Life After Paranormals: Season 2, Episode 2

Elaine Mercado recalls how her dream house in Brooklyn suddenly turned into a nightmare as depicted in "Brooklyn Haunting."

Can you explain the hauntings that went on in your house?
Well, I don't see it as just ghosts. I mean, the people I brought in, they said, "There are dead people in your basement." I don't see it like that. I had the sense that something happened, I'm just not convinced it's always dead people. It could be other dimensions, I'm just not sure, so I can't say, "I definitely know what it was."

What I believe is that it was a combination of us being sensitive, and the fact that I was having a difficult relationship with my first husband at the time. And I think the negative energy attracted a lot of this.

So how did this experience change you? Had you grown up believing in the paranormal?
Not at all. I was brought up to believe it didn't exist. And so I didn't until that house. And I still wonder—why would it be confined to a house? But it was. We—my, my kids, my husband and brother—would be sitting at the dining room table and suddenly see three balls of light and be like, "Did you just see that?" My children—well, they're not children now, they're grown and I'm a grandmother—but they remember their childhood as magical because of this. They're like, "We wish you didn't sell the house, if we had the money we'd buy it from you!"

I just started a blog about the paranormal, and my husband and I just eat up paranormal shows on television. It's like we're still looking for answers.

You eventually did sell the house?
Yes, but not because of the hauntings. My mother passed away and my father was living alone, so we sold the house and moved in with him. We begged him to move to our house, but what are you going to tell a 90-year-old? You have to move?

Did the hauntings continue in the new house?
The first night we were there, I went down to the basement and suddenly thought, "I'm alone. I'm really alone!" It's the first time I'd felt that way in awhile. But since my parents passed away we get orbs—my dog has chased orbs. I think the whole experience made us more sensitive. And we've taken pictures of orbs with our cameras, even on vacation.

Had you researched the history of your house after the hauntings began?
I did, but all I found out was that it had changed hands several times very quickly. When we were selling the house, New York State law required that you inform a prospective buyer that your house is haunted. So I showed the buyer my book and he said, "That's crap." Not in a personal way, just that he was a religious man and saw it as nonsense. And that was it. I live ten blocks away now, and I drive by sometimes. But would I buy the house back if I had the money? No.