Residents of Kilcawley House have been experiencing ghostly happenings recently and blame the janitor that haunts the building for the events that have taken place this semester.
Rumors of hauntings in Kilcawley House have been around for years. According to ohioexploration.com, a janitor hung himself in the back stairwell on the sixth floor many years ago.
However, no official documentation can be found to support this claim.
Roommates Breanna Nagi and Alexis Salisbury are freshman residents on the second floor of Kilcawley House and have been the targets of recent paranormal activity.
The girls first noticed their TV and lights turning off. This led them to look into the history of the building.
“We read the story about the janitor and didn’t think much of it. Granted, we live in the room at the end of the hall which is closest to the back stairwell, but we figured it was just a coincidence or something,” Nagi said.
Salisbury said she thought it was cool to live in a haunted room. However, as the activity progressed, the girls became weary.
“I was sitting in the room on my laptop and, all of a sudden, I felt somebody’s hands on my back. I jumped out of my chair and freaked out. Alexis checked my back and there were scratches all over it,” Nagi said.
After that incident, Nagi decided to get rosaries for the room in order to provide protection.
“I heard that rosaries will prevent any malicious spirits from entering the room, so I got a bunch of them from my mom,” she said.
Nagi and Salisbury said that the rosaries seemed to help, until one night when a lamp was knocked over.
“Bre had cleaned the room one night and we went to bed. When we woke up, the lamp that sat on her desk was knocked onto the floor, and was really close to hitting Bre because her bed is next to the desk,” Salisbury said.
The girls found a priest — Father Chris who works at the Newman Center — to bless the room.
“Father Chris came in and said some prayers, and sprinkled some holy water to bless our room,” Nagi said.
Since the blessing, Salisbury and Nagi have kept the rosaries in the room but say that the activity is no longer malicious.
“Now its just stuff getting moved around, and the TV turning off; just little stuff,” Salisbury said.
Salisbury and Nagi have not considered moving to another room and say that now it’s a little like a game.
“I walk in the room and wonder what was moved this time, or if the lights were turned off again,” Nagi said.
Christopher Daniels, a senior and former resident of Kilcawley house, said he also experienced paranormal happenings while living in the residence hall.
“I lived on the 6th floor for a while. The toilets would randomly flush by themselves, there were knocks on my door when nobody was actually knocking, my wardrobe doors continuously opened on their own,” Daniels said.
Ryan Johnson, a senior at Youngstown State University, has heard about the legend of the ghost janitor and, although he never experienced anything paranormal, he said that he and his friends played a joke on some of the underclassmen.
“We took an Ouija board and sat in the back stairwell on the 6th floor about two years ago. We told everybody that we were going to try contacting the spirit of the janitor. It definitely freaked some people out,” Johnson said.
While no recent attempts have been made to contact the ghostly janitor, Salisbury and Nagi said that after everything they have experienced, they believe that Kilcawley house is haunted.
Salisbury and Nagi plan to continue living on the second floor in that room of Kilcawley House throughout their stay at Youngstown State University.
