12 Real Haunted Houses That Will Scare The Ever-Living Heck Out Of You

ACROSS AMERICA — Kid-friendly haunted houses with smiling 20-foot skeletons stationed as sentries are fine for folks who prefer fright-lite for Halloween or don’t want their kids’ traumatized out of sleep for a week.

But if you want to be thoroughly scared by unexplained footsteps, sudden blasts of cold air, shadowy figures, and the overall feeling of not being alone, these 12 real-life (and death) haunted houses may just do the trick.

Whaley House Museum

The home built in 1856 by Thomas and Anna Whaley is so spooky it was sanctioned as haunted by the U.S. Commerce Department in the 1960s.

Proclaiming itself “America’s Most Haunted House,” Whaley House Museum in Old Town San Diego is said to be haunted by the ghost of James “Yankee Jim” Robinson, who was hung for grand larceny in 1852 at the spot where the Whaleys built their new home a few years later.

Not only have visitors reported hearing Yankee Jim stomping around the museum, but they’ve also reported seeing the ghosts of the Whaleys, a young girl and even the family dog.

Winchester Mystery House

Also designated a haunted house by the Commerce Department, the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, is a bizarre Victorian mansion built by Sarah Pardee Winchester in 1884 that’s a maze of mystery.

The heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms fortune, she was reportedly tormented with guilt over the souls lost to Winchester rifles, and bereft over the deaths of her daughter, Annie, in 1866, and, in 1881, her husband, William.

She consulted a medium, who advised her to build a house to ward off evil spirits, which may explain the 160-room labyrinth’s quirks — doors that open to the walls, stairways that lead to the ceiling, twisting and turning hallways that lead to dead-ends, secret panels and other oddities, all purportedly designed to confuse evil spirits. ABC News reported the house has “10,000 windows, 2,000 doors, 47 fireplaces, 40 staircases, 13 bathrooms, and nine kitchens.”

Another theory: Sarah loved architecture and had the money to embellish the house. Construction continued on the mansion until she died in 1922.

The LaLaurie Mansion

The three-story 1831 LaLaurie Mansion in New Orleans’ French Quarter is a favorite stop on ghost tours and is considered the most haunted of houses in the city. It is said to still be inhabited by the ghosts of enslaved people that prominent socialite Madame Delphine LaLaurie, so horrifically abused their treatment can rightly be called torture.

As the story goes, Madame Delphine was whipping the child of an enslaved person when the child broke free, ran to the roof and fell to her death. Delphine herself vanished after a fire broke out, exposing to those trying to save the mansion to the terrible torture she had inflicted on enslaved people.

The mansion at 1140 Royal Street inspired the third season of the horror-drama television series “American Horror Story,” and was briefly owned by Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage, who reportedly said, “You know, other people have beachfront property. I have ghost-front property.”

The actor lost the mansion in a foreclosure in 2009. It has been through a series of owners and is back on the market for $9 million. The owners cut $1.3 million from the asking price in September.

The House Of Death

The House of Death, an unassuming 1856 brownstone in the heart of New York City’s Greenwich Village, doesn’t give up the secrets of the dead. It is said to be haunted by the spirits of 22 people who died inside its walls since it was built in 1856.

In “Spindrift Spray of the Psychic Sea” — a portrait of a woman caught in a terrifying place between two worlds — author Jan Bryant Bartell describes seeing visions and hearing unexplained sounds before the real terror began when she lived in the top-floor apartment of the building. First her dog died, and then one by one, nine tenants died in rapid succession, whether by heart attack, suicide or murder.

The Bartells moved but couldn’t escape the haunting, according to the book jacket. Bartell died in 1973, shortly after completing the manuscript under what “might consider mysterious circumstances.”

The building still has private apartments so it’s not open for public tours. But groups like New York City Ghosts swing by it on regular tours.

The McPike Mansion

Built in 1869 for Henry Guest McPike in what is now Alton, Illinois, the McPike Mansion is well known today in paranormal circles to be haunted by members of the original family and their servants, as well as other people who lived in or ran businesses out of the mansion until it was abandoned in the 1950s.

Photos taken in the mansion show orbs, balls of light and even figures in the windows the photographers didn’t see, according to a history of the mansion compiled by current owners Sharyn and George Luedke.

The mansion is hosting ghost tours every weekend in October.

The Baker Mansion Museum

On moonlit nights, the specter of the lovelorn Anna Baker is said to roam the halls of Baker Mansion, built in the 1840s for wealthy iron master Elias Baker and his family in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Guests to the house, now a museum, report feeling her spirit, especially around a wedding dress that rustles without explanation within its sealed case.

As legend has it, Anna’s father forbade her from seeing the poor steel worker she had fallen in love with, so the couple planned to secretly marry and had bought the dress. Elias found out about their plans and had him moved to another mill he owned in another city. He introduced several men as more suitable husbands, but Anna declined their proposals and retreated to her room, where she eventually died, the wedding dress still in her closet and said to manifest both her despair and anger at her father.

Tours of the museum are offered Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Bell Witch Cave and John Bell Cabin

No story of the supernatural in American history is more documented than the legend of the Bell Witch Cave and John Bell Cabin in Adams, Tennessee. Stories of haunting by the Bell Witch. As the story goes, John Bell and his family homesteaded the land in 1804 and lived there until the summer of 1817, when they began seeing strange animals — a dog with a rabbit’s head, for example — and eerie sounds in their cabin. The voice of someone speaking directly to the family could be heard in every room of the cabin, especially terrorizing John’s youngest daughter, Betsy, with beatings that left her unconscious.

It became known the Bell Witch was intent on killing John Bell. Indeed, the Bell Witch took credit for his death three years later on Dec. 20, 1820, when a vial filled with a strange liquid next to his deathbed. His death was attributed to the Bell Witch, making Tennessee the only state to recognize a death to the supernatural.

The legend of the Bell Witch has a cliffhanger. Known for her accuracy at predicting the future, she vowed to John Bell’s children that she would return some day. The tourism website for the cave and cabin asks: Did the Bell Witch return? Or did it never leave?

The Lizzie Borden House

Although she was indicted by not convicted in what was considered the trial of the century, Lizzie Borden is widely believed to have hacked her father and stepmother, Andrew and Abby, to death with an ax on the morning of Aug. 4, 1892, in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts.

The Lizzie Borden House is now a bed-and-breakfast inn that Andrew and Abby are said to still roam.

The Conjuring House

Ghosts may have been hanging around since 1736 at The Conjuring House, or the Old Arnold Estate as the Burrillville, Rhode Island, property was known before it became an attraction for paranormal activity.

“The Conjuring,” a 2013 blockbuster movie filmed at the house, depicted the hauntings of the Perron Family, who began to experience paranormal activities when they lived in the 14-room farmhouse in the 1970s, including unexplained voices and footsteps, strange lights, and apparitions.

Experiences include guided tours, delving into the property's history, sessions that compare the scenes depicted in the film with what really happened, an introduction to ghost hunting and the technology used to communicate with spirits, and the chance to participate in a paranormal investigation."

The John Hager House

The three-century-old Hager House in Hagerstown, Maryland, a museum since 1944, is said to be haunted by other-worldly presences — a contemplative woman sitting at the window, a solemn man on the porch and a little girl who seems drawn to female guests.

Visitors have also reported hearing disembodied voices, footsteps and objects as they are dragged across the floor of the mansion’s stone cellar. In the nursery, cradles and rocking chairs sway on their own, and the temperature of the room inexplicably rises and falls.

A corn cob doll moves around the mansion, apparently on its own. Tour guides have theorized the specter of one of the children who once lived in the home is playing a prank.

Ghost tours are offered every weekend in October.

Historic Stranahan House Museum

The ghost of Frank Stranahan is said to haunt the Historic Stranahan House Museum, the home he built after marrying school teacher Ivy Cromartie in 1901 in what is now the center of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Although regarded as Fort Lauderdale’s “first family,” Frank suffered from depression and committed suicide in 1929 by jumping into the New River that ran in front of the home. Efforts to revive him were futile.

Among others who died in the house were Ivy, who died in her sleep in 1971; Augustus Cromartie, Ivy’s father, who died at the age of 80 in 1932; Albert Cromartie, one of Ivy’s younger brothers who died of tuberculosis at age 27; Pink Cromartie, Ivy’s younger sister who died of pneumonia in 1926 at the age of 41; and a young Seminole girl who reportedly became very ill and went to the house for help, but died inside before anything could be done to save them.

The museum staff acknowledges stories of hauntings — banging on windows, doors or walls and ghosts yelling at guests and staff — over the 40 years the museum has been opened, but dismisses them as unproven hearsay.

The White House

Abraham Lincoln, a reported soothsayer who anticipated his assassination days before John Wilkes Booth put a bullet in him at Ford Theatre on AApril 14, 1865, is notable among the spirits of former presidents and their wives said to still roam the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW in Washington, D.C.

Even heads of state have felt the specter of Lincoln, including British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, who reportedly fainted at the sight of Lincoln, according to NBC News.

Other sightings, according to the White House Historical Association include the ghosts of William Henry Harrison, the first president to die in the White House; Abigail Adams, who is said to be seen hanging her laundry in the East room; Dolley Madison, said to be seen overlooking the Rose Garden that she created; Andrew Jackson laughing in the Rose Bedroom; Thomas Jefferson playing the violin in the Yellow Room.

The White House is open for free public tours, which must be arranged by a member of the visitor’s congressional delegation and are subject to multiple security checks.