What was lurking in the basement of one family that had them afraid to go downstairs? INSIDE EDITION went into the dark quarters to find out.
Maureen Tedesco is terrified about something in her house.
She told INSIDE EDITION, “I feel that I’m not alone when I’m down there. I’m sure there’s critters living up there.”
Maureen, a mother of two, has lived in her Clifton, New Jersey home her entire life. It once belonged to her grandparents.
He husband, Tony, said, “She won't go down there at night.”
And their 11-year-old daughter, Riley is spooked too. She said, “I’m very afraid. Only because I feel like there is a presence down there."
What is everyone so afraid of? The basement.
Maureen says she'll only go down to the basement when she absolutely has to. Her basement is dark and cluttered with all kinds of stuff. Maureen only comes down to do the laundry.
As she walked down the stairs, she said, “I’m getting nervous right now.”
And then, there's the scariest part of this scary place.
She said, “This is really scary. Really, really, really scary.”
Behind a wooden door, there is a back cellar that once served as a coal room and it is filled with cob webs.
She said, “I’m getting chills. Hard to breath down here. It’s scary, absolutely, scary.”
So, is it a figment of Maureen’s imagination? Or is there anything down here that justifies such heart palpitations? INSIDE EDITION tried to find out.
Once nighttime fell, we went to see what was lurking. Her basement is being invaded by mice.
Our surveillance camera's caught them emerging from cracks in the wall and roaming the basement freely.
Maureen is not alone in her fears. Barbara Vente, a retired ER nurse, also thinks there's something incredibly spooky going on in her basement.
She said, “I call them the monsters in my basement. I can't stand a thing with a tail.”
She took extreme measures to seal off the door and even stuffed a towel under the door jam, but it became all chewed up.
Vente held up the chewed towel and said, “I am shaking, just terrifying to me.”
Every now and then with great reluctance, Vente just has to venture down into her basement. But first, she bangs on the door. Then, she makes her way down the stairs.
“I am shaking,” she said.
Her basement is cluttered with her deceased mother's belongings and lurking somewhere is, who knows what?
Vente has had enough. She decided to hire exterminator Jim Dreisacker from Westchester Wildlife Control in Westchester, New York.
He set up traps around the basement and sure enough, in the morning her fears turn out to be very real. In the trap is one dead rat!
Maureen made the same decision and she called Alliance Pest Services. Hopefully those mouse traps will do the trick!
"It is stuff that I can't see that I am afraid of," said Maureen.
So two women, they have never met, they don't know each other, but like a lot of us they have one thing in common. They won't go in the basement.
