THE HOUSE THAT WOULDN'T LET GO
THE SANDBOX AT HOLLOW CREEK
A Paranormal Case File — Incident #2010-0722-MO Date of Incident: July 22 – July 25, 2010 Location: Hollow Creek Elementary School (abandoned), near Springfield, Missouri Lead Investigator: Dr. Elaine Voss, Paranormal Research Institute (PRI) Status: Unexplained. 2 missing children. Playground sealed. Entity classified as “The Sand Mother.” Active investigation.
THE HOUSE THAT WOULDN'T LET GO: THE SILENT ROOM IN BOTHELL
A Paranormal Case File — Incident #2012-2016-WA Date of Incident: 2012 – 2016 Location: Bothell, Washington (Private Residence) Lead Investigator: Steve Mera & Don Philips (Paranormal Researchers) Status: Unexplained. Certified "Intelligent Haunting." 427 EVPs recorded. House abandoned by tenant.
The Bothell Hell House: The 2015 Case of 427 EVPs and a Voice That Only Said "I Want More"
2. Opening Hook
What if the walls of your home began to write messages you never taught them? What if every time you asked who was there, a calm, patient voice answered through a recorder: "I want more"? In 2015, in a quiet suburb of Bothell, Washington, a young IT worker named Keith Linder faced exactly that. No crumbling mansion. No ancient graveyard. Just a clean, modern rental home, a sceptical girlfriend, and a presence that refused to leave—and refused to explain itself.
3. The Incident Setup
Keith Linder moved into the house in Bothell in 2012. From the first day, something was off: footsteps in empty hallways, doors opening on their own, and a sudden, heavy stillness in rooms that should have felt ordinary. By the time 2015 arrived, what had started as minor disturbances had escalated into four years of what Linder would later call a "living hell."
The previous tenant had lasted only nine months. When Linder tracked her down, she described her time in the house the exact same way: a living hell.
4. The First Warning Sign
The activity was not subtle. Bibles burst into flames. Furniture shook and levitated. Objects flew across rooms, and in one incident, a pair of scissors was found buried deep in a wall. A crucifix vanished from its place and somehow ended up inside a running washing machine.
Then came the writing. Strange symbols and threatening messages began to appear on the walls—symbols that looked like no language Linder recognized. He cleaned them. They returned. He painted over them. They bled through.
5. Evidence That Changed Everything
In February 2015, the Travel Channel show Ghost Adventures arrived to investigate. The episode, titled "Demons in Seattle," aired on 28 February 2015. The team left with nothing. No evidence. No activity. And in the aftermath, Linder and his girlfriend were publicly painted as hoaxers and attention-seekers.
But Linder refused to stop. He reached out internationally, eventually contacting Don Philips, a paranormal researcher from Leicester, and Steve Mera, a British parapsychologist known for debunking cases. In January 2016, the two men flew to Washington and spent a week living inside the house.
What they recorded changed the case. Philips crawled underneath the home and came out with audio that made his skin crawl. A voice, clear and deliberate, said: "I want more. I want more." By the end of their stay, the team had captured 427 Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) recordings.
6. The Mystery Deepens
The researchers did not stop at audio. They set up laser motion sensors that triggered a baby's laugh when the beam was broken. On camera, in an empty house, the laugh went off.
A local priest told Mera something that reframed the entire investigation. The house, he believed, had been built on the settlements of people who had passed away—possibly Irish settlers—and they were still there. A psychic medium who spent weeks in the home claimed she sensed at least seven highly intelligent spirits and described the house as "almost like a portal where spirits can come home."
7. The Hidden Connection
The Ghost Adventures episode had portrayed the case as a dead end. But the British team's findings suggested the opposite: the haunting was not random noise. It was responsive. It knew when it was being investigated, and it knew how to hide. The "I want more" voice was not a threat. It was a demand—calm, patient, and endlessly repeated.
The connection was not to a single event or a single death. It was to the land itself, and to something that had been there long before the house was built.
8. The Final Discovery
After a week inside the house, Steve Mera and Don Philips made a formal declaration. The Bothell home was certified as the site of an "intelligent haunting"—not a residual loop, not a trick of the mind, but a presence capable of interaction, response, and intent.
Linder, for his part, felt vindicated. "We were dragged through the mud," he said. "None of which is true." The house was exorcised twice—once by a reluctant local church—but the activity continued. Linder eventually moved out in 2016, four years after he moved in.
9. What Happened Next?
The case did not end with the certification. The 427 EVPs were shared with other researchers. Linder wrote a book, The Bothell Hell House: Poltergeist of Washington State, chronicling the four-year ordeal. The house still stands in Bothell. It is a quiet suburban home, indistinguishable from its neighbours. But the recordings remain.
10. The Detail Nobody Could Explain
The detail that unsettled the investigators most was not the fire, the flying objects, or the writing on the walls. It was the consistency of the voice. Across 427 recordings, across weeks and months, the same phrase appeared again and again: "I want more." It never explained what it wanted. It never named itself. It simply asked, and waited, and asked again.
11. Final Thoughts
Some places do not let go. They wait, patiently, for someone to ask the wrong question—and then they answer. If you ever find yourself in a quiet house, speaking into a recorder and waiting for a reply, remember the Bothell case. The voice on the other end may not be confused. It may simply be hungry.
12. More Terrifying and Mysterious Stories
- The Echo Is Still in Your Throat
- The Photobomber
- The Canary in the Shaft
- The Sandbox at Hollow Creek
References
- Fox 13 Seattle. (2016, February 15). Bothell home haunted? Parapsychologists have proven it, resident says.
- Birmingham Mail. (2016, January 9). Black Eyed Child investigator jets out to probe Seattle poltergeist haunting.
- IMDb. (2016). User-submitted review of "Ghost Adventures: Demons in Seattle".
- Fox 13 Seattle. (2016, January 24). Haunted house in Western Washington gets international attention.
- HeraldNet. (2018, June 13). Book chronicles the haunting of a 'Bothell Hell House'.
- Wikipedia. List of Ghost Adventures episodes ("Demons in Seattle", Season 10, Episode 10, aired 28 February 2015).