This is a story about my grandparents’ house—something I’m really not supposed to tell anyone.
Everything I’m about to write actually happened, so I hope you’ll read it.
It’s a bit long, so please bear with me.
This happened last July.
My grandfather and grandmother had already passed away in a nursing home, and since no one was looking after their old house, it had fallen completely into ruin.
Normally, my mother’s older sister—the eldest daughter—should have inherited the house and land because of how inheritance usually works in Japan. ※
But for some reason, she and her husband stubbornly refused to accept it and completely waived their rights.
So the responsibility ended up being dumped on us.
※ Cultural note:
In traditional Japanese families, especially in rural areas, it’s common for the eldest child—often the eldest son, but in some regions the eldest child regardless of gender—to inherit the family home (“本家”). It’s considered a duty, not just a privilege.
At the time, I figured it was just because the place was deep in the mountains and my aunt and uncle were used to city life—they probably weren’t interested at all.
But even my mother sighed and said, “Now we’ve got a real burden on our hands.”
In any case, since our family was now inheriting the house and land, the three of us—my parents and I—headed out there to do a big clean-up.
Even for me, it had been about ten years since I last visited. It really was out in the sticks—deep, deep in the mountains. (It was near a mountain famous for bears coming all the way down to the base.)
Since the place had been neglected for so long, the grass between the gate and the front entrance of the main house was waist-high and completely overgrown.
My dad had brought a weed-whacker, but even he looked defeated.
For the moment, we decided to go inside the house.
Inside was a total mess—spider webs everywhere, dead bugs all over the floor, and stink bugs clinging to the walls. ※
The smell was awful, everything was filthy, and I was already wondering why I had to clean up a place like this.
To be honest, I was already depressed before we even started.
※ Cultural note:
カメムシ (kame-mushi) = “stink bugs.”
They’re notorious in Japanese countryside homes; the smell is extremely strong and lingers, so this detail immediately signals “abandoned rural house.”
スポンサーリンク
It was impossible to clean everything in just a day or two.
So for the moment, I started searching through the rooms to see if there was anything valuable left behind.
Since the gas, water, and electricity were all shut off, I worked while holding a flashlight.
Of course, there were no valuables—just clothes and trash everywhere.
When I was in elementary school, I used to play at this house, but soon after my parents built a new home, they moved away from my grandparents.
So I didn’t really have many memories of the place.
I stuffed old photos and books into trash bags without thinking twice.
I had been told the main house (“母屋”※) was over 110 years old, so I imagine it must have been quite impressive in the past.
My grandfather had several younger brothers, and all of them—including him—had been officers in the Imperial Japanese Army.
(Apparently all of them died in the war.)
There were even old wooden rifles hanging on the walls—like training rifles—giving the whole place a kind of wartime vibe.
「母屋（もや）」= the main building of a traditional Japanese household, often part of a larger family estate.
At some point I stopped caring about cleaning and started wanting to “explore” the house instead.
So I wandered around the backyard, the shed where farming tools were stored, and other places.
While exploring, I realized that the main house actually had an attic.
Naturally, I wanted to take a look.
I grabbed a long-handled branch cutter that was nearby, used it to push up the wooden ceiling panel with a frame, and popped it open.
My mom said, “Don’t go poking around up there—there are probably rats crawling all over,”
but I climbed onto the shoe cabinet and pulled myself up into the attic anyway.
The space was full of dust and rat droppings, and the outside light leaked in through gaps in the rotting boards.
It was a lot bigger than I expected, but there wasn’t anything noteworthy—just very old farming tools and a broken windmill toy.
After all the trouble of climbing up, I was disappointed.
But as I looked around with my flashlight, I noticed something on a wall in the corner of the attic.
It looked like a poster.
Since my eyesight is bad, I walked across the filthy, rat-dropping-covered floor to get closer.
When I got closer, I realized that what looked like a poster was actually a sheet of paper pasted to the wall.
The paper was yellowed, and something had been written with a brush.
The calligraphy was too elegant for me to read, but I could make out “大正二年 (Taishō 2nd year).”※
So I figured it must have been written by my grandfather or someone from his generation.
※Cultural note:
“Taishō 2” = 1913.
Japan often dates documents using the era name + year.
What puzzled me was that the paper wasn’t a single sheet—it was multiple sheets layered on top of each other.
They were firmly pasted together with rice paste—a traditional Japanese glue made from rice grains.
There were about ten layers, stuck together front-to-back, which struck me as strange.
The whole bundle was also glued directly to the wooden wall.
Curious about what it was, I decided to peel it off from the corner so I could show it to my mom.
It didn’t come off cleanly; part of the backing paper remained stuck to the wooden board.
But then I saw something that made my skin crawl.
Written vertically in old brush strokes on the exposed wood was something like:
“The ○○ family — Do not open — Forbidden … ”
(Some characters were kanji I had never seen before, so I couldn’t read them.)
I didn’t understand the meaning, but a vague, instinctive fear washed over me.
I forgot all about showing the sheet to my mother and hurried down from the attic in a panic.
When I told my mother what had happened, right as she was cleaning the living room,
she suddenly screamed, “So THAT’S where it was!?”,
and ran to the entrance hall.
Then, like she had lost her mind, she started frantically putting the ceiling panel of the attic back into place.
I had no idea what was going on.
I just stood there in the living room in shock, watching my mother in disbelief.
After replacing the panel, she shoved the shoe cabinet—which I had climbed on—onto its side, then ran up to me and yelled:
“Did you open it!? Did you SEE it!? Answer me honestly!!”
(To this day, the terrifying look on her face is burned into my memory. She was like a completely different person.)
All I could say was,
“No, no… I didn’t see anything, really…”
trying to calm her down even though I didn’t understand what was happening.
She was yelling so loudly that my father, who had been cutting weeds outside, came running in asking,
“What’s going on?”
After confirming that I truly didn’t know anything, my mother let out a sigh of relief—
and then immediately shouted again:
“You idiot!!”
Once things settled down, my mother made me promise not to tell my younger brother.
Then she finally explained the situation.
When my mother was a child, there had been a room in this house known as
“the room you must never enter.”
Her parents had repeatedly warned her about it since she was little.
Apparently, somewhere in this house there was such a room,
and they said that “if you go inside it, you’ll be cursed.”
Because of that, my mother developed a deep fear of the place.
When she went to school in the morning, she would stay outside playing until evening
just to avoid coming home.
This “forbidden room” had existed since my great-grandfather’s generation.
One of my great-grandfather’s older brothers—whoever he was—was strict to the point of cruelty.
To punish his child, he would lock them inside a wooden box about a meter square,
close the lid, and place a tsukemono-ishi, a heavy stone used for making pickles, on top. ※
※ Cultural note:
漬物石 (tsukemono-ishi) = a very heavy stone placed on pickles to press them.
Using one as a weight on a box would completely prevent escape.
One day, for some reason, the child died inside the box.
The funeral was held in the summer.
After that incident, strange things began happening in the house.
The lids of food boxes, lunch boxes, and any kind of container
would somehow be removed on their own.
The heavy pickling stones placed on sealed barrels in the storehouse—
no matter how many times they were set—
would mysteriously end up under the eaves outside.
I actually remember hearing this story from my grandfather a few times before he died.
Apparently, the family performed many purifying rituals at the time,
and the box was kept in the house for forty-nine days for memorial rites. ※
※ Cultural note:
四十九日 (shijūkunichi) = 49th-day Buddhist memorial.
In Japan, the spirit of the deceased is believed to transition during this period.
But when the men of the family were drafted into the war,
the remaining family members were so disturbed by the cursed box
that they hid it somewhere out of sight inside the house.
Thus, a small hidden room—one that shouldn’t exist based on the floor plan—was created,
and the box was sealed away inside it.
In the end, my grandparents never revealed the location of the room,
not even to their daughters.
But I had seen that attic wall.
At that one spot—where the layers of paper had been pasted—
there was no sunlight leaking through, unlike the other areas.
That meant the space behind that wall was the “forbidden room.”
(My mother didn’t explicitly say this, but I could tell she didn’t want to.)
The multiple layers of paper pasted on the wall were probably a type of ofuda—
protective talismans—meant to seal something extremely dangerous.
They must have layered them because the curse or resentment was so strong.
But the horror didn’t end there.
After giving up on the cleaning, the three of us went home.
My younger brother—who had been home alone—saw us and immediately asked:
“Hey… what happened with that stone?”
My skin crawled.
Later, we asked him what he meant.
He said that the three of us—my mom, my dad, and me—had walked into the house carrying a huge pickling stone.
Final Part of the Story
Since then, my family has never spoken about that incident again.
We all felt it was something we must not touch.
Naturally, we never go near the old house anymore,
and I don’t even want to think about what’s in that attic room.
Even now, I’m convinced the resentment trapped in that tiny hidden room is still lingering there.
797 (Anonymous Poster): 2006/08/07 22:29:40
>>787
Thanks for the story.
I’m curious though—if it’s something you shouldn't talk about, why post it on 2ch?
Also, does that mean your younger brother saw something that wasn’t actually there?
※ Cultural note:
In Japanese forums like 2ch, users reply to specific posts using “>>787”.
800 (Post No.787 Responds): 2006/08/07 22:44:12
Why did you decide to talk about it?
It’s been about a year since it happened, so I tried to recollect everything and write it out.
It scared me so much that I thought sharing it with others might help ease the burden.
And honestly, I do feel a little lighter now.
About your brother—did he see something that wasn’t real?
Yes.
He said the three of us were carrying a huge pickling stone as if it weighed nothing.
But the moment we stepped into the house, the stone just vanished.
