Haunted basements, photobombing ghosts, secret passageways, things that disappear—we asked sisters to share their ADPi house lore with us this spooky season. Discover the house ghosts and unsolved mysteries that bring members back to the places where they bonded, laughed, and yes, occasionally spooked themselves!
New members had a whole weekend of bonding by living in the house with our Director of New Member Education and doing projects to present to our Big Sisters. While on our weekend, several of us were cleaning out the closet under the stairs and found a secret panel! I went through the dark tunnel and ended up running into adjoining tunnels. A flashlight was held very tightly! Finally, I found a trap door that opened up on the floor of Brenau’s beautiful Pearce Auditorium!
Later that year, I found where one of the connecting tunnels came from, a dorm across the street and next to the auditorium. My roommate (an Alpha Chi Omega) and I found two school uniforms that are still on display in Brenau’s archives.
Secret passageways? Certainly eerie! But perhaps a spooky adventure was worth it for the unexpected historical find. Lambda chapter has quite the housing history itself, with sisters occupying several houses since its establishment in 1910. This includes Lambda’s first large chapter house (pictured left) and the home in the story above (pictured right). It was originally a carriage house that was later restored. In recent years, the structure was taken down and rebuilt into the home our Lambda sisters live in today.
At McNeese’s Ann Hurley lodge, water would always randomly turn on when no one was using the upstairs bathroom, and the lights would go on and off. We would blame Eugenia for spying on us.
I remember once I was there by myself (it was built as a lodge so no one lived there), and I heard footsteps walking around upstairs because the floors were thin. I went upstairs to see who was there, and it was empty!
For about 30 years, Delta Eta was the only active ADPi chapter in Louisiana, so we inherited some of LSU’s items (and possibly some from Tulane via LSU) such as lion statues and a famous portrait of Eugenia holding violets. The story I was told, which may or may not be true, was that a fire damaged her portrait, and it was not repainted like her original and several elements were missing. If you look closely, you can see where the damage and repainting was done, and it wasn’t a great job. So we always said all the weirdness with the lights flickering and sink turning on was Eugenia or a ghost that traveled from the old LSU or Tulane house. Typical Louisiana lore.
Sisters remember the portrait’s eyes most of all, which made it look like Eugenia was always watching them… Is this the story of a ghost unhappy with her portrait? Only our Delta Eta sisters can say for sure!
The Delta Delta house might be the most haunted—the number of sisters who shared their stories seem to agree since they have not one but TWO house ghosts. Meet Mrs. Hodges and Lucy.
It was the first day of school. I had everything packed and ready, and I thought I set my alarm (this was before cell phone alarms). I woke up to someone pushing down on the bed. I rolled over to see what my roomie needed, but she was completely asleep across the room. I checked the clock, and I still had some time to snooze, so I rolled back over and fell asleep. When I woke up, I had overslept and only had a few minutes to throw on my clothes and get to class. I guess I didn’t set my alarm correctly. I know Mrs. Hodges was trying to wake me up so I wouldn’t miss class!
Two times Mrs. Hodges came to visit me. In the mid 1990s, I tried to turn off the radio with no luck. I unplugged it and there were no batteries, yet it still played. And one late evening, I was washing my face in the sink and heard another faucet turn on. I looked up and the bathroom was empty, yet the faucet beside me was running.
Apparently, Mrs. Hodges was fond of haunting sisters during Work Week and recruitment too. Things would be moved around or there’d be unexplained sounds. Sometimes she would mysteriously appear in the hall on the third floor. Even sisters who lived in the house decades ago remember studying in Mrs. Hodges haunted room late into the night!
Lucy is another ghost we have at the Delta Delta House. She’s a little girl and quite mischievous. If things went missing, we were known to tell Lucy that’s not hers and she had to give it back… and whatever you lost would show back up shortly after!
My first night moving into the house, someone tucked me into bed. I felt someone literally start tucking my bedding around my legs, and I peeked through my eyes to see someone over my bed. They turned and disappeared. The next year, someone opened my bedroom door (my roommate was not there), came in and shuffled around papers on my desk and my roommate’s, then walked out, closing the door. Nothing was missing, and everyone I asked the next day didn’t come into the room. Had to have been Lucy!
This year, the Epsilon Zeta historical home celebrates its 125th anniversary, and with more than a century of history comes stories that are difficult to explain. According to longstanding accounts, the spirit of Mrs. Cape, the home’s original owner, still makes her presence know within its walls.
As an alumna of Epsilon Zeta and now a member of the house corporation, I have experienced moments in the house that have given me goosebumps. Whenever I enter the house alone, I make a point of speaking aloud as I walk in. I always say, “Mrs. Cape, we are here to keep your house beautiful.” It has become my way of acknowledging the home’s original owner and reassuring her that we are there to care for the place she once called home.
This summer, I had another experience that added to the stories surrounding the house (see the story from 2019 below). Before the property opened, I was upstairs sweeping the porch. My daughter, who is an Alpha Delta Pi from another chapter, had accompanied me to the property. While I was upstairs, she kept hearing what sounded like things being dragged across the floor in the parlor room. Thinking I might be inside the room moving furniture or other items, she went in to check. But the room was empty. I was nowhere to be found, and several things had been displaced from their original locations. Neither of us could readily explain what she had heard or how the items had been moved.
The legend of Mrs. Cape lives on through the stories shared by members, residents, and those who have worked on the property. Perhaps the creaking floors, moving objects, mysteriously open porch doors, and unexplained noises can be attributed to the quirks of an old house. Or perhaps the original owner has never truly left.
Thank you to all the sisters who shared their spooky stories with us this year!
The following selections were originally published by Hannah Peterson, past Multimedia Marketing Coordinator for Executive Office, on the ADPi Blog in 2019.
In late August 2017, Hurricane Harvey was making its way across Texas. After just a few hours of the storm, all of our power went out. It was dark, loud, and wet outside—the perfect setting for a haunted night. Since we had all just moved in a few weeks prior, we were pretty scared—especially since our house is over 100 years old, so we moved all of our beds into the living room. The living room is next to the door that leads downstairs, which kept swinging open and closing very loudly. Our vacuum propped against the wall next to that door fell over, and all of a sudden, we saw a figure through the door. When the door opened again, we all screamed! As it closed once again, and for the final time, the figure was gone, and the storm slowly faded. It’s been two years, and I still can’t look through that door during a storm.
You may have seen this photo of a ghost photobombing a bid day picture at Zeta Theta. It’s been around for a few years, but we think it gets creepier with age. We reached out to the chapter about it, and this is what they said:
Apparently, there is a woman ghost that resides in our house. We call her Linda. It is said that she lives in room four but has done mysterious things in other rooms such as knock things over and give you weird dreams. Once, a girl woke up in the middle of the night staring at herself in the mirror.
Maybe Linda just wanted to join in on the Bid Day festivities?
Delta Omega had two submissions from members that were in the chapter at different times. Their stories are very similar, so our house at Northern Illinois wins my vote for most haunted.
I am a Pi member from Delta Omega. Since many of us could remember, we have lived in our ADPi house with a mostly friendly ghost named Margaret. There were times where things of ours would move, and we would just say, “Oh Margaret.” However, there were times when she scared us.
I lived in the house my sophomore year and lived on the second floor. I had heard Margaret only really bothers the third floor, so I thought I was safe. Wrong. Every once in a while, Margaret would flicker my lights that were plug-ins without a switch. Margaret would also like to tickle or touch my feet. There is one moment with Margaret, however, that I will never forget. When one of my sisters was in her room, she heard banging coming from an empty room next door and saw the lights turn on. The door was locked since it was unoccupied, and it completely scared us.
After that we knew we weren’t losing our minds and that Margaret was real. We had looked at various ways to rid our house of her, even if she meant no harm. We were unsuccessful in trying. Sometimes many of us think Margaret followed us. Especially when five of us lived in a townhouse last year, and similar things would happen. Who knows if Margaret is real, but either way, I believe in ghosts for sure now.
Over the year that I lived in the house, my sisters and I noticed a lot of unnatural things. When we would watch scary movies in the basement, we could hear someone walking down the hall and would see a dark shadow moving from the corner of our eyes. We shut the workout room door down there because it gave off a weird feeling at night, and we all felt like we were being watched.
I lived across from Room 16 and would hear things being moved in that room at night or see the lights go from on one night to off the next. Keep in mind that this room was permanently locked and unoccupied. The person I shared a wall with, Becky (who also lived across the hall from Room 16), would hear someone knocking on the shared wall when I wasn’t there and my door was locked. I also heard the same thing from her room when she wasn’t there.
Some of us would hear our sliding closet doors slam, being knocked on, or even shake. In our formal room, you could hear whispers or light footsteps if you were quiet enough. It got worse when we slept in there at night and felt a menacing presence looking at us. On the second floor, people would have stuff fall off of their shelves and walls, their feet touched at night, and their belongings moved in their closet. They’ve heard loud footsteps like someone was running up and down the halls at night, but when they looked, no one was there.
The only “safe space” in the house was the kitchen, so needless to say a lot of us spent a lot of time in there.
I have a story that happened to me and my friends living in the house at Delta Delta. We were all on the second floor and lived three rooms in a row. At the end of the hall is a door with a fire escape that led to the parking lot. One night, all of a sudden, there was this loud thud noise on the door. We all woke up but didn’t think anything of it, but then it happened again. We all got up and went to the hall to see what was up, and the knob on the door started to shake like someone was trying to get in. Needless to say, we never figured out what it was, and we spent a good two hours piled in one bed.
There are no sorority houses at App State. Instead, sorority women have the option to live in the Appalachian Panhellenic Hall (APH), an old hotel that the university bought in the 80s. Yes, it’s as weird as it sounds. Everything about the APH feels like a hotel. The old wallpaper is still up everywhere, and I’m pretty sure the common areas (like the hotel lobby) still have the hotel furniture.
When I was in school, it was typical for the sophomores to live in the APH, so you lived with your Alpha Class. One half of the hallway experienced a lot of creepy things, that fortunately, my roommate and I didn’t deal with. My sisters would wake up to their showers running, toilets flushing, and things moved around their room. It was said that the ghosts were old hotel staff.
I think what really got to us though is when we’d be hanging out late at night and someone would say, “Think about all the people who have been in this room.” It was a very unnerving feeling to think about how your home for a year used to have a different resident almost every day… if those walls could talk.
