For a year, the Smurls lived upstairs, terrified of the door at the bottom of the stairs. The activity died down significantly. But the curiosity was too much. Jack, wanting to retrieve Christmas decorations, eventually opened the door. According to his testimony, as soon as he stepped onto the top stair, the lights exploded, and he was hurled backward into the kitchen, landing with a broken wrist. The Smurls eventually moved out in 1988. They sold the house at a massive loss. The new owners? They reported absolutely nothing unusual for decades. The house on Pennsylvania Avenue stands today, quiet and unassuming, with a basement that is now a finished game room.
For most people, a “fixer-upper” means peeling wallpaper, creaky floorboards, and a stubborn water stain on the ceiling. For the Smurl family of West Pittston, Pennsylvania, it meant something far worse. It meant a doorway. the smurl family
The entity found its voice. It started as a low growl emanating from the basement stairs. Then, it whispered names. One night, Jack was thrown from his bed by an invisible force. When he hit the floor, he heard a gravelly voice say, "This is my house. Get out." For a year, the Smurls lived upstairs, terrified
Initially, the entity behaved like a bored teenager. Pictures flew off walls. Bedsheets were ripped off sleeping bodies. Dishes stacked themselves into precarious towers in the middle of the night. Jack tried to rationalize it—settling foundation, faulty wiring, pranksters. But then the shadows started moving. Dark, human-shaped silhouettes would dart from room to room, seen only in the periphery. They sold the house at a massive loss
For the Smurls, Pennsylvania Avenue was just the address. Hell was the passenger.
Janet was the first to notice it: the smell. A foul, sickly sweet odor of rotting meat mixed with sulfur that would waft through the house, then vanish. Soon after, the furniture started moving. Not the subtle, "did-I-leave-the-window-open?" kind of movement. This was a heavy armchair sliding across the living room floor while the family watched TV . The haunting didn’t come all at once. It escalated in three terrifying waves, as documented by renowned demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren (yes, those Warrens).
This is the story of 1754 Pennsylvania Avenue. Jack and Janet Smurl moved into the duplex in 1973. It was a modest home, but it was theirs. For the first 12 years, life was normal. The only oddity was the basement—a dark, damp pit that gave visitors an unexplained sense of dread. But the Smurls weren't the type to believe in boogeymen.