Hi. My name is Yang De Ming and I am a junior sales representative of a medium sized real estate company. I studied something definitely not related to real estate, something my dad said wouldn't feed me for life and asked me to get a proper job so here I am working in this company. My boss is this middle age Chinese uncle, almost my dad's age but definitely a little younger than him, late 40s or so. He is usually a quiet man and taught me what I needed to know and scolded me when I screw up, the usual, not that I screw up a lot, I promise. I'm 28 years already so I thought it is pretty irresponsible for me to continue screwing things up. Also, I can't screw that many times up since my cousin brother from my mom's side was the one who introduced me to this job. I screw some more and I'll be the topic of discussion for those vicious tattle-tale aunties the next Chinese New Year celebration gathering, guaranteed.
My job is pretty simple. Unlike other real-estate companies, I'm not actively required to go out to look for clients because well, clients come to us. A lot of them and for one reason only because our listings offers technically some of the cheapest properties for sale and rent in town and so desperate people, budget-savvy people, adventurous people, weird people, you name it, come to us to save nickels or two. Or save many nickels.
Anyway the reason why our listings are cheap because well, my company specializes in what would you called "problem properties" or in common term, stigmatized properties. These are what one would commonly referred to as haunted houses or rooms or places, whatever you wanted to call it. It's all those places with unfavorable histories.
I get to hear all sorts of stories but usually from my seniors or boss who goes on the actual property viewing, property checks before and after rentals and before and after purchasing. Oh, I forget to tell you, my company buys up some of those scary places too, for investments they say. For folks from all kinds of backgrounds and for all the reasons you can and never imagine off. I mentioned I don't need to go out of the shop because according to my boss, I was not ready to deal with the scary bit. What he meant, when I asked, he said, I will learn in due time. So until I'm allowed to go on actual viewings, I'll just share with you stories I heard.
So this case happened just recently and it was my own boss's case. Last month, he sold this beautiful double-storey house just an hour away from the city to a family of three. There is a mother, a father and a school of high school age son of 17. The history that happened to the house was a sad one. The previous owners was also a family of three, the exact match in fact. A mother, a father and also a high school age son of 17. Unfortunately for some reason, the son committed suicide and his suicide note was apparently found eaten in his stomach. The police couldn't decipher what was written or why the boy ate the note. That was three years ago.
The house was sold to my company by the grieving parents who moved away soon after and then was left empty until the new owners came along and bought it. It was the son who fell in love with the house and insisted his parents get that house despite my boss explaining the history of the house. In my country, it is a stated law to disclose the history of a property to the buyer or risk law suits if the buyer finds out later.
So all that happened last month and today, I saw the lady who bought the house came sobbing in the office. Since our company space is pretty small and only board dividers to create make-shifts consultation rooms, well, everyone can pretty much hear everyone.
"You have to help us, Master, please," she sobbed.
Oh, for some unknown reason, sometimes there would be people referring my boss as Master. Why is that again, my boss said it's not time for me to know yet. From what I heard from between her sobbing, ever since she and the family moved into the house, strange things started happening.
Let me list down. First, every time she lit an incense for the family prayer altar, the incense will always go out not even halfway through. Which was weird. At first the lady thought it was the wind but when it happened almost daily. Second, she started observing how strange her son was behaving recently starting with sitting by the door of the house for hours at a time as if he was in a trance. He usually does not have any recollection of what he was doing outside until his parents shook him awake. Third, the lady of the house started to notice his son bringing home friend or friends but she never saw them enter or leave the house. Fourth, she caught the boy doing the hand deed in his bedroom frequently.
The other three incidents sounded weird but umm, the fourth, for me, well, her son IS a teenage boy. My boss said the exact thing.
"But the way he sounded and what not, it sounded as if he was doing it with someone else!" the poor lady looked not only miserable but like she was so desperate. She begged again for my boss to help to which he only nodded. He picked up his phone (yeah, PHONE, not smart phone) and (actually) pressed some numbers and called someone. I only found out who much later.
Not a moment too soon, he left the office with the lady.
When I asked my seniors, everyone told me what I already knew and they were also as curious as I was but then again, we could only wait until my boss come back to tell us what happened next.