This totally true ghost story took place in the West End’s Mole Hill. The full story, and those of other haunted houses appeared in Sensational Vancouver
Mole Hill:
In the 1960s, the City of Vancouver started buying up a mixture of Queen Anne and Edwardian houses along Comox Street in the West End, intending to bulldoze them and double the size of Nelson Park.
If the idea of demolition wasn’t enough to rattle a few ghosts, one of the living residents, Blair Petrie set about spearheading a five-year campaign to save the houses in Mole Hill an area that stretches in a square around Comox, Thurlow, Bute and Pendrell Streets. As part of his research, he made a couple of ghostly discoveries.
Built in 1903:
The Thurlow Street house was one of four built in 1903 by a doctor who went into real estate speculation, the favourite sideline of almost anyone with a few bucks at the time. He likely flipped it right away, and it changed hands over the years to a number of different, mostly working class residents.
When Blair started his research, the house was a bed and breakfast where strange things happened. The two young guys who ran it would find lights turned on after they had turned them off, and once found a room locked from the inside.
Most convincing though, were the actual sightings. “They had both witnessed this ghost and had many of their customers over the years come down to breakfast totally freaked out,” said Blair.
The Ghost:
The ghost only showed herself in one bedroom and always wore a high-necked nightgown. The owners found old markings on the floor and figured out where the original furniture sat. From the placing they could imagine her brushing her long blonde hair in front of the dresser mirror.
Most of the sightings were by women who generally chose to stay in that particular room. Once the ghost asked a guest: “Are you being taken care of here?”
Blair couldn’t find anything in the house’s history to explain the ghost. Now that the house has changed owners, been stripped to its studs, and remodelled into rental suites, he says he doesn’t know whether the ghost stayed or moved somewhere more accommodating.
