Family Sues NJ Landlord For Deposit, Saying House is Haunted

In related news, will someone pay off my car loan because I think there’s a yeti in the trunk?

A New Jersey couple and a prominent orthodontist in Toms River, NJ, are locked in a legal battle after the former says that a house rented from the latter prompted the couple and their two kids to flee… because it is allegedly haunted. The lawsuit alleges that ghosts or other paranormal entities (none of which have ever left conclusive evidence they exist in the whole of human history) made the lives of Josue Chinchilla and Michele Callan hell for the week during which they resided in the house, forcing the family to flee to a one-room hotel accommodation in horror.

Among the accusations Chinchilla and Callan make in court are that some entity is stalking the basement, clothes were flung from their drawers, disembodied voices were recorded whispering threatening things like “let it burn,” and that the family felt they would be in mortal danger should they stay in the house. (Sorry, it was me. I was listening to Usher.) Is anyone thinking what I’m thinking here? I think you are: reality show!

A lawyer for Dr. Richard Lopez, the home’s owner and probably some sort of secret warlock, pointed fingers at Callan and Chinchilla, saying they are probably having difficulty affording the $1,500 in rent each month:

“Frankly, there is something else going on… She is a single mom, she has this fiancé living with her. I think she is in over her head and she can’t afford the rent. She needed to show her ex, the father of her kids, that she has a good place for them to live.”

Callan points out that for all the money she spent moving into the den of Satan, she could have just gone straight to the hotel:

“I would not have given anyone $4,000 (deposit and rent) to stay somewhere, just to pick up and leave seven days later. I would not have hired a moving truck, packed and unpacked, had my mother take off time from work to watch the kids. The whole idea was to get a nice, big home for the kids… But there’s no way I’m going back there.”

Paranormal investigators who later examined the house corroborated a haunting of some sort.