The Legend of the Tyler Street House

I remember when I first started getting serious about ghost hunting and this happened to coincide with me getting access to the internet for the first time. Here I had the world (as it was) at m fingertips and I started to search for haunted places in the area. And thanks to one of the very first paranormal themed websites called the Shadowlands.net I found several in the area, including one titled the Tyler Street House.

According to the site the Tyler Street House was a modest home that has been the scene of terrifying poltergeist activity since the mid 80's and continues to this day. The site goes on to say the house has had over 22 different occupants since the phenomenon started. Some have been said to report seeing red eyes peer out through closets and darkened bedrooms. Objects were seen to fly off countertops. It even got a bit gruesome when a bludgeoned body of a cat has been find several times in an upstairs closet despite the owners at the time not having any pets.

What I find interesting is that twenty two years later this same story is still repeated verbatim. It's almost as people have copy and pasted over the years. Now I am partly to blame as I originally wrote about it back in 2010 here but even then I mentioned my misgivings about the stories there. I had had the chance to investigate the location back in 2001 and 2007 and nothing happened. Granted it is hard to say whether the place is active or not based off just two investigations, but researching the history helped to lend to me believing the place is not. For one there is no second floor so I am not sure how there could be a second floor closet where the corpse of an animal can be found. Anyone seeing a photo of the house would realize it's only one story and this part of the legend should disappear. But it hasn't. Why?

Remember when we were kids and there was the story of an abandoned house being haunted? No one knew why but they KNEW it was haunted because their friend had told them and why would they lie? Well it's kind of the same here. The story gets repeated over and over and no one questions it because why would they? They want a haunted house story and here it is. 

I still wonder about the rest of the story. Where did the red eyes and and flying objects come from? The flying objects definitely sound like poltergeist activity but the red eyes I do not know. I really wish I knew where this story came from, but like with most legends its hard to pinpoint the genesis of it. 

Will this legend die? Well no, especially with me writing about it again. It's fascinated me over the years as to why it endured even though the story hasn't changed. Will it change now? Probably not. It's one of the many urban legends that permeates Fresno and those never really go away.