This is the tale of how an unexplained extraordinary event happened at my grandmother' s house.

To give you some background preceding the event, my grandmother was gone by this time; she had died a couple of years before.

The house was designed and built by her and her husband, my grand-father in the 1940' s. My grandmother loved this house. I imagine my grandfather was attached to it too, but he died before I was born.

To my grandmother the house meant everything. She never remarried or got involved with anyone after my grandfather' s death, so I think the house became her lasting attachment to him.

The maintenance of the house was of the utmost importance to her. She kept it pristine. She hung hardly anything upon the walls, because she didn' t want to add any marks to them. Also, as kids we learned early on to watch out for fingerprints on the refrigerator.

She had special polish for the floors and a different type for the door-frames. All which were made with a very beautiful, rich looking oak.

When my grandmother passed on, the house was bequeathed to my mother. As it is for a lot of people, it was hard for her to sell the house, so she decided to rent it out to someone. She soon found a family that needed the space of this large old house.

Before long, there were problems with the family, mainly cleanliness. It seems they were careless and even brought roaches into the house.

My mother eventually asked them to leave. A few days after they moved out, she and my sister went to the house to clean. My mother had also called an exterminator to take care of the new problem.

When they arrived, my mother headed straight for the kitchen and my sister went into the living room. When my mother reached the kitchen, she looked at the refrigerator and noticed it was wet on the outside, as if it was sweating. She thought something was wrong with it and opened the door to seek out the problem. It appeared to be fine. She then looked up and noticed the walls were also "sweating". Then she noticed the windows were wet too and even the ceiling.

My mother thought to herself that maybe my grandmother was creating the phenomenon, then half jokingly told my sister she thought it was memere' s way of "cleaning the house". My sister said she thought the same. They decided to leave and return some other day. My mother rescheduled with the exterminator as well.

When my mother and sister eventually returned to the house, the " sweat-ing" had stopped. I am not sure if whatever it was had helped to cleanse the house, but what I do know is that the initial recommendation from the exterminator was to spray once a month for 6 consecutive months. On his second visit however, he told my mother that he hadn' t seen any of the "creatures". My mother also stated they hadn' t seen any. The exterminator gave the house a second session and told my mother to call if there was a need. There was never a need.

The house is still family owned and occupied. And it hasn't complained since.

© Melt Magazine 2001