Haunted Basement?

For my second true ghost story, I will take you to our basement.
It is a finished basement (mostly), with TV, couch, pool table, kids'
games, computers, pinball machine, air hockey, slot machine, etc.

Hubby decided to rearrange #1 son's room. He had bought the
boy a large chest of drawers soon after we moved into the house.
We all went to pick it out at a second-hand furniture store. It
did not fit with the new layout of the bedroom, so Hubby took
it to the basement and we stored out-of-season clothes in it.

I don't know how soon odd things began to happen, because
I did not make a connection with this furniture until a couple of
years after it was moved. I was reading an old book called
Haunted Heartland by Beth Scott and Michael Norman, and
there was a story about a table that made knocking sounds.
It creeped me out, to think someone could be so attached to
furniture that he would hang around it after death. It doesn't
seem possible in my logical world.

So...#1 son's room had stopped being cold. The basement
was cold, but all basements are, so that didn't seem odd to
me. Here are some things that happened in the basement:

One light bulb would go out and then on again. No, this was
not a bulb burning out. No pop or sizzling sound. One minute
it was on, then it was off. Only one bulb. The first time, I told
Hubby we blew a light bulb. Being Hubby, it took him about
3 days to put one in. After 2 days, the light came back on. I
told him not to bother. "How can it be blown and come back
on?" he said. It was on a couple days, then did it again. Hubby
put a new one in. "Must be a bad bulb." The new one lasted
about a day. Same thing. On for a while, then off for a few
hours or days. Hubby put in a third one. It worked about a
week. Then...

One night around 11:30 p.m., I was done watching TV and
walked toward the steps to go up to bed. You know how
you get those creepy feelings that something isn't right? I
had one. I thought, "Oh, don't you dare go out now, you
stupid light." And it did. It went right out. The hair on the
back of my neck stood up, and I ran up those steps and
turned out all the basement lights. Creepy creepy creepy.
The next morning it came on, and it stayed on.

Two other odd things happened. #1 son took a picture
of our new fake electric fireplace with his digital camera.
He showed me the picture, and I said, "What's that?"
He said, "I don't know. It wasn't there in the preview."
It was a purple sphere of light in the fireplace, between
the fake logs and the glass. I thought it must be a reflection.
"Mom, I had the flash turned off." That creeped us out, too.
He lost that picture when his computer crashed, or I would
post it.

Now here's the big deal. I saw a man in the basement.
Another late night. I only had the lamp on, not the overhead
lights. As my usual routine, I turned off the TV, then the lamp,
then used the dim light from the TV upstairs to climb the steps.
I had just enough light to see to walk around the furniture, and
where the bottom steps started. As I was walking to the steps,
there was a man in front of me. Not directly, but about a
two-o'clock position. I was startled, and sidestepped to avoid
running into him. He was shorter than me, and had no head.
He was wearing an old-time kind of black suit, with a white
shirt with an old-time kind of collar that sticks up and doesn't
flap over. There were black buttons down the white shirt. No
tie. He looked solid, not see-through. He didn't move or say
anything. Then, after about 3 seconds, he faded away. Of
course I ran upstairs, because I don't like to see thingies in my
basement.

The next day I started harping at Hubby to put in a light switch
downstairs, too, not just at the top of the steps. So he did. Now
I make sure to turn on the overhead lights, then turn off the lamp
and TV. Then I can turn the other lights off when I get upstairs.
Not taking any chances of seeing my man again.

The chest of drawers had been moved across the room in another
furniture moving session about a year before I saw the man. The
light had stopped going off. Hubby has since put in a different
kind of light bulbs. They have all remained on. Nothing creepy
has happened for about a year now. And #1 son sleeps on
the couch in the basement. Is he nuts? I wouldn't do that for
a hundred bucks. He does, though. No night lights or anything.

Was it the furniture? Am I just nuts? Why do these things happen
to me?

Tomorrow....Smells, sounds, and night-time visitors.