The truth behind the haunted house that fascinates all Bologna – Italy

Are you familiar with the classic abandoned houses, dark and falling apart? Those houses that seem a set of a horror movie? In short, the houses in the middle of the woods where in horror movies a group of idiotic students goes to take refuge for some idiotic bet, or to spend an “exciting” weekend.
So, the villa located in Casalecchio, a municipality very close to Bologna, Italy, is exactly like that. The only difference compared to traditional horror movies is that this villa is not isolated, but in close contact with busy streets, supermarkets always full of people, and brand new residential condominiums. Everyone knows it, or has passed in front of it at least once and, each in its own way, undergoes the charm that the villa emanates.
According to local reports, it was already uninhabited at the beginning of the nineties and there were many legends surrounding those walls, from the most absurd and extravagant to the most likely and disturbing. There were those who said it was inhabited by an evil witch, who never showed up, but who observed all the movements of the neighborhood from behind the curtain of the top floor window. Countless how obvious were instead the stories that wanted the mansion haunted by ghosts, but the most macabre legend says that it was inhabited by a family like many others, and for unknown reasons the father first killed his daughter and wife and then committed suicide.

All these stories, completely different from each other, however, have one thing in common: at night people hear coming from the house harrowing screams. Witches who prepare magic potions by reciting the formula out loud? The complaints of the ghosts of the tragically killed family who find no peace? Or simply local youngs who go to spend evenings in that abandoned villa? From the late nineties until 2007, the villa was frequented in the evening by young people who went to have fun away from prying eyes.
In the daytime, students went hunting for ghosts with their classmates when skipping school, to find out who had so much liver to climb to the top of those gloomy and frightening stairways. From one day to the next, the incursions stopped abruptly: the villa was closed as a result of constant complaints from the neighborhood and various reports to the police.

In reality, unfortunately or not, there is less mysticism than is said.
The truth is that, once the house was inhabited by a petite, kind and somewhat shy lady, who lived alone and surrounded by dozens of cats who she fed, cared for and hosted both at home and in the garden.
Not for nothing, they called her the “gattara” (catlady).
Since she died about 60 years ago, the house has always remained uninhabited.
Obviously, there are many rumors about possible hereditary disagreements, but certainly, there were no a family massacre, witches or ghosts there.
The most recent episodes, referring to the last decade, speak of an article published in the local newspaper “Il Resto del Carlino”, in which it was said that the owners have been repeatedly pressed for sale by private individuals, including an offer from three million euros refused, but also by the institutions: the house is, in fact, the only building in pure liberty style in the whole of Bologna and its province, therefore a discreet architectural heritage and certainly the most beautiful of the five gems located in Casalecchio across via Garibaldi and all miraculously survived to the bombings of 1943 – 44.
In short, the current owners have always refused to live there, rent it or sell it. That’s all.
Although it is natural to ask why, there is no apparent reason, and historically nothing so terrible has happened inside it.
In any case, it is said that some local people, for superstition, avoid looking at the villa and elderly people who walk on the sidewalk turn their heads across the street just to avoid to see that ghostly house…