The Ghosts of Summerwind

you guys what's happening sorry what's happening with your neck and this pillow feels good okay she was just like holding on i'm just doing this it's your neck all right no it just feels nice sometimes i wish this was a visual medium because you just look so weird right now oh this should be the beginning of the episode it should be the beginning yeah just start it there um hey weirdos i'm elena i'm ash and this is morbid why are you still holding the pillow i feel safe you okay i have a pillow that i i don't know how it ended up behind me but it's behind me i don't think it was on the chair before it's a square pillow but she's trying to wear it as like an airplane neck pillow yeah it feels she's holding on to the corners of it around her neck and she just looks insane it's like i can i can put my head back but it doesn't go all the way back so hold on i'm gonna take a picture of you that the people can see oh yeah it feels good you know you're so weird that's what happens you need a neck support while you're doing a podcast i don't have one i have i have a pillow behind my back yeah that you need that yeah like i can't hit a certain age yeah i can't sit in a chair without a pillow for me it was 30 it ain't happening we got creamy holiday vanilla coke yeah you guys heard of it yeah it's pretty great it's really fucking good i think everyone's heard of it because i've seen it a ton and then i was like we should probably try that it's good guys it's really good if you like a vanilla coke a vanilla it's like a little like a hint extra yeah i'm very i'm i'm pleased by it i'm swallowing burps this episode lots of carbonation yeah um but yeah again by the time this comes out we will have done a pretty cool thing this week and you will not know about it yet no no no about it yet no this comes out on that day that we're doing the cool thing yeah okay it's just a fun thing it's nothing like you'll know about it on monday yeah uh but yeah so that's cool that cool thing is so cool man that cool thing is cool uh i'm what is going on with you i don't know you seem zooted i know which is crazy and i've been with you all day so you're not yeah i had an italian sub is that what it is maybe that's what it is and a mozzarella stick i think yeah i think aiden is correct it's the creamy he held up the creamy vanilla the creamy holiday vanilla coke it's actually holiday creamy vanilla coke whatever the fuck it is i think that's what has sent me i said it wrong first too that's what sent me into this like state of silliness i just i like the can and i do too i like the vibe of it here's the thing we're not sponsored by creamy holiday vanilla coke yeah because we keep saying it wrong we're not sponsored by holiday creamy vanilla coke but it sounds like but if you wanted to sponsor us and send us a lot of this i could get diabetes about it let's go yeah also for all my dancing with the stars heads we saved tatiana we saved tatiana we saved tatiana i am so happy because you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna say it i'm gonna say it go crazy i'm gonna go nuts i'm not gonna go as nuts as i did in our chat last night i'm not gonna go that far that's okay but val's brother i think his name is max he used to be on the show before i watched it and he's a jackass whoa and he was betting him and this other guy gleb who used to be on the show we're betting that tatiana was gonna go home so you know what she didn't and fuck you your brother went home your brother went home and your brother there's a lot going on there too yeah so i was pretty happy and also get the fucking professional dancers off the goddamn show you want to do a season full of people that like used to professionally dance and haven't been at it at a while that'd be sick by all means i would watch that that'd be super fun because it would be an even playing field yeah you can't have a professional dancer it's okay you might hear a bark but i'm not stopping the dogs are barking outside but i'm hyped you can't have a professional dancer who literally danced for mariah carey janet jackson fucking beyonce lady got all these incredible backup dancers competing with people who have no background in dance well and it's like jenna and sorry this is dancing with the stars hour for a second deal with them it just says it's what's happening jenna doing or jenna jenna doing she or dewan jenna that's her jenna d jenna d uh jenna d there she danced with jenna jackson and then her dance last night was to a jenna jackson song and jenna jackson called her and was like i'm so excited and i was like that's really nice of you jenna jackson but i think not that's not fair at all no it pissed me off she was in a jenna jackson performance before it's like come on what are we doing here this season has been ticking me off i'm so excited to be here i'm so excited to be here i'm so excited me off i only watched last night i watched ezra's dance i love i love ezra ezra freck i'm really rooting for him i'm really rooting for tatiana i watched her dance and i love mora and i watched her those are our favorite too yeah this is the first year i've ever watched i watched last year for the first time and i watched a little bit when i was younger because my parents used to watch it yeah we we watched a little bit of last year because the girls got really into rooting for robert erwin yeah so we were supporting that i know i want one of the girlies to win this year sick i want i really want tatiana to win but i'd be happy for ezra too john and i will sit there and be like and we and all three of our girls are like dancers yeah so they have that like i know they're like they're children but they but they've been dancing since they were like two and it's like and so they have like some insight into certain things and john and i are sitting there being like oh that was shit and then like the dance then they get like all nines or all tens and john and i are like what do we know what do we know because we'll be like wow that was breathtaking and beautiful and they're like that was amazing and then we're like oh my god that's the worst thing i've ever seen yeah yeah i don't get it it makes no sense sometimes i think a dance is just exquisite and it will get voted off and it gets like a four i was just so happy last night i screamed a scream so loud yeah all of the animals in my house were like we all freaked out tatiana we're rooting for you she's just so likable and she's improving week to week that's the thing like a lot and her boom boom pow was so fierce yeah she killed it i loved it all right we should that was dancing with the stars with us thank you it's okay if you skip it if you don't skip that that one i understand yeah if you don't watch dancing with the stars that was annoying as hell so i get it but honestly give it a shot so it's like sports you know roger i get it if you skipped by that roger for sure skipped roger i get it so like where i'm not mad at you i'm not beefing with you but ready hit it uh okay so today we're gonna be talking about the ghosts of summer wind that sounds gorgeous i know doesn't it sound like a little bit of like a novel novel or like like a gothic horror novel yeah it sounds like a trip i want to take written by like shirley jackson it feels like yeah yeah yeah feels that way hunting of hill house it's it's definitely this is a gnarly one it's crazy like it's this one you're gonna be like oh okay that's what she was she was working on this and she said there's what are you doing are you laughing at me no yeah i was just laughing but then i found a i don't know where this came from i was are you laughing at me she's so weird i have a rubber band on my wrist and i didn't know where it came from so i said oh from your italian here it is my italian you're a goon i'm gonna put it here i don't even know what i was gonna say you're just a goon oh when i was doing this i i said randomly oh oh she was like oh my god there's this crazy part but yeah i'm not gonna tell you because i want your live reaction yeah so i was a little inside scoop in the ball that's right behind the scenes bts if you will yeah yeah all right so let's go back to the summer of 69 actually yeah oh my god summer of 69 brian adams was here uh ginger hinshaw was visiting friends yeah the fuck ginger hinshaw that's a name it's a great name she was visiting friends in west bay lake wisconsin as one does when they decided to take a drive around town just to look at some properties okay why not ginger had recently remarried and she and her new husband arnold uh they were in the market for a new home for themselves and their six children holy shit that's a lot of children with such a large family to accommodate obviously most of the houses weren't exactly giving the space that ginger needed because with six children you're gonna need a lot of space i can't even imagine and then they pulled up to the lamont mansion oh lamont now the lamont mansion had been empty for like four decades that's concerning but something about this house despite it being empty for four decades and like and kind of looking like it i was gonna say did it have welcoming vibes not really it grabbed ginger though she just felt something about it okay she later said i fell in love with the house immediately had to have it absolutely wanted that house in the worst way we've all been there yeah you know when you feel it you feel it now the house itself had been built in 1916 by robert lamont who would later become president herbert hoover's secretary of commerce fuck now the lamont family used the home basically as a vacation property like whoa because it's huge which like in the 1930s lamont became too elderly and frail to make the trip from his home in chicago back to west bay lake so they sold the house okay now although the property changed hands several times in the years that followed that the locals continue to refer to it as the lamont mansion no matter who owned it it's the og yeah now as soon as she got home that night ginger told arnold we gotta have this house she told all about the mansion it was at the very top of their budget and there wouldn't be literally anything less left for the obviously necessary renovations but it had more than enough space of a family and ginger was certain that arnold would fall in love with it as soon as he saw it okay i don't recommend getting a house that needs tons of renovation no and spending all of your budget on the actual house itself because sometimes renovations are like inevitable and they have like it's you can't put them off well they literally needed reservations to live in the house or uh renovations excuse me yeah to live in the house and if you're spending all the money on the house it's like that's gonna be tough they do try to make a go at it themselves but you know that's tough so a few days later they packed up the kids and went out to see the house and she was right as soon as they arrived and took a look around arnold who was a property developer ah okay he could see the potential in this old mansion he said there's something here all right and maybe he's able to do some renovations stuff yeah yeah now the rest of the family might have been impressed with the lamont mansion but nine-year-old april she got a feeling as soon as they entered that house oh she said the first time i walked in there i didn't like it she later said this place was huge dingy no paint decrepit and i'm thinking we're gonna live here and i was immediately possessed of a feeling that i didn't want to be there damn that's what she said later i love that she read that house down yeah she said this is fucking gross she said yeah you're gonna spend all your money on this she said no paint one of my parents a couple of putzes dingy get out of here decrepit now ginger and arnold began making plans to purchase the house they said i literally don't care what you say they said children should be seen enough no we'll paint it but their enthusiasm for this mansion was not exactly on par with the residents of west bay lake the residents didn't like it there they didn't love it the mansion it seemed had gained a reputation if you will as one of the wisconsin's most haunted houses oh fuck and everyone told ginger and arnold not to buy it oh they like warned them see i also would have bought it if the whole town is telling you not to though that would get i'd i'd have if i had i have my i would have pause you've known me my whole life the more people tell me not to do something the more i say i'm gonna do that thing i i'd have my qualms as rosemary would say yes yes um never having been believers in ghosts though or the supernatural ginger and arnold were like get out of here they just figured whatever so in early 1970 they bought the lamont mansion and rechristened it summer wind damn i think that's so beautiful that they called it summer wind it should be beautiful it's not gonna be though because it's on an episode of morbid yeah buying the house had taken nearly every cent that they had so they decided to do as much of the renovations and decorating themselves okay how do you decorate with no money they're gonna give it a shot don't worry about it um but they were obviously gonna need to rely on like contractors for the more technical work like electrical and plumbing yeah the problem was every time they would reach out to hire one of the locals no one would want to get anywhere near summer wind oh it was that yeah cray cray ginger said nobody wanted to work there people would drop off parts that we bought they wouldn't even drive in the driveway they'd leave it there then you'd ask people to come and check this sewer out or find out where the septic is but nope nobody would come as soon as you told them where you lived you dared to mention that they would not come oh my god so this is a legit scary ass place and the couple chalked up the problems you know with getting anyone to come to the house with like superstition and local stories and like but like when everyone is avoiding your house like everyone is on par with that would freak me out now despite her enthusiasm for the house ginger couldn't shake the feeling that there might be a little bit of truth to some of these stories even though she didn't believe necessarily that's the thing she didn't believe in hauntings but she said from the moment they moved in there was something unsettling about that house okay she said there was an ever-present feeling of being watched or followed and then there were the shapes and movements she would catch out of the corner of her eyes she turned down the hall like something was there but staying right out of sight sometimes that happens to me in my house me too now it wasn't just the occasional odd sound or the sense of movement in the corner of the room within weeks of moving in there were more inexplicable events appliances would break down with regularity only to begin working again just before they would make arrangements to have someone come out to the house and the activity wasn't just contained within the house very often when Arnold would go to start his car in the morning the engine just wouldn't turn over but it was in perfect working order before and like a few hours later and it would only happen at their house yes that's weird now one afternoon this was just a few weeks after they moved in ginger and Arnold's were painting in an upstairs bedroom when they moved a large shoe drawer in the closet so they wouldn't get paint on it to their surprise they moved in a large shoe drawer in the closet so they wouldn't get paint on surprise the drawer had been covering an opening in the wall that appeared to provide access to a space behind the wall oh a fucking crawl space yeah nope seal it up obviously curious you find a hole in the wall you want to know what's in there you find a hole in the wall you seal it right you should i would want to look in though so curious arnold grabbed a flashlight and shined it around and he could see something on the floor just out of reach okay so he's like i gotta know what's back there what the fuck is that so he squeezed himself in as far as he could then suddenly backed out in a state of near panic oh fuck and although he couldn't say for sure he said i think that was human bones that i just saw i'm sorry what human bones in his home yep so what did they do about that so what the fuck so for days ginger and arnold agonized over the discovery they went to sleep in there after that back and forth what the fuck wondering what they should do do you know what part i was at when i said is that the part you know they just bought the house and they put so much money into the house and the idea of their new home turning into a crime scene wasn't like appealing to them no but how do you go to sleep thinking there may be bones in your crawl space that you didn't know existed i mean i can't answer that because i would i would not but here we are like you're just chatting about it in bed and i like what yeah so like i was thinking we could do this and yeah i don't know who you really call maybe we could call like joe the priest i like the idea that like our new house turning into a crime scene isn't very appealing to me yeah that's one way to put it it's just not something i really want besides like ginger was reasoning here she said if it was a human corpse no matter what happened happened a long time ago and there was really nothing that could be done about it now ginger so figuring there was nothing to be gained by calling the police they decided not to call the police oh i'm sorry these ghosts can rail you over the coals then and perhaps if they had the way you just said the ghosts could rail them the way i have never seen the way look up from his phone with such a shit eating grin absolutely i knew i had fucked up she just told them these ghosts should rail you over the coals that's a lot that is not a proportionate response i feel i meant rake you over the coals they should rake you is what i meant because otherwise who boy uh mikey i wish you had seen his face i said it and there was a pause and in my head i said did i say that right then i looked at you and i said i did not say that right in that moment she realized she had fucked up oh man you guys knew what i meant oh you did it's like it's like the yam you know i don't think what is it i don't the yam it's the same thing no that's like really fucked up though because yeah you're just good so are you just gonna leave them there yeah don't worry about it oh man what are you gonna do anything every other thing except for what they did so they said on to the next so for the first few weeks in the house uh ginger and arnold worked tirelessly on the repairs and renovations i bet they were having trouble sleeping damn determined to restore the house to its former glory but after making the discovery of what they thought might be a body uh something changed really uh really an arnold and he appeared to be losing interest in the renovations i mean yeah he's the one that went in the crawlspace yeah on a body ginger said he would wander around do things and then not do things never finished but i kept working sounds like a man well well his interest in the house itself was declining arnold's interest in the old hammond organ they'd bought just before moving in seemed to replace his interest in everything else okay arnold had organ yep arnold had always found that playing the organ was a good way for him to relax and unwind at the end of the night but now after the discovery his playing took on a darker tone i mean i bet he's being haunted yeah rather than the peaceful hymns he'd been practicing when they first moved in um they said arnold's playing became a frenetic jumble of melodies and chords growing louder by the hour oh fuck that as arnold's behavior became stranger and like more erratic ginger continued unpacking and setting up the house hoping things were going to get back to normal uh but things got worse if you can imagine once they are where once they had been plagued by you know strange noises things moving out of the corner of their eye bones you know in time ginger began noticing other strange occurrences chairs or other small items of furniture would move on their own being in one place one moment and then she would look back and they were in another place yuck strangest of all was the large window in the primary bedroom that looked out over the front lawn arnold preferred to keep the window closed but every time he entered the room he found it open because fresh air is for dead people and those ghosts are trying to kill them one more morning he entered the room and closed the window then turned to walk down the stairs halfway down he realized he'd forgotten his wallet upstairs so he turned and went back into the bedroom and the window was open oh no one could have gone in the room and lifted the heavy window in seconds that he's been out of the room eventually arnold's resorted to nailing the window shut with heavy nails he said this window will be he said fuck that yeah well ginger had gone out of her way to keep you know all these events from the children and he said well i'm not going to do anything about it and he said well i'm not going to do anything about it and he said well i'm not it was only a matter of time before they started to notice things as well april later said no matter what room what area of the house you were in you were watched i always felt that and i think all the kids felt this april ben knewing she knew right away i'm going to say knowing she'd been new as well i'm not able to speak yeah now as the family grew increasingly uneasy in this new house arnold's behavior continued to change and it became like very sinister oh when they first married arnold was a loving husband and a loving husband and a loving husband and a loving husband loving and doting stepfather to the kids okay but after just a month in the new house his personality had changed almost entirely once patient and kind now it seemed that even the smallest irritation or inconvenience caused him to lash out at the children aggressively oh blaming them for all the strange things that were happening in the house all of it and april later said if you did anything to make him mad you bore the brunt of his anger it was like he was being possessed he just seemed to be more evil trigger warning for animal stuff um on one occasion about a month after they'd moved in the kids pet which was a raccoon you're just gonna bury the leaf yeah i just want everybody to like take a take a minute with that the kids pet which by the way they just had a fucking raccoon living in this house yeah they can be domesticated i suppose they can yes i wanted to feed raccoons in our yard the other day and drew wouldn't let me yeah you got to be careful with that i would have been because they can be they can have rabbits but if i feed them and i stay away who cares i live your life like i'm not here to tell you what to do yeah everybody else will know what i said everybody else absolutely my husband already said i can't feed them okay so they had a pet raccoon okay um it got out of the house and it disappeared and uh instead of being like oh my god that's really sad i'm sorry um instead of getting the arnold's got enraged by their carelessness and irresponsible attitudes and he demanded that all the children go out in the middle of the night to find the the raccoon so when they got home arnold killed the raccoon as punishment so he made them all go out and find it in the middle of the night only to kill it also how did they know that it was their raccoon that's a great question i just you know that i don't know you know what i mean but april later said that's how evil he was oh that is evil that's also so traumatic that's so like for all six of us yeah i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know kids that's really sad now when he wasn't lashing out at the children and killing their pets arnold seemed to disappear entirely too bad he didn't just always do that figuratively speaking yeah yeah yeah uh ginger recalled he wouldn't answer a question he kept looking around the rooms he kept walking around the rooms he'd stand out at the veranda and stare then there was the constant organ music that filled the house at all hours of night he would keep ginger and the children awake at night all night playing organ music this is like yeah like what is going on and eventually ginger pleaded with her him to just please give it up we need to sleep but arnold simply replied quote the demons in his head demanded that he keep on playing oh he needs to go see someone yeah one afternoon while ginger was alone in the house she heard what she thought was someone calling out to her from the second floor so she followed the sound upstairs and checked the hall but she was alone and she later said it was a male voice a very strong deep voice there's nobody there ginger checked each room to make sure she wasn't missing anything and although she confirmed she was alone she couldn't help but feel like someone was watching her and as she checked the last room on the second floor she heard the voice call out to her again this time from the hallway so she stepped out into the hall as fast as she could and she saw what appeared to be a blurry shape of a man standing before her and then he just disappeared i don't like that at all so she freaked out but a little later the scene repeated itself this time when ginger had invited some new friends over to see how far they'd come with the renovations she just stepped into the kitchen to get some drinks leaving the couple that was there alone in the living room and when she got back to the living room they were just sitting stock still on the couch staring at something in the corner oh and ginger looks to where they're looking and she sees the same blurry male outline she'd see in the like i'd be like what do you need yeah like what's going on you're showing yourself you're calling me like yeah can i help and the noise she made seemed to snap them out of their shock and they ran out the door the apparition disappeared and she never saw those people again they wouldn't even come near her that's fucked up that they were like not your friend anymore yeah they were like good luck like if that happened to my friend i'd still be friends with them i just wouldn't go to actually i'd probably go to their house i'd probably still go to your house but damn yeah now while ginger continued to pretend everything was normal despite seeing her friend i'd still be friends with them seeing what she was seeing arnold's decomposition worsened by the day yeah after just a few months in the house he'd stopped going to work all together and eventually lost his business that's horrific because also they don't have money he would sleep all day and stay up all night playing disturbing music on the organ that grew louder and louder as the hours passed we gotta do something this is the most gothic horror shit i've ever heard i'm like this happened yeah april said this and i knew that she was struggling and i knew my stepdad hated us and hated her he didn't before and he cared for us before he didn't there oh yeah that is so bleak now eventually arnold's behavior became so menacing and so erratic and so scary and his playing became so obsessive that the family started sleeping together in the same room just to feel safe this is giving like amityville horror like you guys gotta get out of there and when the children were at school ginger would spend as much time as she could outside of the house just to be away from him yeah because now he's home all the time right finally after a little less than six months in the house arnold's mental health had deteriorated to the point that he had to be hospitalized i was wondering when that was going to happen and it was followed by a period of inpatient health treatment oh that's so sad yeah like he really this it's good he was able to get help though yeah so devastated to like the extent of their of which their marriage was falling apart at this point and in danger of losing the house now at this point ginger attempted to take her own life oh yeah that's how bad this was yeah i mean this is awful and then i mean things had gotten so terrible and ginger's family stepped in to try to help one afternoon while arnold was still in the hospital ginger's father raymond arrived at the house in a camper and helped her and the kids pack up some of their belongings before taking everyone back to the hospital they're home in granton wisconsin about five hours away i would want to be as far away as possible i get it april later said i remember my grandfather coming to the house it was like a war was over i don't have to deal with this anymore everybody just sighed oh yeah and once they were out of the house things seemed to calm down for ginger and the kids her relationship with arnold though had reached the point of no return i was gonna say sometimes you just can't come back from certain well i mean he had done stuff that i don't know how you get over and he killed the kids yeah and he was keeping them awake at night he was keeping them awake at night and he was keeping them awake he was scaring them like yeah even though there was obviously some mental health stuff happening that's tough yeah it's hard to come back from while he was still in inpatient treatment they got divorced and ginger never saw or spoke to him again wow now after leaving the house ginger told her father about everything that happened but he didn't believe any of it that's really rude raymond said i wasn't into haunted houses i wasn't into the paranormal the spiritual world you hear stories and you listen but you also listen with a skeptic's perspective okay but like when your daughter and all of your grandkids are terrified yeah And your son-in-law has ended up in inpatient treatment. Something's wrong. Like, everything has gone awry. You don't give anything. Listen, a little bit. Yeah. Raymond assumed Ginger's experience was her way of processing the breakdown of her marriage. And, like, she was going through trauma. All right. Which is, you know. I can see that. And, you know, and also her way of, like, processing the unexpected and complete change in her husband. Like, you know, that's scary. So he listened without judgment. And he didn't challenge her. Listen and we don't judge. He just let her talk. But inside his head, he was like, I don't believe this. All right. Now, after a brief time staying with her parents in Wisconsin, Ginger recovered from her experience and her life returned to normal. During that time, she met George Olson, the man she would go on to marry. And the couple moved the family to Ontario, Canada. But she couldn't leave this experience behind. Day and night, she read any books about the paranormal she could get her hands on. Desperate to understand and experience. What happened at Summerwind. Yeah, I fully understand that. She was like, this is not in my head. Like, this happened. Yeah. Obviously, my marriage was destroyed because of it. And when it turned my husband into a completely different person. Yeah. And she doesn't want to experience that again. So she just had such a desire to understand. But it was also in no way a desire to ever return to that house again. Okay, that's good. She didn't want to see it again. That's good. She didn't want to investigate. She was like, I just want to read stuff and see if I can try to understand this. I was worried you were going to say that. And then she returned and did a ghost hunt. No way. While Ginger was happy to study the paranormal far away from Summerwind. This is wild to me. Her father couldn't get the old house out of his head. He said Summerwind looked like it needed somebody. It's like seeing a wet puppy. You want to comfort it. Brother what? In 1972, Raymond was a popcorn vendor. And he and his wife Marie were looking for a new project. After seeing Summerwind, he thought the old mansion would make a great room. A great restaurant. And perhaps someday they could turn it into an inn. Okay. There was also the matter of Raymond's son Carl, who had just returned from duty in Vietnam and was needing something to occupy his time. Okay. And is this Ginger's brother? Yeah, Ginger's brother. All things considered, Summerwind seemed like a good opportunity. What the fuck? No, it doesn't. There's literally a dead body in the house, you guys. Now, upon leaving the house several years earlier, Ginger and Arnold sold the home back to the previous owner. The previous owner, Lillian Kiefer. Oh, wow. Yeah. Kiefer. See you in the streets with your boyfriends. So Raymond reached out to Lillian to ask her if they could see the home. I'm sorry. And Kiefer, she agreed. She agreed to go out to the house with Raymond and Carl. But when they arrived, she handed the keys to Raymond and told them she wouldn't go into the house with them. And instead, she was waiting in the car. The lady who owns the house. The lady who owns the house and bought it back. We gotta take the signs. We gotta take these signs as, like, something's off. They must have been so. I'm surprised they even bought it back, though. Yeah. Like, once you're rid of it. Yeah. That's kind of good of them. That was good of Kiefer. I don't care about Kiefer. No. Inside, the house was in a surprising state of disarray. Vandals had damaged the interior. Oh, fuck them. And whatever damage the vandals didn't get to, the weather definitely took care of. But as they walked through the house, Raymond and Carl were like, you know what? I think we can work this out. We can work with this. We got it back. As for the ghost, or the ghosts, neither man believed in ghosts. So, but as they moved into the house, they couldn't shake the feeling that there was something strange about this place. It was as though they weren't alone there. Like, someone was watching them. Yeah. Here's what I don't understand about that. I don't understand when people say they don't believe in ghosts, but then they say that they feel like they're being watched. Yeah. So, what the fuck do you think is watching you? Yeah. Exactly. Ghosts. Hello, brother. But he told Kiefer they were interested in buying the house. All righty. Now, later that night, when Raymond told Ginger that he planned to buy the house. Yeah, I'd be real pissed off. She was pissed. She said, I was so angry. I said, why did you do that? He said, it's okay. Carl needed a project. They got a project all right. Also, frankly, even if the fucking house wasn't haunted, I'd be so pissed. It's traumatic. Yeah. That's a place of, like, severe trauma for your daughter and your grandchildren. All six of them. Like, that's a lot happening. What happened in that house? And, like, I don't know. That's just kind of shitty. I didn't like it personally. But that's just my opinion. That's my opinion. Ginger begged her parents to reconsider. Yeah. And reminded them of what happened when she lived there. Well, and she's probably worried about their safety on top of everything else. But their mind was made up. Fucked up. Ginger even went as far as telling them about the body that Arnold believed he'd found in the crawlspace, hoping that that would be enough to deter them. Like, maybe don't go in there. It's about time she tells someone. It's about time you showed up. That's fucking A. I'm like, it took that long? I'm glad you shared it, but maybe share it with a PD there. I'm also like, did you not talk about it with the people you bought the house from when you sold it back to them? To be like, hey, by the way. Like, once you sign those papers, make sure that ink is dry. Yeah, dot that I and then say, by the way. What's up with the body? Now, curious, you know, Raymond, Carl and Ginger's husband, George, her new husband. OK. Went out to the house and found the crawlspace. But when they checked inside, they found nothing. OK. Just some old pipes, beams, insulation. What? Exactly. So I don't know if it was there at all or if it was moved after it was repurchased. Interesting. Or if the ghosts were being like, did you get this body? And then they got rid of it. Did they get rid of it? OK. Well, and also, like, there was clearly a mental health struggle going on beforehand. So maybe Arnold thought he saw that. OK. Which I would be so mad if you thought that whole time that there was a body in your crawlspace and you had made the wild decision to not tell anybody about it and gone through all of those emotions to find out that nothing was actually in there. Yeah, that'd be upsetting, to say the least. Yeah. Now, months later, with the paperwork out of the way, Carl got to work to cleaning out all the debris and getting things ready for renovations. The debris. But when it came time to find contractors to work on the house, once again, Carl ran into the same problem. He said initially their response was, oh, not a problem. We'd be glad to do it. As soon as I would mention where it's at, at this old mansion out on the lake, their attitude would change completely. It seemed as though no one was willing to come out to the famously haunted house. After getting multiple refusals in a row, Carl and Raymond resigned themselves to the reality that they were likely going to be doing this whole thing by themselves. Woof. During the day, Carl worked on the house by himself, and at night, he stayed in Raymond's camper, parked out front. Why are you not sleeping inside? Because it's not ready. Okay. During the night, he swore he could hear the sounds of animals growling from the woods around Summerwind, and the noises, he said, were very eerie and very unnerving. Ew. Like, just constant growls. Yeah, because they're on the prowl. Yeah. Now, a few weeks into the renovation, Carl was alone in the house doing some work when he started to hear noises coming from. The second floor. Uh-oh. As he approached the stairs, he heard what he thought was a man's voice calling his name. Kind of like Ginger had heard. Yeah. So, thinking someone might have entered the house in the middle of the night, assuming it was abandoned, Carl slowly and cautiously climbed the stairs and began checking rooms for who was in there. But also, who would break into the house knowing that it was abandoned and also know your name? Yeah. Like. You right. What? No, halfway down the hall, Carl experienced something. Something so terrifying that it sent him fleeing down the stairs and out of the house. The operation of a mom. He frantically jumped into the front seat of the camper and tore out of the driveway. Was it the operation of a mom? When he got back to his parents' house, Carl refused to talk about what happened. So, we won't know if it's the operation of a mom. Maybe you will. He said, he told them, when I got home, I just told them, well, I broke the lawnmower, I broke the chainsaw, I couldn't get anything done. I didn't tell them what happened. I didn't tell them what I saw. Okay. Now, Raymond could tell that his son. His son was genuinely disturbed by whatever had happened. Yeah. After everything Ginger had told him and now Carl's strange behavior, Raymond called Lillian Kiefer, whose husband had purchased the mansion from the Lamont estate decades earlier. And he said, hi, hi. You're both high. He said, what's going on up there? Raymond didn't come out and ask whether there was any truth to the rumors of the haunting, but he did want to know whether anything strange had ever happened in the house. That's the thing. I want to know what happened there. Now, according to Lillian, quote, Lamont was known to have seen ghosts. But whenever he or the servants spoke about it in town, no one believed him. That's fucked up. I don't like that. That's a running theme. Yeah. There was one story that seemed most interesting to Raymond. Legend had it that one night Lamont and his wife returned home from a dinner party and were having some dessert at the kitchen table when the door leading to the basement opened by itself. Hate that. Lamont got up to shut it, which was when he saw the blurry image of a man hovering just beyond the door. Not knowing what to do. This is such a wild series of events. So he sees a blurry image of a man. Yes. Like seeming to be a ghost. In his basement. So he's like, so he rushes to one of the kitchen drawers, pulls out a pistol that was in the kitchen drawer, and he fired twice in the direction of the operation. I mean, hey, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? The bullets tore through the basement door, but then went right through the entity. Lamont and his wife fled the house that night, and from that point forward, they like, barely came to Wisconsin at all they said like fuck the entire state of wisconsin wisconsin it's your fault now now back to raymond he just shot an apparition raymond began to wonder whether there was actually some truth to what his daughter had told him it pisses me off that they needed a man to validate that i know i'm so tired i'm so tired of it initially he had assumed the stories of the haunting were just again her way of coping with tragic you know events and a tragic dissolution of her marriage but now that her brother experienced but now he's not so sure because carl said he saw something so i'm also like carl probably experienced trauma in vietnam that could be his we're all traumatized figuring it out now a few days later ginger and her family came to visit and once again she tried to convince her father to get rid of summer wind unfortunately he and his wife had sunk all their resources into the house and there was really no way to back out of it oh man as they talked ginger noticed carl getting increasingly agitated and visibly anxious it's clear it was clear carl was upset but he seemed to struggle to explain why and in all the things she had read about the paranormal ginger had also become familiar with hypnosis and so she was like hey i can try to hypnotize him to try to help him deal with his anxiety because she was like he doesn't know why he's anxious i've read about hypnosis i've read about how it can like uncover memories but also it can help you feel less anxious okay carl was skeptical but reluctantly agreed okay ginger had no problem trouble putting carl into a trance-like state and as she did they began to talk about the house she said and i remember my uncle's leg shaking and shaking or excuse me april said and i remember my uncle's leg shaking and shaking really hard and i remember thinking he's afraid oh now as they talked carl's voice began to change shifting into a much lower register and very angry um he said so carl was repeating you are weak i am strong over and over again and they couldn't understand what was happening or what he was talking about but ginger got the feeling her brother she was like he felt possessed to me i don't know yeah like it didn't seem like him and so she ended the whole thing immediately she was like oh i've fucked with something i shouldn't have yikes when he came back out of the trance carl remembered nothing but they recorded the session and played it back for him and carl later said on the tape it was very frightening a very demanding voice and a very angry voice and made statements that he was very old that he despised weakness of any kind despised his children which is interesting despised his children thinking about what arnold went through yeah now after hearing the recording carl decided to tell ginger and his father what he had experienced in the house that caused him to flee okay he heard the man's voice coming from upstairs so he went to investigate make sure all the windows were closed and all that and as he checked each room he found nothing and no one but he could still hear the faint voice calling out to him everywhere he went then out of nowhere he heard two loud pops like gunshots come from the first floor the noises broke his concentration on the voice and sent him running down the stairs and into the kitchen and he said i was stunned i went into the kitchen and thought i smelled gunpowder looked around saw no one but he said he looked around the room and he noticed two small holes in the basement door but the holes were worn out smooth around the edges and couldn't possibly have been made by whatever caused the noise like they were obviously old okay when he turned away from the basement door he saw the blurry outline of a man standing in the corner of the kitchen and before he knew it was happening the man rushed towards him oh i have chills i know it gave me the chills yeah so fearing for his fucking life at this point carl remember he just came back from vietnam by the way he just heard gunshots in an empty house that's so scary carl ran from the house and returned home it like fucked him up now his story obviously reminded raymond of what lily and kifa had told him about the night lamont saw something in the basement and fired two shots striking the door it seemed pretty unlikely that ginger and carl would have heard that story yeah and raymond began to wonder if he'd been wrong to dismiss all these claims of the hauntings probably out of curiosity raymond asked ginger to hypnotize him hoping that he might be holding some secrets about the house too i love that she just got woo with it she did it took some time but eventually raymond wasn't as easy it took some time but he did eventually fall into some kind of trance or fall asleep or whatever he did and ginger started the tape recorder and he described being in the house a long time ago it was as though raymond was following himself through the house he said okay into the kitchen down into the basement and he was narrating each step as he went until he reached the wall and in the dream state he knelt down on the dirty floor and pulled away one of the stones at the base of the wall to reveal a hollow space behind it he reached in and pulled out a box that contained a document ginger handed her father a pen and piece of paper and said write down what you see on that document and she said i watched him write like you would with a quill on parchment okay raymond described the document it was a land grant from the mid 1700s and when ginger asked him who owned the land raymond wrote it down on the sheet of paper jonathan carver okay when he came out of the trance he knew nothing about this he was like what the fuck are you talking about ginger and carl explained that while he was in the trance everything that he had described in the document and he had described how carver like while he was in the trance he had described that carver had come into possession of the land like through another means and according to his vision car carver had negotiated a peace treaty between two local tribes okay in the area who rewarded him with a large plot of land on the summer wind uh where summer wind was sitting after carver's death his children had tried to find documentation that proved their ownership of the land but they were never able to do so suddenly everything started to make sense to ginger she said jonathan carver wanted that land grant found is what she felt okay she said it was the ghosts that were in the house trying to tell her story and she said it was the ghosts that were in the house trying to tell her me what to do and i was just not smart enough to get it which i'm like i don't think i think you were just fucking terrified so she has this new information so raymond ginger and carl were determined they were like we're gonna get this fucking land grant i think there's a land grant in that house is that why he hated his kids maybe because they're like those fucking idiots can't find what i need them to find now it turned out that jonathan carver wasn't just a real figure from the past he was in fact a fairly significant explorer who played a role in the history of an active role in the french and indian war oh wow in 1754 to 1763 okay many details of his life are like lost history really but it's widely accepted that he was instrumental in charting the northwest passage and creating maps of much of the american midwest okay including the area of wisconsin where summer wind sat interesting during this period carver spent considerable time with the tribes in the region which he documented in his journal oh now although carver's journal makes no mention of this having been you know given land or him been given land by any of the tribes there was a second printing of his journals that included a passage a passage about a deed being signed in what is referred to as carver's cave in 1767 some believe this might be the deed that raymond referred to while he was in his trance while others mostly local historians highly doubt that the document is true oh that's not fun it's worth mentioning that while it was possible carver was deeded this land like of course at this time the british government forbade anyone other than the crowd crown to buy exchange or receive land from the native tribes okay this would have probably been known to carver um maybe he didn't give a shit because it was you know one of the motives for the american revolution so he surely would have known any land given to him would be taken away from him by the crown yeah but who knows like but maybe that's why he hid the document that's the thing right now after carver's death his children tried to find the document proving the family owned the land but they never managed to find any proof and he said i love you kids but you're not serious people you are not serious people without it without the document the land was divided up and eventually sold off to settlers now if raymond and carl's trance experiences were to be believed it seemed that carver was probably angry that his children had not managed to protect his land and now he wanted to do it for them okay now a few days he gets so crazy about it he's pissed i mean yeah but like you don't have to make me play the organ creepily about it well you know now a few days after the hypnosis sessions raymond ginger and carl returned to summerwind determined to find the deed okay raymond recalled i was fearful i was fearful we were walking into an area that we had no control over so they went into the basement they traced back the steps to the wall where he had envisioned himself pulling away the stone and with a crowbar he gently pulled away one of the stones and all three were stunned to find that there was indeed a hollow space behind the wall okay unfortunately there was nothing in it when he reached in to see what was hidden in there there was nothing it was completely empty he said it was total disappointment to dig in that stairway and not find a box yeah now in the days that followed raymond ginger and carl searched the house from the attic to the basement and even checked outside digging in the yard. Wow. But they found nothing. thing eventually they had to accept that if it ever existed carver's deed is probably long gone or is it just a bunch of hoopla yeah raymond and carl continued to work on the house but their efforts were constantly stalled by more problems after several more months raymond eventually conceded that his daughter was right summer wind had been nothing but a negative influence in their lives so he put the house on the market and never returned to summer wind again damn now after giving up on their dreams of turning summer wind into a high-end restaurant and raymond decided to write a book about his and ginger's experiences in the mansion titled the carver effect a paranormal experience from 1979 though it was a small publication the book got a surprising amount of attention especially in the wisconsin area of course by the following year summer wind was among several houses to appear in a life magazine article titled terrifying tales of nine homes haunted houses oh life loves to put out a haunting magazine the article made summer wind a popular destination for ghost hunters and legend trippers and a nightmare for the local police oh no uh yeah town councilman bill martin told a reporter in 1981 somebody's gonna get hurt in there raymond's book didn't just encourage visitors and vandals to come to summer wind it also revived all the stories about the haunted mansion much to the chagrin of locals yeah journalist tom hollitz wrote i don't believe in ghosts but after visiting summer wind in the heart in the heart of the northern highland state forest if there ever was a place that a ghost would love it love it would be this old decaying mansion its vastness is strangely overpowering now summer wind story finally came to an end one summer night in 1988 when the house was struck by lightning several times shut up causing the decaying remains to catch fire and burn to the ground yeah what an ending when the fire was finally extinguished all that was left were two large stone chimneys which is so spooky i hate that many years later a local paranormal enthusiast made like quite a claim that it wasn't lightning that torched summer wind but the locals oh according to wisconsin paranormal researcher craig nerring quote landa lake's tow board members at the time the fire department and law enforcement officers said that the fire department was set fire to the house because they were tired of all the vandals and kids partying at the vacant mansion that's one way to deal with it the town administrators dismissed the claims as quote-unquote complete baloney and nerring had no evidence to back up this theory like that should be said a bold claim brother it's a wild thing to make still it's proof that the legend of summer wind has lived on even long after the mansion has burned the hell to the ground to the g-r-o-u-n-d baby i can spell ground you can um good job what the actual fuck though i know i don't know what i want to be true more the local setting it on fire or lightning i want lightning i decided i think lightning is definitely cooler yeah because it's very gothic either way well it's just natural but it's natural like that's what life decided i don't want the i don't want people taking it into their own hands i don't want people taking anything i want it like it's it's like the house had been smited yes you know oh yeah i think that's that's god that's god yeah i really like it wow i thought it was very interesting yeah well i have a fun fact that i found earlier oh hell yeah and i have to tell you first what i saw on buzzfeed and then i fact-checked buzzfeed to make double sure that it was a fact love that so buzzfeed said there's a spider that gives you a three hour long boner before you die from its bite and the boner that it gives you is very painful and i said that's the worst thing i've ever heard you just have a boner to death like you boner to death so i googled it and google says yes the spider is the brazilian wandering spider but that claim is only partially true because luckily you don't like people rarely die from it like there's anti-venom that you can use now yeah but the bite can cause um priapism which is like a super long lasting really painful boner damn so don't get hurt by that spider or else that will hurt you likely won't die wow some some people have but it says most healthy adults who receive prompt medical treatment and anti-venom do not die fuck spiders man spiders are fucking so scary they're so metal another fact that i saw that is true is that apparently global warming is why are you telling me this i already told you i know and i don't i can't hear it i have to tell the masses we have to prepare it it's making spiders bigger and more populous i hate that a lot i usually because it's wolf spiders particularly saying i can't stop saying because i hate wolves but i'm sorry if you're a wolf spider and you're listening i'm sorry you're a wolf spider and you're listening please write in i said i'm sorry you have a lot of legs but you're very scary they're so fluffy though no they are not fluffy they are hairy she objects yeah i don't fluff fluff hair all right okay i know i don't want i'll remember i mean what you're not gonna get near them so don't threaten me like what it's just fluffy if it's really big i'll be scared no they're scary that's a lot we hope you keep listening we hope that you don't get bitten by the brazilian wandering spider that will give you a really long painful erection and we hope you keep it weird but not so weird that you would just play the haunted organ all night mikey was gonna say something crazy don't don't do that yeah don't keep it so weird that you misspeak and say railed over the coals instead of braked over the coals no don't say that ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪