Historic house haunted? Who ya gonna call?

Visitors have become convinced that the Small House, home to the Sampson County Arts Council, is haunted. The house was built around 1870 by Dr. Victor Small, and his boots are among the artifacts still on display inside.

"Actually, one day we came in, and one (boot) was turned backward, and no one knows why," said Helen Kearns, marketing chairwoman for the arts council.

Triangle Paranormal Investigations, founded by former Garner police officer Curt House, recently had an 11-person team spend a night inside the house to check out any ghostly activity.

"While we were up there, it was dark – lights out. We were attempting to make contact with whoever was there when we heard what sounded like an audible sigh," House said. "I believe they have a lot of paranormal activity."

The team spent five hours in the Small House with a electromagnetic-field detectors, motion sensors and infrared video cameras.

House said he aimed a camera down the back steps and saw something unusual.

"I noticed that one of the doors we had shut just minutes before was open about a foot-and-a-half," he said. "Nobody had been in that area at all."

Arts council officials don't want the ghost stories to scare people away from the building, Kearns said. House said the haunting could be more of a selling point during the Halloween season.

"I think, if anything, (people will) be more intrigued by it," he said.

"It's one more story to go with the house. It won't hurt us, you know. If we have spirits, we definitely feel they're good spirits," Kearns said.