A woman who believed she was moving into her ideal home realised it had a very dark secret.
Brandi Lockhart moved in with her closest friend Alex, her cat, and Sabrina, her third flatmate.
She had no idea that their ‘fourth housemate’ would flip their life upside down.
Brandi was initially relieved to no longer be living with a’stranger,’ having known Alex for a long time, and she was able to disregard Sabrina’s creepy side, such as keeping candles blazing in her room and religious symbols on her walls.
Brandi, who grew up in a Catholic family, did not want ‘any part’ of organised religion as an adult.
‘But I didn’t make the right decision,’ she warns, as she tells her story for the first time in discovery+’s Eli Roth presents: A Ghost Ruined My Life.
‘It was really nice,’ Brandi recalls in a confessional, remembering how she felt ‘safe’ and ‘comfortable’.
However, everything suddenly altered when odd happenings occurred at night.
Brandi would hear someone tapping on her window or on the walls, only to discover that the corridor was empty.
She dismissed it as ‘pipes in the wall’ at the time, but was left ‘uneasy’ when Alex claimed not to have heard anything.
Brandi considered decorating the house at one time, wishing to trim the ivy growing around the property.
As the ‘ivy’ bled on her windowsill, she discovered her error. But she was still to be kept in the dark about the house’s terrible secret.
When Brandi continued hearing knocks but seeing nothing, Sabrina told her: ‘I think that just because someone’s knocking, doesn’t mean you should answer.’
Brandi decided to knock back one night to put an end to it. In a confessional, she admits, “that was just the beginning.”
She became aware that something was observing her and that she was ‘in the presence of something wicked’.
She felt like she was in a ‘horror movie’ since she and her companions weren’t alone.
‘You feel like you’re in the middle of a forest and something is watching you,’ she says.
‘I get goosebumps. My hair is on edge.’
Brandi adds: ‘It’s a constant feeling of paranoia, there’s something uninvited here.’
Brandi eventually realised that whatever ‘insidious’ power was haunting the house was utilising the ivy to’manifest’.
‘The uneasiness and heaviness in the air, it was there,’ she says.
She was left wondering what was going on at the moment, but she knew that ‘it had to go’ regardless of who or what was behind it.
‘There was an outside influence on why there was conflict that wasn’t there before,’ she said, after disagreements with her housemates and tensions grew thanks to the ghost.
‘I felt like I was being oppressed,’ she recalled, as she felt the presence growing stronger, making her feel ‘helpless’ and like she was ‘fighting for [her] soul’.
The most horrifying episode came when Brandi began choking and coughing up blood-soaked ivy one day.
‘I’m in my own horror movie at this point, and I’m losing direction of the movie.’
‘I felt like I was in a fight for my soul,’ she adds.
Brandi was eventually left searching for answers regarding their neighbourhood’s ‘dark and gory’ past when some awful incidents occurred.
She suddenly realised she had welcomed the spirit into their houses by banging back against the walls. She was resolved to fight back immediately.
‘I went from wanting to give up,’ Brandi began, to ‘needing to get it out the house.’
Brandi sensed a mysterious force squeezing her with its claws one night, waking up her housemates with her cries.
Unsurprised by the circumstances, Sabrina wondered whether Brandi had allowed ‘it’ back in and quickly left, followed by Alex, leaving Brandi alone.
‘It effected me really bad,’ Brandi tearfully admitted, saying she thought it had targeted her because she had ‘rejected’ organised religion.
‘You invited this thing in because you didn’t stay on the path you were put on,’ she thought.
She continues: ‘The situation was frightening because I didn’t have control, I didn’t know how to get out of it.’
Despite not feeling safe in her own house, Brandi couldn’t afford to leave and was forced to confront her issues.
Making the ultimate decision to go, Brandi confronted the devil one last time, only to find the most horrifying encounter waiting for her.
When confronted by the ivy demon, Brandi screamed.
She says: ‘I was gone and I felt a weight had been lifted off of me when I moved on.’
Brandi has no idea what happened to her in that place, but she feels like a ‘new person’ today.
Despite this, she is always ‘looking over her shoulder’ and checking for shadows that ‘shouldn’t be there.’
‘I’m in control now, and nobody can hurt me,’ she tearfully concludes.
Eli Roth Presents: A Ghost Ruined My Life is available to watch on discovery+.
