As an adult, I have become used to entering a property and being able to just 'feel' a presence- I once lived in a shared house where I could sense a man on the stairs(even in daylight) and he was not a nice man at all, I moved out after a week.

In another shared house myself and other occupants used to experience minor poltergeist activity - taps turning on, things being moved, foot-steps - but it didn't have the same oppressive feeling as the first house.

In my current home, a rented flat, I was once cooking tea and waiting for my partner to return home from work. I had never felt uncomfortable there before. Then I felt someone breathing on my neck and turned round to slap my partner for sneaking in and making me jump(!) only to find he wasn't there - he didn't come home until half an hour later.

I have had some horrible experiences when staying at my aunt's house - I used to stay there most weekends and mostly would sleep in my cousin's room but occasionally I would have to sleep on the sofa in the living room. Every time I had to sleep here, I would be woken in the night by something sitting on my legs but it would obviously be gone by the time I turned on the light. A former house-mate has said she thinks I may be 'encouraging' spirits by offering them (subconsciously) a channel - I know this can sometimes happen in adolescents but I'm 27, of sane mind, and work for Cambridgeshire Social Services (maybe a contradiction in terms there)!!

The only time I think I have clearly seen a spirit is when I was in my first job in a warehouse in Swavesey, near St Ives. The whole site has now been turned into housing. The toilet was in a tiny bricked up corner with the sink outside. I'd had an accident with a toner one day and was trying frantically to wash the black powder off my hands when I glanced into the mirror above the sink and saw the IT bloke standing behind me waiting to use the sink. I said "I won't be a minute, Mick" and moved aside to let him use the sink - but he wasn't there. I was really annoyed that he couldn't have waited so stalked off through the warehouse to find him. I eventually found him back in his office which he couldn't have got to without passing me through the warehouse & he denied being at the sink - he was definitely not the sort of person to be involved in a wind-up. I was a bit shaken and went to speak to the warehouse manager, who told me that he had often seen someone in the warehouse when loading the vans at night ready for the next mornings deliveries but no-one could get in as the vans were parked inside the warehouse with the doors locked whilst they were loaded.

I have one story from elsewhere - my partner's family own a hotel in Cornwall which they were told is haunted when they bought it some years ago. The story they were told is that an old lady was locked in the attic of one of the three houses which are now knocked together to make the hotel, and starved to death. When I first stayed there I knew it was haunted and I knew the name of the spirit but not the story - I had imagined the spirit to be a little girl. On my first night there I had a really vivid dream of an old lady and I could see so much detail. I told my partner the next day and he told me to tell his sister. When I described the old lady, his sister said it was exactly the same as the spirit she has seen- not a little girl at all! I never feel comfortable staying there, and after my first visit, have never stayed in the haunted side of the hotel again - but I still feel 'on edge' the whole time I am there. There are various stories about staff being frightened by the old lady, and she apparently pushed my mother-in-law down the stairs once but the strangest thing is a red admiral butterfly which is always in the room she supposedly died in. I't's been swept out of the window and the window shut - only to be back on the window when the maids go in the next day. It was there at Christmas -despite the cold.

Ammanda from Cambridge