600 Incidents: A Year-Long Paranormal Assault on a Washington Home — Ep. 35

In a quiet suburban neighborhood in Bothell, Washington, a family began experiencing unexplained disturbances inside their home. What started as small, dismissible events slowly escalated into more than 600 reported paranormal incidents over the course of a year, witnessed by multiple people. Objects moved, sounds followed occupants through the house, and visitors noticed disturbances without being told what to expect.

In this mini episode of State of the Unknown, Robert Barber tells the story of the Bothell Hell House exactly as it was reported by those who lived through it, before stepping back to examine what can be verified, what remains unclear, and why this case continues to be discussed decades later.

This episode explores how prolonged, relentless activity can wear down a household without a single dramatic breaking point, and what happens when a home stops feeling neutral and begins to push back against the people living inside it.

Further Reading & Research

The Bothell Hell House: Poltergeist of Washington State
A firsthand account from later occupants of the home, documenting repeated disturbances, physical activity, and multiple witnesses over an extended period of time.

Haunted America
A U.S.-focused overview of reported hauntings and long-running cases, offering historical and regional context for how stories like this one are recorded, shared, and debated.

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Chapters

• 0:00 A Home That Starts To Push Back
• 0:57 A Normal House In A Normal Neighborhood
• 2:15 From Quirks To An Aware Presence
• 4:38 Sleep Erodes And Tension Rises
• 7:30 Visitors Notice And Validate The Unrest
• 10:48 Counting Incidents And Reaching A Limit
• 14:02 Evidence, Limits, And Competing Theories
• 17:42 Aftermath, Media Interest, Open Questions
• 19:55 Takeaways And Listener Call To Action

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

You don't move into a house expecting it to push back. You expect quirks and noise. At first, that's exactly what this felt like. Small things that were easy to ignore. Sounds you could explain away if you didn't think about them too hard. But over time, the house stopped feeling neutral. Things began happening when people were present. Not dramatic events, just enough movement and disruption to make it hard to relax. Enough to make sleep difficult. And once that feeling sets in, it's hard to shake. Because this isn't a place you can leave at the end of the day. This is where you live. The house sat in a quiet suburban neighborhood, the kind of place where nothing about it would have raised concerns. It wasn't old, it wasn't isolated, and it wasn't known for anything unusual. A couple moved in expecting a normal home in a normal area. For a while, that's exactly what it was. What followed unfolded over the next several years as activity inside the house became harder to ignore and even harder to live with. Today we're headed to a residential neighborhood in Washington State, where a family living in an ordinary suburban home reported physical disturbances that gradually made the house difficult to stay inside. This is the story of the Both Hell House. Let's get into it. When the family first moved into the house in Bothel, nothing about it stood out. It was a normal place in a normal neighborhood. The kind of house where you expect to learn the creaks and quirks over time and then stop noticing them altogether. The first things that felt off were easy to ignore. A sound from another room when no one else was home, a door that didn't seem to be in the same position it was left in. The sense that someone had just moved through a space, even though everyone was accounted for. None of it happened often enough to feel urgent. It felt like the kind of thing you'd brush aside without mentioning. At first, that's exactly what they did. Houses make noise, air moves, floors shift, and once you start paying attention to a place, you notice things that you'd have missed before. Those explanations worked, especially during the day, when everything felt ordinary again. The house sounded different after dark. Not louder, just more active. Footsteps could be heard when no one was walking. A sound from upstairs would pull someone's attention, only to stop as soon as they listened for it. When they checked, there was never anything out of place. Sleep became uneven. At first, they didn't talk about it much. No one wanted to be the person who turned normal house noises into something bigger. So instead, they adjusted without really acknowledging why. Lights stayed on a little longer than usual. People paid it closer attention to where everyone else was in the house. It didn't feel like fear yet. It felt like caution, like learning how a place behaves. What made it harder to dismiss was that the activity didn't stay random. It started happening when people were present. Sounds followed movement through the house. If someone entered a room, something would happen somewhere else shortly after. Not dramatically, just enough to feel connected. By then, the house no longer felt neutral. It felt aware. And once that feeling set in, it changed how the family experienced being inside their own home. Once the activity started to feel connected to people being present, it became harder to ignore. Objects didn't stay where they were left. Things were moved just enough to be noticed, but not enough to make sense. A chair would be pulled out slightly from a table. Items left on counters ended up on the floor. Not thrown, not shattered, just displaced. No one ever saw it happen. That was part of the problem. There was never a moment you could point to and say, that's when it happened. People would leave a room, come back later, and immediately notice that something wasn't right. The longer they lived there, the quicker they picked up on those changes. The sounds changed too. Early on, the noises were easy to mistake for a house settling. Now they had wait. Footsteps were heard moving across the house, not randomly, but in a way that suggested direction, from one room to another, down a hallway, across the ceiling above where someone was standing. If someone stopped to listen, the sound often stopped too. That made it worse. Because it felt less like background noise and more like something reacting to attention, as if whatever was causing it knew when it was being noticed. Sleep became a problem for everyone. Nights were interrupted by movement or noise that didn't fully wake the house, but pulled people just far enough out of sleep that they couldn't relax again. Sometimes it was a sound. Sometimes it was just the sense that something had shifted nearby. People began waking up tense, already braced for the day. The lack of rest started to affect how the family interacted. Small disagreements escalated quickly. Everyone felt worn down. It wasn't just fear, it was the exhaustion of never fully letting your guard down. There were moments when activity happened close enough that it couldn't be brushed off. Sounds came from rooms that were clearly empty. Doors moved on their own. On more than one occasion, something fell or shifted while someone was nearby, close enough that they were certain no one else could have caused it. At that point, the explanation started to thin. You can dismiss one strange moment. You can even dismiss a handful. But when the same kinds of things happen over and over in different parts of the house at different times, it becomes harder to tell yourself its coincidence. The family began checking in with each other more often. If someone heard something, they asked if anyone else was responsible. When the answer was no, the silence that followed felt heavier than the noise itself. The house felt larger and somehow more crowded at the same time. Certain rooms became difficult to be in. It wasn't that anything specific happened there. It was the way those spaces felt. People didn't linger. If they needed to go into a room, they did what they needed to do and left. Doors were closed more often, not for privacy, but for a sense of control. By this point, the house had stopped feeling like a backdrop. It felt involved. Whatever was happening didn't follow a schedule, but it did follow presence. Activity increased when people were home. It became more noticeable when the house was quiet. And it didn't seem to calm down with time. Living there started to require effort. By then, the question wasn't whether something strange was happening. It was how long they could keep living with it. Eventually, the family stopped keeping what was happening to themselves. At first, it came up casually, a comment to a friend, a passing remark to a neighbor. Something like, Does your house ever make strange noises at night? Most people laughed it off. Houses do that. It didn't sound alarming when it was framed that way. But once other people spent time inside the house, the conversation changed. Visitors noticed things without being prompted. Someone would pause mid-sentence and ask if anyone else heard that. A sound from another room would pull attention away from whatever was happening in the moment. More than once, a guest assumed someone else was moving around, only to realize everyone was sitting in the same room. That mattered. It's one thing to question your own perception. It's another when someone else reacts before you do. Some visitors were more affected than others. A few brushed it off and didn't think much about it afterward. Others left uneasy, even if they couldn't explain why. At least one visitor experienced activity directly. Objects moved while someone was present. Sounds came from rooms they had just left. In one instance, something shifted close enough that it was impossible to pretend that no one was nearby. That moment removed any remaining comfort the family had been holding on to. The house no longer felt private. What had been happening wasn't limited to the people who lived there. It didn't depend on familiarity. It didn't disappear when someone new walked through the door. If anything, it seemed to respond to the presence of more people. That made it harder to believe the problem was internal. By this point, the family had begun looking for help, even if they weren't sure what kind of help they needed. They talked to people who had some experience with unexplained disturbances. They listened to suggestions. They tried small things that were meant to calm the situation or bring a sense of control back into the house. Nothing made a difference. The activity didn't escalate dramatically all at once. It stayed consistent, persistent, just disruptive enough to keep everyone on edge. By the time the family stopped trying to explain individual events and started looking at the pattern as a whole, they were no longer talking about isolated disturbances. They were talking about repetition. Over the time they lived in the house, the number of reported incidents kept growing, not just sounds or impressions, but moments where something physically changed in the space, objects displaced, movement without a source, activity that interrupted sleep and daily routines again and again. Later summaries of the case would estimate that the total was well over 600 separate incidents. At that point, the exact number mattered less than what it represented. Whatever was happening wasn't flaring up and fading away. It was persistent. It was cumulative, and it wasn't giving them any clear indication that it was going to stop on its own. That realization changed how the family thought about the house. It wasn't about getting through one more strange night. It was about how long anyone could reasonably live inside a place that required constant attention just to feel normal. The house never gave them a clear reason to panic, but it also never gave them a reason to relax. That's what finally pushed the situation toward a breaking point. Not one terrifying moment, but the slow realization that the house wasn't going to settle down on its own. That whatever was happening wasn't tied to one person's stress or one bad week or one explainable cause. Living there had become a constant negotiation. And at some point, the family had to decide whether staying made sense anymore. Up to this point, everything you've heard comes from the people who lived in the house and from others who were present when the activity occurred. Now it's worth slowing down and looking at what we can actually confirm, what holds up across retellings, and where the story becomes less clear. In later interviews and written accounts, the people who lived there chose to share what happened publicly, even though much of their personal information has been kept private. There are a few things about this case that are consistent. The house was real. The family lived there. And over a period of time, multiple people reported disturbances that went beyond a single strange incident. Sounds, movement, and physical displacement were described more than once and by more than one person. What stands out is the pattern. The activity wasn't centered on any one dramatic event. It didn't spike and disappear. It was described as ongoing and disruptive, especially at night, and especially when people were present in the house. At the same time, there are limits to what can be verified. There are no official reports documenting specific paranormal incidents, no recordings that conclusively show objects moving on their own. No physical evidence that points to a clear cause. What we have are first-hand accounts from people who are living under sustained stress in a place that had become difficult to tolerate. That doesn't mean those experiences weren't real to them, but it does mean that we have to be careful about how far we take any one explanation. One way people interpret cases like this is through a poltergeist-style framework. Not a traditional haunting tied to a specific spirit or history, but disturbances connected to the people living in the house. Activity that seems reactive, that escalates over time, that centers on presence rather than location. That idea lines up with parts of what was reported here, especially the way the activity followed people and intensified when the house was occupied. Another explanation focuses on environment and psychology. Poor sleep, constant vigilance, and prolonged stress can heighten perception. And when multiple people are sharing the same space, that awareness can feed off itself. That context matters. Still, it doesn't fully explain everything people described. Reports of physical movement, especially when visitors were present and hadn't been primed, are harder to dismiss outright. So is the fact that some disturbances occurred close enough to witnesses that misinterpretation becomes less convincing. Over time, the story also picked up a reputation and a name that sound more dramatic than the events themselves. That's common with long-running cases. Certain moments get emphasized, others fade. The narrative tightens as it's retold. What remains is a case built more on experience than evidence. There's no single explanation that accounts for everything. Some people see a form of poltergeist activity. Others see stress and environment amplifying ordinary phenomena, and some believe it's a combination of both. The evidence doesn't force a conclusion. It leaves us with a question about what happens when a place stops feeling neutral and starts reacting to the people inside it. This case also didn't end when the family moved out. In the years that followed, it continued to draw attention from writers, researchers, and television producers interested in long-running disturbance cases rather than isolated events. Those efforts didn't settle what was happening, but they did keep the experiences from disappearing quietly. If you want to dig deeper, I've included links in the episode description to additional sources and reading focused specifically on the Bothell Hellhouse. There's no final explanation waiting at the end of this story. Just a house that drove people out, and a question that never followed them when they left. This wasn't a family looking for something strange. It was a normal household dealing with small disruptions that slowly added up. They didn't jump to conclusions. They adjusted. They tried to live around it. They waited for it to pass. Honestly, isn't that what most of us will do? And that's what makes it so unsettling. The idea that a house could slowly wear you down without ever giving you a clear reason to leave. That discomfort can build quietly until staying feels harder than going. Even if you strip away every explanation you don't believe, what's left is still uncomfortable. A home that no longer feels restful. A space that requires constant attention. A place that reacts when it's occupied. You don't have to decide what caused it to recognize that something about that environment wasn't working for the people inside it. And sometimes that's enough. This has been State of the Unknown. Before you head out, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, the biggest way you can support the show is by leaving a quick rating or review. Even a short one makes a huge difference. It helps new listeners find the show, and it really does help the show grow. If you're listening on Spotify, you can rate the show there too. Just tap the stars. It just takes a few seconds and it helps more than you might think. And while you're there, make sure you hit follow so you won't miss new episodes when they drop. If you've got a hometown legend, a family story, or Or something strange that you think would make a great mini or even a full episode, I'd love to hear it. You can send a message or even a voice note at state of the unknown.com slash contact. Thanks for listening and for stepping into the unknown with me. Until next time, stay curious, stay unsettled, and remember that sometimes it isn't one terrifying moment that drives people away. It's the slow realization that a place no longer feels like home.