A man's home is his castle. Home sweet home.

There's no place like home.

We've heard them all. Home is the place where we're supposed to be the happiest and where we feel the safest.

Nothing bad is supposed to happen to us at home, at least until it does.

You might think you've found your dream home. You've verified the year it was built, the square footage, the quality of the neighborhood, even the local school ratings.

But do you know if anyone died there?

Well, chances are they have, especially if it's an older house.

For a while I lived in a bungalow that had been built in 1905.

Like a lot of older houses, it creaked at night.

It was impossible to move around silently.

And from time to time, creepy secrets were revealed.

Like when an acquaintance told me about how a friend of his had

once lived in the house and his grandmother had died there in the spare bedroom.

He offered this bit of information because I told him I thought I had a ghost. The footsteps in the upstairs hallway and

inexplicable woman's voice and the fact that the spare bedroom was always ice cold even when the furnace vent was blowing hot air into the room

was enough to convince me something weird was happening there. But not all

houses are a hundred years old and haunted. You might not see a ghost at the open house, but it's not unusual to wonder whether someone died in your house or in a house you're thinking about buying.

It might be a morbid question, but it's one you're thinking about buying. I mean, it might be a morbid question,

but it's one you're entitled to ask,

since, of course, you want as much information

about the house that you can get.

Finding out someone died there might make you want to try and sell your house quickly or you might be intrigued

...