedroom  and kitchen ceilings.  Wires were hanging where the kitchen light used to be, for the light fitting and the rest of the ceiling was on the floor.  Pipes which had previously been under the bedroom floors were now visible, holding up what remained of the bedroom floors.

Ruth and I could get no further than the back door without hard hats, heavy duty raincoats and a squad of emergency plumbers.

..........

It's been two weeks now.... two weeks when I've reminded myself every day that I sold that house, and this is someone else's problem.