How Living in a Haunted House Can Cost You a Lot of Money

It’s Halloween, so I thought I would post about an important financial topic, and one that shockingly isn’t discussed often enough in the personal finance community: the cost of living in a haunted house. 

I know, something that people have to deal with all the time, right?

It’s a serious issue, and the financial aspect of it needs to be recognized. Those that live in haunted houses are put at a huge financial disadvantage. They can’t use their emergency funds, because the haunting never goes away. It’s not a sudden an unexpected expense. It is a constant, nagging drain on the wallet that leaves many families living paycheck to paycheck.

Replacing Things That the Ghosts Knock Down

Ghosts and spirits seem to have this penchant for knocking vases, jars, and other breakable items to the floor. They also seem to like to mess with televisions.

I don’t know what their issue is, but it gets pretty expensive to replace all the things that the ghosts are breaking.

You can easily be expected to fork out tens, if not hundreds of dollars per month on these things, depending on how restless the haunting is.

Restoration Costs and Cleanup Crews

If your ghost is a real asshole, like the piece of work from the Poltergeist, you’ll likely have to fork over some cash for restoration costs every once in awhile. You can’t just leave your house in shambles because the ghost was in a bad mood one night.

Restoration for caved-in walls, crumbling staircases and doors that have been pulled off the hinges doesn’t run cheap. Even if the ghost doesn’t do any real damage, they sure can make a mess, and you can’t be expected to clean the mess up by yourself all the time. You’ll have to pay a lot to keep a cleaning crew around.

Time Off Work

If you have a bad spirit in your house, I have no doubt that you call in sick or take more vacation time than a person with a home that is not haunted. After all, you lose a lot of sleep worrying about the spirit killing your or eating your face off in you slumber.

Lack of sleep is not good for the immune system. Even if you aren’t worried about the ghost hurting you while you sleep, they tend to be more active during the night, a la Paranormal Activity. That can lead to some pretty restless nights.

Medical Costs

Whether we’re talking mental or physical ailments, having a haunted house can hurt your medical budget. A psychologist can easily cost hundreds of dollars an hour, and a psychiatrist even more than that. If your spirit is violent, you may need stitches more often than somebody who doesn’t have a haunted house.

Ghosts have been known to push their hauntees down flights of stairs, drop things on their heads, and otherwise terrorize them.

Even if you have great work benefits, it’s unusual for psychiatric treatment for fear of possession or haunting  to be covered.

Real Estate

Unfortunately, it’s not atypical for states, provinces, and countries to have a disclosure laws when it comes to selling real estate. If any funny business is happening in your home, you need to disclose it.

Disclosing that your home is haunted when you go to sell isn’t going to help you get the best price on your humble abode.

You’ll either have to take a huge hit, or hang on to the home until you rid it of the spirits, and sell it thereafter. Let’s just hope the spirits don’t follow you to your new house in either case.

Readings, Ghost Hunters, and Spirit Experts

There comes a time in every haunted home owner’s life when they grow sick and tired of the antics of these unwanted presences, and decide to attempt to rid their homes of the spirit.

Ridding your home of a spirit does not come for free. Ghost hunters can cost quite a lot of money, and having a reading on your home can soar into the hundreds – if not thousands – of dollars.

If, through your feeble attempt to free yourself of the ghost, the ghost gets angry, you are inviting a whole slew of costs. An angered ghost is an active one, and you may see an influx in the aforementioned costs as (s)he terrorizes you, your family, your possessions, and the four walls surrounding you.

Have I forgotten any costs to living in a haunted house?