It's October. Fall has officially begun and for many, it's not just hoodie season, it's scary season!

What could possibly be scary when buying a home, or selling one? I could write a few dozen books about what I've seen in my almost 40 years as a Realtor. Since my editor requested something spooky-malookie for this week's Halloween issue, here's a few highlights that I've personally witnessed:

When we were going through a vacant bungalow just before sunset, my buyers and I found an old wicker wheelchair similar to the one in the Alfred Hitchcock movie, Psycho, in the basement. Yeah, that was creepy, but what was worse was that it was kind of rocking back and forth when we discovered it.

Nope! We were out of there so fast we were crawling up each other's backs getting up the stairs and out of the place!

Yes, I have seen a ghost at a property. It was in the heat of summer in a vacant home in the Marmalade. My client had just walked from the front door through the living room and entered the kitchen. I was right behind. The home was stifling hot, and the summer flies (big ones) were attempting suicide against the windows to get out, making weird banging noises as they flew into the glass at top speed and then ending upside down on the window sill. There were hundreds of them.

As the client kept going, I looked up from the fly graveyard to my right. It was then that I saw an adult, white male dressed as an 1800s miner with a hard hat with a half-burned candle on it. He looked at me, not with any malice, and walked directly into the wall and disappeared.

I've had several sellers tell me tales of their haunted houses. Two that I remember are still located in the 9th & 9th area.

One possessed house wouldn't let the owners put nails in the walls. Any time they tried to hang a picture, a painting or curtains, the nails would go flying back at them. And yes, the cabinets would bang closed in the middle of the night just like you've seen in "B" horror movies. They ended up calling a witch who came in and read the house and talked to the spirit. I don't remember what she said but the cabinets settled down, and they were able to hang curtains. There were still troubles with the nails, though.

The other home—just down the street from the first—had voices in the attic. The owners discovered that the owner in the 1930s was fighting Prohibition by making whisky in the home and hiding it up there.

What's spooky now? The Federal Reserve raising interest rates by another 0.75%. That means interest rates on mortgages are going to go up.

Home sales across the nation have slowed during the past seven months, but prices aren't dropping. Homes are sitting longer on the market, and Utah is among the top states for price reductions. Buyers and sellers are feeling scared in this spooky market, and there's more adjusting coming.