My sister Carol and her husband, Roger, raised three boys in a small ranch house on Seneca Avenue in the town of Middlesex, New Jersey. Little did they know that when they moved in, a coffin lay buried under their home.

One day Roger was poking around in the dirt floor of the crawl space when he came upon a wide piece of wood. As he pushed aside the dirt with a long stick, he saw what he believed was the lid of a coffin.Unable to dig deeper due to the limited space, he and Carol went on a mission to find out who or what might be buried under their house.Their research led to the Malek family who originally owned the house in the early 1900s. Mr. Malek, well-known as the neighborhood prankster, was the postmaster of Middlesex. Small town talk said he was having an affair with a young married woman who lived down the street.One day Malek suddenly disappeared without a trace. Some say his wife, who was trying to have his child, found out about his infidelity, but she was never charged with a crime. Meanwhile, she had a small bedroom, oddly located next to the kitchen, built onto the existing house.The coffin lies under this bedroom.Neighbors would often see Mrs. Malek standing outside, rubbing her hands gently over the walls of the new addition.That's where the facts end and the ghost story begins.Carol called a man to remove the wooden box from under the house, but once he saw the lid of the coffin, an invisible force of some kind pushed him away from the crawl space. He refused the job, got in his truck and sped away.They called another company. To remove the box, the entire house would have to be lifted up with cranes at a cost of thousands of dollars.So the surmised coffin remained in the crawl space. Soon strange events began to occur inside the home. A mysterious gooey substance appeared on the walls of the small bedroom. Even after cleaning, painting and wallpapering, the substance reappeared.Lights in the house would go on and off on their own, even when no one was home. The television would turn on by itself, puzzling Roger who searched everywhere in an attempt to find a logical explanation.One night, their son was sitting with his girlfriend on the couch when suddenly, the stereo system turned on by itself, blasting music so loud that the young couple ran out of the house.Furniture moved across rooms. Missing plants would be found days later in strange locations. Frustrated, Carol sought help from a psychic medium.It appeared that Mr. Malek, the presumed body under the house, was a friendly but annoying spirit. Upon the medium's advice, whenever Malek demonstrated his presence, Carol would reprimand him with harsh words at the site of the mayhem."Now Malek, you stop fooling with the lights and the TV right now," she said. "I have guests coming over in an hour and I don't want them to be frightened away."The lights went back on. The TV shut off. Malek proved he was a good ghost who listened to Carol when he was told to behave.My sister and brother-in-law put their house up for sale, but prospective buyers who walked into that small bedroom scurried out of the house. Finally, Carol bargained with Malek that if he allowed the house to sell, he could come with them to their new home.The very next day, a woman bought the house.At their new home, Malek was up to his mischief again. Whenever Roger would go into the attic, all the Christmas ornaments were out of their boxes and spread all over the floor.Carol considered having a security alarm installed, but each time she would discuss the issue with Roger, strange noises were heard throughout the house. She was convinced that Malek believed he was the protector of their home.The family planned to move a third time to a house being built in another town. Guess who came along. When the builders did not follow the code of the construction contract, their tools were suddenly missing. When a worker argued with Carol about following the building plans, the man became so ill he had to leave the site. One day after the ladders were shaking while the men were standing on them, they hurried down and ran off the job. A whole new crew came to finish the construction correctly.Whenever their family would go away on vacation, Malek would scare anyone who came close by making loud noises in the house. Upon their return one time, Roger found a long steel spring that had been installed inside the locked garage doors lying in the driveway. Malek must have thrown it at someone who had come near.My sister has since passed away, and Roger now lives in Texas. Who knows where Malek, the ghost, is now?One thing appears certain.A coffin remains under the house on Seneca Avenue, likely occupied by a body that holds dark and untold secrets.Rich Strack can be reached at

katehep11@gmail.com.