There were high EMF readings behind the stage in the basement, on the stairs leading down into the basement, and in the laundry room. If anyone is hypersensitive to EMFs and is down there for a long time, they might experience hallucinations. There were also high EMFs coming from the clock beside the bed in the Gold Room. This might explain the experience that the former owner says she had when she stayed in this room.

We took a look at the door in George’s Room where a guest got locked out from the inside. There were two locks on the door. The top one is new and that’s the one they use. The bottom lock (the one that locked someone out from the inside) was old and in fact the metal frame around the outside door handle was hanging loose. With a lock that old, it was probably just broken.

While we were in George’s Room we also checked the outlet where a member of the cleaning staff saw a plug get pulled out of the wall. The plug was VERY loose. It slid in and out like butter. So it’s very possible that it just fell out, or got pulled out while the maid was vacuuming.

Another group had already debunked the doorbell. The batteries were just low, so that’s why it was working for some people but not for others.

Another group said in their investigation report that some of their members had felt uncomfortable in Marion’s Room. We think this could have been infrasound caused by the heavy traffic on the street. While doing audio recordings, Matt noticed a bottle of water sitting on a table and the water was rippling because of the traffic. This suggests that there is potential for infrasound. Infrasound is inaudible, low-frequency sound, and can cause feelings of uneasiness. We noticed this in some other rooms too, including the parlor. Infrasound would not explain ALL the experiences reported, but it might explain why someone felt uncomfortable.

The towel that fell off the hook in Marion’s room could have just slipped off.

The staff member, in charge of breakfast, who overslept one day, and then dreamt of a large, old-fashioned alarm clock, ringing in her head, waking her up on time, and then on another day heard her name being called, waking her up again, could have just been trying not to oversleep again.

There is some uncertainty about who Susan/Aunt Pussy was supposed to be. She could have been an aunt or a servant in the Brumder family. We found the 1910 and 1920 census reports, but they did not show any Susan living in the mansion, at least during those years. We tried searching for a Susan Brumder or a Susan Brandhorst (Henriette Brumder’s maiden name), but we were unable to find anything. She could also have been related to Sam Picks or been a servant when he owned the mansion, however we couldn’t find any information about Sam Picks. (Update: A friend of the owners was able to find out some information about Sam Picks. He ran a road house, not far from Brumder Mansion, Club Madrid. He ran into financial trouble in 1932, when prohibition was repealed. He switched to illegal gambling, got busted in 1938-39, but they found a judge that merely fined them $1,000. Someone tried to kill him in downtown in 1938. He left Milwaukee in 1953, when someone threw a stick of dynamite into the Club Madrid.)

We believe some people are psychic, but not everyone who says they’re psychic is really psychic, and even if they are a little bit, not everything that comes out of their mouth is fact. It’s one thing if a psychic says something and then you can back it up with historical evidence, but we have so far found no evidence that Susan/Aunt Pussy ever existed.

The former owner told some people that a mirror hanging over the sink in the Gold Suite’s bathroom “lifted itself off its nail, floated over to the bathtub and was thrown into the bathtub, breaking.” (www.hauntedhouses.com) However, she told other people that the mirror was sitting on top of a dresser in the bedroom, and the mirror “somehow slid off the dresser, traveled across the floor, went through the bathroom doorway, and ended up lying face down on top of the bathtub! The mirror was not broken or damaged.” (www.paranormalresearchinvestigations.com) In some versions she experienced this herself, and in other versions it was some guests who experienced it and then they told her about it.

Since there are no reports of activity before the previous owner bought the mansion and turned it into a bed and breakfast, and since there are some conflicting stories, it’s possible that she may have fabricated some of the stories, or at least embellished them. And if she lied about one thing, we have to wonder about everything she said. Many of the witnesses who claim they saw apparitions were friends of her’s.

We came back on February 22nd with an extra investigator, Justin, to do the full investigation. We arrived at about 6:30PM and gave Justin a quick walkthrough. Then the innkeeper went to her room and we split up to do a half an hour of controlled audio recording with complete silence. This was to document the regular sounds the house makes. Matt sat in the parlor on the main floor, Amanda sat in the theater in the basement, and Justin sat in the Gold Suite on the second floor. We also set a voice recorder in the Blue Room on the third floor so we had every floor covered. At 7:30PM we came back together and got started on our investigation.

The three investigators stayed together. We spent about 20-30 minutes in each of the rooms where activity was reported. We sat and asked EVP questions, and took pictures, EMF and temperature readings. Normally when we do EVP recordings, we have two voice recorders running at the same time so we can cross reference, and we have a video camera recording us too with everybody sitting so they’re in frame and facing the camera. However, we were short on cameras so we decided to just have the two voice recorders and set the video camera somewhere else. We rotated the camera between Marion’s Suite, the Gold Suite, and the theater in the basement. We put a motion detector in the room with it, and we set the other motion detectors on the main staircase, and on the basement stairs. We also had two stationary voice recorders that we rotated between rooms.

After we had covered every room at least once, we spent some time just walking around as a group taking pictures and EMF readings. We wrapped up a little after midnight.

Findings/Personal Experiences: None

We would really like to thank the owners, Tom and Julie, for having us and for being such good hosts. We had a great time. This is a really beautiful place, full of old antiques, and we would recommend a stay to anyone who is in the area or passing through.