Construction Technology/News

Spooky Construction Stories to Tell on the Jobsite

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Happy Halloween from all of us at Trimble Viewpoint!

Construction workers seem to be the ones finding all the ghosts these days, which makes for some good story telling. In honor of this spooky day, we decided to read and share several construction jobsite ghost stories.

Here are the ones we liked the best, enjoy!

  1. The North Arlington Haunting

One construction worker quit his job after encountering what he believed was the ghost of a young girl who had died on the site years earlier. An old Victorian house had been sitting vacant for years, so crews came in to begin demolishing it to make way for a new building.

However, it wasn’t long after the demolition started that one of the crewmen spotted a young girl inside of the building. The girl was believed to be the ghost of young Margaret Febrey who once lived in the house with her family before she was laid to rest at only 14 years old.

The poor man who first spotted the girl couldn’t handle what he’d seen. He immediately packed up and left the jobsite never to return. The crew eventually ceased the demolition project on the 99th anniversary of Margaret’s passing.

Original source here.

  1. The Construction Site Entity

This terrifying tale is about a 29-year-old construction worker who moved to Virginia after work slowed down where he was living in Georgia. In Virginia he got a job on a project at the Norfolk Naval Base. This job was on a scale he wasn’t used to at the time. The crew was building a five-story building from the ground up.

The work was hard but the pay was good, and the man was grateful to have found a job. He didn’t care for the foreman much, but it didn’t really matter so long as he just minded his own business. About four months into the job, he sliced his middle finger wide open in a piece of metal, but he didn’t feel any pain. The cut was so deep that it had severed the nerves, the doctor explained as he stitched him up.

With a sliced hand, the man wasn’t much use for heavy lifting. The foreman put him on light duty until his hand had some time to heal. The man didn’t mind this much at first, as he received the same pay for doing little more than sweeping. The first few weeks of this were fine, but then he started to get bored. To curb the boredom, he began to wander the jobsite.

He explored all the hallways, and there were a lot of hallways. Some of them didn’t have temporary lighting installed so they were pitch black. One day, he made his way up to the fourth floor. Most of the work had been finished on that level, so he found himself alone. He walked the floor, examining the space and peering down and out the windows.

All of a sudden, his ears began ringing. The sound and pitch got louder and louder until it was unbearable. He dropped to his knees grabbing his ears and crying out in pain. He felt nauseated. He tried to stand and barely managed to lift his head when he saw across the room someone standing at the other end of the hallways in front of the window. He cried out to the person for help, but the person made no move.

Though still in pain, the man managed to stand and make his way over to the figure. As he got closer he noticed this…thing…looked quite strange. It was huge with a small head disproportioned to his giant body. Its arms hung down past its waist and it had long fingers hanging off each hand. The man could not make out a face because the light from the window behind him made him appear to be a silhouette. As he got closer to the creature, the ringing in his ears intensified. When he realized this was not a normal person, he began to back away slowly as the thing just stared back at him.

When the man had almost reached the stairs to escape, the thing cocked its head like a dog and the ringing in the man’s ears reached absolute excruciation. The man fell again, overcome by the pain. When he opened his eyes, he saw the figure disappear and as it did, the ringing was silenced.

Never again did he wander the jobsite alone, for fear of again encountering the construction site entity.

Original source here.

  1. The Haunted Hall of Fires

Many ghost stories originate from the Winchester Mystery house in San Jose, Calif. Sarah Winchester, heiress of Winchester Repeating Arms Company, was convinced that her home was haunted by the spirits killed by the rifles that her family had sold. She was told that if she kept her home under construction constantly, the noise from sawing and pounding would keep away the ghosts. So, the extravagant mansion went under construction in 1884 and continued for 24 hours a day until Sarah’s death in 1992.

One famous ghost story from the Winchester house is said to have taken place in the Hall of Fires — named after the countless fireplaces lining its halls. A worker was on a ladder, finishing up some new trim. Suddenly, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around, but no one was there, so he promptly fixed his attention back on the task at hand. That’s when he felt pressure on his back as if someone were trying to push him off the ladder. After nearly falling, the worker fled the scene, allowing the ghost of some construction worker of the past to finish the job alone.

Original source here.

  1. Ghost of the Trent Severn Canal Lift Lock

The story goes that years ago, a construction worker was buried alive within the Peterborough Lift Lock in Ontario as cement was poured into the middle of the structure’s three pillars.

The deceased worker has been making his presence known on that jobsite ever since.

Once a lift lock worker went down 70 ft. underground to work on one of the tunnels below. He returned to the underground elevator and found a pair of hip wader boots that had not been there before. Not only that but they were standing straight up as if something was inside of them. No one could explain it, and it scared the worker who found the boots senseless.

Lift lock workers say they experience unusual activity on the jobsite about once a week. Many report having heard echoing footprints off in the distance, and when investigated, they find the footsteps lead straight into the middle pillar. There was one wrench that was quite outdated and took all of one worker’s strength to lift it. Once when the workers were having lunch, the wrench just flew off the table from where it was sitting, and they all watched it hit the ground.

This jobsite is considered to be one of the most haunted places in the city. Sometimes it is too much for workers to handle and many leave their jobs there to take up labor that involves fewer ghosts.

Original source here.

We hope you enjoyed these ghostly tales and wish you a fun and safe Halloween!

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Posted By

Kati is an Associate Manager of Customer Advocacy at Trimble Viewpoint, enthusiastic about all things marketing and construction.