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Showing posts with label West Virginia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label West Virginia. Show all posts

The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia

US-HISTORY-ASYLUM 11/26

The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum was designed to house 250 patients when it opened in 1864. Fast forward to the 1950s, when the facility reached its peak and had more than 2,400 patients living in overcrowded and inhumane conditions—with some even kept in cages. In 1994, the asylum closed, and today, there are reports of paranormal activity, with souls of patients lingering and roaming the halls.

You can take an overnight ghost hunt tour from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. at the Asylum, a two-hour paranormal tour from 10:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., or a 90-minute day tour.
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Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, Weston, West Virginia

Once known as the Weston State Hospital, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia opened its doors to patients in 1864. Once it was a house of horrors with severe overcrowding, inhumane conditions, and rampant violence. Today, it comes as no surprise that is said to be extremely haunted.

The hospital was authorized by the Virginia General Assembly in the early 1850s as the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. Following consultations with Thomas Kirkbride, then-superintendent of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, a building was designed in the Gothic and Tudor Revival styles. The building followed the Kirkbride plan, which called for long rambling wings arranged in a staggered formation, assuring that each of the connecting structures received an abundance of therapeutic sunlight and fresh air and patients were allowed privacy.

Unlike those places constructed more for the purposes of security and safety, this establishment was to foster the best-known concepts of curing the patient. Following the “Kirkbride Plan,” the asylum was located in a rural area where patients would be housed among strangers only, discouraged from seeing anyone they knew. Patients were not even allowed to receive gifts or mail.

Construction began in late 1858, initially conducted by prison and slave laborers. Skilled stonemasons were later brought in from Europe.

Construction was interrupted by the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 and the partially built hospital and surrounding grounds became Camp Tyler for the Union. The completed southern wing of the asylum was used as barracks and the main foundation served as a stable. Confederate raids in 1862 and 1863 temporarily dislodged the Union troops. Following the admission of West Virginia as a U.S. state in 1863, the hospital was renamed the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane. In 1864, Confederate raiders stripped the Asylum of all food and clothing intended for its first group of patients.


Hysterical Woman

The first patients were admitted in October 1864. The very first patient was a housewife who had “domestic trouble.” The first logbook used at the hospital lists reasons for patient admission and includes causes like grief, congestion of the brain, feebleness of intellect, seduction and novel reading.

In the early days, asylums were seen as repositories for more than just the insane. In many cases, people were committed for ridiculous reasons such as laziness, religious enthusiasm, menopause, superstition, domestic trouble, masturbation, and tuberculosis. Asylums were often the dumping ground for society’s unwanted. Interestingly, the asylum offered money to anyone who dropped off a patient … many of whom showed no signs of mental illness when they were first committed.

Its original construction was planned for 250 people. From the beginning, the hospital was largely self-sufficient. They raised their own vegetables, maintained a dairy herd, and operated an ice plant. A nearby coal mine supplied fuel for heat and there was a reservoir for water. All of the patient’s’ clothing, curtains, and fabrics were made at Weston, as well as fine quality mattresses and most of the institutional furniture, thus fulfilling the 19th-century ideal that institutions be self-sustaining and that mental patients learn a trade.

Lying on more than 600 acres, the land also included a cemetery for the many that passed away at the asylum over the years.

The 200-foot central clock tower was completed in 1871. The center unit is four stories high with a great cupola and the clock tower. This section was originally designed to house offices and personnel and at one time even had such features as a large ballroom.

Separate rooms for black people were completed in 1873.


Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, Weston, West Virginia

Construction would continue into 1881 when the original plan was complete. The total cost was $725,000 — more than $300,000 over the original budget. At that point, more than 700 patients were housed in the building, which was 1,295 feet long, and contained two-and-a-half miles of hallways. The walls were two-and-a-half feet thick, dense enough to muffle the screams of even the most tormented soul.

Nineteenth-century healing tactics were barbaric, some of which included bloodletting and insulin coma therapy. Seclusion cells and confinement cribs were utilized to control violent patients. Unfortunately, there were innocent victims of the asylum due to misdiagnosed conditions and unfortunate situations. Many spent their entire lifetime at the asylum, only to end up in an unmarked grave on a lonely hillside.

Changes were constantly being made. A Women’s Auxiliary was built in 1890 and two years later the 20-acre front lawn was enclosed by a Victorian wrought iron fence. A gas well was drilled on the grounds in 1902, making the facility even more self-sufficient.

The hospital’s name was again changed to the Weston State Hospital in 1913.

In the early 20th century overcrowding, a developing attitude that treatment should be directed more to maintenance than to the attempt to rehabilitate, and a continual lack of funds plagued the hospital for many years. New buildings were filled as soon as they were completed.

Over the years, several auxiliary buildings have come and gone. A tuberculosis building was established in 1930. A large 3.5 story brick unit was constructed around 1935.

Several fires were set by patients over the years including a large fire in October 1935 which ravaged the fourth floor of the hospital. Remarkably, no one was killed in the blaze, and the wing was rebuilt for $155,000 by the Works Progress Administration.

In 1938 the asylum was called home to 1,661 patients. That year a survey reported that the hospital housed epileptics, alcoholics, drug addicts and non-educable mental defectives among its population.

In 1949, the hospital had some 1,800 residents. That year the Charleston Gazette reported that the facility had poor sanitation and insufficient furniture, lighting, and heating in much of the complex.

At its peak in the 1950s, the hospital’s population reached 2,400 patients, more than ten times the number it had been built to accommodate. In the rear of the main unit are several brick structures that housed service units such as kitchen and dining facilities, laundry, shops, a forensics building, and storage. Many of these were built during this time. This was likely one of the worst times for patients at the hospital with the overcrowded and understaffed conditions. It, no doubt, could make even the most sane of souls lose their minds. Anyone who complained or acted out was subjected to solitary confinement, chained to the walls of an empty room for months on end.


Icepick Lobotomy

During these many years, a number of medical practices such as ice water baths, seclusion cells, electroshock therapy, and lobotomies were commonly used on patients. At one point, one of the “favored” procedures that were used extensively was the “ice-pick” (transorbital) lobotomy. This crude procedure utilized a one- or two-pronged device which was driven through the orbital socket of the eye and into the brain with a sharp blow. The permanent damage caused was thought to relieve some of the patient’s more severe symptoms. In 1952, one doctor alone performed 228 such lobotomies during a two-week period in West Virginia. They aptly named it “Operation Ice Pick.”

But, the real problem as overcrowding. Inability to handle the large population led to an increase in violence. There were several cases of patients killing other patients. In one instance two patients hanged one of their fellow patients using a set of bed sheets. When he did not die, the pair cut him down and used a metal bed frame to crush his head.

Even the staff were not immune to the violence and several female employees were raped. Many former employees reported being attacked while on duty. One evening a nurse went missing, her rotting body was found two months later at the bottom of an unused staircase.

In order to deal with some of more violent, uncontrollable, and severely mentally ill, it is said that many of them were kept in cages.

In 1960 a Medical Center, which included a morgue, was built.


Restraint Chair

In 1985, the Charleston Gazette once again exposed the asylum, reporting that court-appointed inspectors found the asylum to be “dirty and unkempt,” with many patients left naked and “confined to dirty wards with bathrooms smeared with feces.”

Seven years later, in 1992, even more bad news rocked the asylum when the Charleston Gazette again decried that horrendous conditions inside of the asylum. That same year a patient named George Edward Bodie died after a fight with another patient. Another patient, Brian Scott Bee, committed suicide and his badly decomposing body was not found for eight days.

The hospital was forcibly closed in 1994 due to changes in treatments of patients and the physical deterioration of the facility.

Afterward, the building stood vacant for years.

The hospital was auctioned off in August 2007 and Joe Jordon bought the 242,000-square-foot building for $1.5 million. Today, it is open for guided historic and paranormal tours as well as evening ghost hunts.

The central section, directly under the 200 ft high clock tower, contains a museum and several faithfully restored period rooms from the 1870’s to the 1960’s. One of the patient wards has been restored but the remaining 23 are largely untouched. The endless decayed hallways and vacant patient rooms, including isolation cells with rusted rings once used to chain the most violent, create an extremely eerie atmosphere.

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum has been featured in a number of paranormal television shows. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. It is the largest hand-cut stone masonry building in North America, and is purportedly the second largest in the world, next to the Kremlin.


Weston, West Virginia Asylum

Hauntings

The tales of hauntings and unearthly spirits lurking within the building and on the grounds started long before it ceased to be a hospital. After a few decades, the reports of hauntings and the sounds of restless souls became commonplace. In fact, some workers were said to have stayed only a few days, quitting after hearing inexplicable noises, such as the squeaky wheels of gurneys rolling along a tiled hallway.

Thousands were committed to the asylum over the years, and many unfortunately died here. Over 2,000 people are buried in the cemetery.


The spirits are numerous and range from Civil War era ghosts to children, to ex-patients and staff.

Murders, rapists, and other violent offenders are said to continue to dwell in the building along with others whose only crime was depression or substance abuse.

Sightings include staff and visitors seeing ghostly figures walking through the hallways at night and glimpsing shadowy figures at all hours. One doctor even reported that a spirit followed her home and continues to trouble her to this day. Others have reported seeing a ball of light moving in a hallway and spying apparitions dressed in white.

On the first floor of the building, which is called the Civil War Wing, and is the oldest part of the hospital, is said to lurk a former patient by the name of Ruth. Though it is unknown the reasons why Ruth apparently hated men and had a practice of throwing things at them. Today, her spirit still wanders in the hallways, where people have been pushed up against walls and have heard whistling sounds emanating in the hallways.

In Ward 2 of the second floor, a couple of violent events occurred. In one room, a man was stabbed 17 times by another patient. In another room, two patients committed suicide by hanging themselves from curtain rods. Here, shadowing figures have often been seen and on at least one occasion, an EVP captured someone saying “Get out.”


The third floor is where two patients tried to hang another patient and when he didn’t die, bludgeoned him to death. The ghost of the murdered man is said to continue to haunt the room in which he was killed. Another ghost by the name of Big Jim is also said to maintain a presence on this floor as well as a nurse called Elizabeth. Other occurrences on this floor include doors that close by themselves, fleeting glimpses of apparitions, shadowy figures, and a number of strange noises which have been caught on EVPs.

Located on the fourth floor is another well-known spirit – a child named Lily, who sits patiently in a room filled with toys, waiting for someone to play with her. Wearing a white dress and said to be about nine-years-old, Lily likes to play games with visitors and staff, as toys move around of their own accord and a music box turns on by itself.

Legend has it that Lily was a little girl who spent all or most of her short, sad life inside the walls of the asylum. One story says she was dropped off at the hospital by her parents, while a second tale states that she was born there to a committed mother. She died of pneumonia at the age of nine and has never left the only home she had ever known.


Asylum Hallway

Though Lily appears to be pleasant enough, other more sinister spirits seem to linger on the fourth floor including a black mass like object and a strange apparition called the “creeper” that crawls along the floor. The sounds of something or someone banging on pipes is often heard here.

Another ghost on the fourth floor who many have seen is a soldier who they call Jacob who is said to stroll the hallways.

Numerous unearthly sounds have also been heard including screams coming from inside the electro-shock room, banging, mysterious slamming doors, throaty moans, ominous breathing and hysterical laughter coming from empty rooms.

Other paranormal activity includes objects that seemingly move of their own accord and visitors’ reporting the feeling of being watched.

More Information:

Trans-Allegheny Asylum
71 Asylum drive
Weston, West Virginia 26452
304-269-5070

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Capitol Plaza Theatre - Charleston,West Virginia

This theatre was built in 1909 on the site of the old Welch Mansion that had stood there since 1798. The theatre still houses some of the family that once lived in the mansion. Capital Plaza is now a venue for artists such as Tori Amos, R.E.M., and other well-known musicians. The former theatre where "Mountain Stage" was recorded, is a place that gives people chills when they enter the area. The most prolific ghost here is that of John Welch. He was the son of the man who built the house and heir to the Welch fortune. John is very sneaky and likes to play around with peoples' minds. He is quite protective of the place and of the actors who frequent the stage. Another ghost, not quite as active, is known as Molly Welch. She was John's youngest daughter who died of pneumonia in 1840 around the age of eight. She is very shy, but sometimes when an actor is standing on stage, she can be seen sitting in the front row of the balcony.
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Charleston Train Depot and Carriage Trail - Charleston ,West Virginia

On the bank of the Kanawaha River, at the train depot, just at the bottom of the exclusive South Hills mountain drive, the Charleston Train Depot rivals any 19th century European Town Center. At the depot, flanked by the river on one side and a winding suburban mountain road also exists a carriage trail which led, in days gone by, to the Governors Mansion. The depot has a restaurant and a scenic view. The old carriage trail is barely noticeable from the train platform, but driving up the hill on the right side of the forked road motorists can see a clear wide carriage road leading to what is now Sunrise Museum. Vagrants and homeless people are said to spend some nights near the bottom of the trail waiting for a train to hop, and high school students sometimes wander the trail at the top of the trail behind the museum. No one ventures past the desecrated statue of a Our Lady. A dark spot exists in summer and winter at the second curve from the top of the trail (or the third from the bottom). West Virginia was fiercely abolitionist during the Civil War and the state seceded from Virginia because the mountain men and their Indian Wives did not believe in slavery. The Underground Railroad ran through the exclusive South
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Spry Cemetery at Dry Branch Hollow/Lambert - Harts,West Virginia

A woman by the name of Dixie V. Counts is buried in this cemetery beside her still born infant. The baby’s name is Charlie and he died along with his mother during labor. On a full moon, the dates of their death can be clearly seen and Dixie can be seen rocking her baby. The both of them appear in white gowns and seem to be crying. There is also a legend about the devil appearing to a man on the foot bridge of this cemetery during the 1950’s. The devil challenged the man to a fight because he was mean to his family and neighbors. The man had even claimed just the day before that he was mean enough to whip the devil himself. When he said to the devil, "Come over here to the road, and I will fight you," the devil replied, "You know who I am and I cannot cross running water." With wicked laughter, he disappeared. The next day, a boy was walking with the man who had been challenged by the devil. He went to the bridge and found cloven goat hoof prints branded into the wood of the bridge.
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Sandy Huff Hollow Road - Iaeger ,West Virginia

There are several hauntings and ghosts in this hollow. One, in partilar, is the strange appearance of an extremely large "doglike" creature that many of the hunters and ATV riders in the area have seen. Chickens, cats, and other dogs always turn up missing from their homes. Some say that they have seen the creature more than once and have also seen the creature stand up on two legs and run off into the woods. Some hunters say that they have been stalked by the creature while hunting. One lady explained that she noticed the creature outside her mobile home. Once the creature noticed her looking, it made its way to the window. The lady quickly ran through the home locking doors and turning off lights. She said that the "thing" banged and scratched on her home all night.
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State Penitentiary - Marshall County,West Virginia

This facility was once one of the most violent jails that ever existed. It was condemned and shut down in 1995, and now claims to be the most paranormal site on the East Coast. This place is haunted by former inmates, and in this place you can see lights going off, and sometimes you can hear laughing, and as well as iron doors shutting, by themselves. Witnesses have reported hearing footsteps walking up stairs in areas without stairs, the appearance of mysterious formations, and many other horrifying experiences. The spirits are believed to be those of past prisoners.
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West Virginia University - Morgantown,West Virginia

Library - On the 10th floor of the old section of the library one gets the distinct feeling of being watched also the elevator opens and people are heard entering and exiting without being seen. The side desk areas also seem to be heavily occupied as writing can be heard from empty desks. Apparitions have also been seen. In the new section one gets the same sensations occasionally as if coming from the older building.

Beta Theta Pi - Beta Psi Chapter - Residents of the fraternity have reported clanging of chains in a lower room of the house. It was believed to be the ghost of the late butler of the house in the 1940s .And now it is believed to be that it was an old homeless person they let live in the basement of the house in the 80’s being in the room where they hear it and the little hallway the guy hung himself at.
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Cheat Lake - Morgantown,West Virginia

In the early 1970's, two college students were hitchhiking for a ride back to their dorms on Evansdale Campus. Apparently, they were picked up in the downtown area and not found again for months. Their decapitated bodies were later discovered near the lake, but the heads were no where to be found. The murderer and the case still remain a mystery today. It is believed however, that the two girls roam the woods near the lake, searching for their heads. Many car accidents have been reported on Route 857 North because of blurry apparitions of two girls running back and forth through the woods, distracting late night traffic.
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Tunnel 19 - North Bend State Park,West Virginia

One of several old train tunnels that runs through North End. It is said that during one of the world wars, a woman was on her way to be married, dressed in her wedding gown. She fell off the platform as a train was coming and was killed. As you approach the entrance of the tunnel, there is a very distinct drop in temperature and gusts of wind. EFS reads 'Danger' as you reach the middle of the tunnel, and wind often tends to pick up. Also, throughout the tunnel, the small archways on either side appear to be illuminated, even when all flashlights, etc. are removed from their surface.
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Bullcreek / Long Pole - Panther / Iaeger,West Virginia

There was an old woman seen killing her husband on the side of the road...late at night you can drive by the road and see her with blood all over her body....and if you catch her at jus the right time she'll start screaming at you and running after you!! BEWARE!!
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The Blenner Hassett Island - Parkersburg,West Virginia

The legend has it that there were 3 men camping on the island. It was about two in the morning when on of the men woke up to the smell of perfume. He woke up the other two men smelling to same smell. They looked around and didn't see anything. They looked to their left one more time and saw Margett Blennerhasset with her infant that was buried on the island as were her other 6 year old daughter. The legend says that at night Margett and her kids walk the island.
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DeSales Heights School - Parkersburg ,West Virginia

Next to the Stonewall Jackson site. It is an abandoned catholic school. Many legends and ghost sites there. Has flashing lights and people walking the halls. Legend has it a young boy stole a gold cross from the priest then the boy died soon after. The cross is supposed to still be there. Also many nuns died there and are buried beneath the school in stoned-up walls. Anyone who goes there, DO NOT GO ALONE at night. It is the scariest site you will ever visit.


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Marrtown - Parkersburg,West Virginia

One mile south of Parkersburg, is a small farming community called Marrtown that was settled by Scottish Immigrants in the mid 1800s. They came from an area of Scotland that believed in many supernatural creatures, including witches, ghosts, elves, fairies and not the least of them, the Banshee. The Banshee is an Irish/Scottish death fairy who attaches herself to Scottish and Irish clans. She sometimes rides a white horse and hangs out at waterways washing out the grave clothes of her dead. She is dressed in a death shroud and other tattered rag and her eyes are blood red from crying for her Scottish dead. Thomas and Mary Marr survived the Civil War, but they lost a lot of property. Thomas went to work on the toll bridge in Parkersburg that went over the little Kanawha River. He would always see a figure on a white horse whenever he came home very early in the morning. On February 5th, 1873, Mary awakened with a feeling of dread. She got up and look out the window and saw someone very old riding a white horse who was coming up to her front stoop. She went outside and saw it was an old woman whose eyes had an eerie glow. Finally, the old woman screamed, "Mary Marr, Thomas Marr has just died. Say your prayers, Lady. I bid you will." Woman and horse instantly disappeared. Within the hour, a man who worked with Thomas came to deliver the dreaded news. In fact, Thomas Marr did die -- he died in the icy waters of the little Kanawha River. Some say it was an assailants bullet that brought him down, Others say it was the keening cry of his Scottish Banshee that wailed and startled him into falling and meeting his death in the river below. Many still claim the Scottish Banshee still rides her horse on clear night and she still brings death to those of Irish or Scottish blood. Even to this day, the Marr family is still visited by the Banshee's presence. It would be wise to stay away from Marrtown on cold, lonely, moonless nights.
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Train Tracks - Pax ,West Virginia

If you walk from Weirwood to the Pax City Hall at night a orb starts to follow you. After that when you start running it gets in front of you and is in front of you until you reach the bridge. Then it turns into a man (this man is headless). It is believed to be a man that got his head cut off from the train. He follows you until you get to the bridge. Then he jumps off to the stream below and splashes mud and water on you. Several people have witnessed this.
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Stewart's Run Rd. Cemetery - Philippi,West Virginia

People have seen a "woman" standing on Stewart's Run Rd., pointing at them, they don't have time to stop the car & end up running through her, at which time she disappears. If you go in the cemetery gates at night, it feels like you are being touched all over by something, like you are packed into a room with a bunch of people. Very creepy feeling.
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Former munitions dump - Point Pleasant ,West Virginia

A monster or demon known as "the Bird-Man" or "the Moth-Man" has been spotted at various times by numerous people in this small town, usually in the vicinity of a former TNT dump along the Ohio River, once maintained by the federal government. It has also been seen along roads around Point Pleasant. It is described as a man with large wings; some witnesses have also said that it had horns and a tail, and big vicious teeth. Strangely, it is usually sighted several times in rapid succession, then followed by some sort of catastrophe. For example, it was sighted before devastating floods, and before the collapse of a traffic-laden bridge crossing the Ohio River. Some say the creature is the manifestation of a curse placed on the town by a Native American chief who was tortured to death in Point Pleasant by British troops during the French and Indian War.
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Mingo / Mingo Cemetery - Randolph County,West Virginia

About 8 years ago 2 witnesses were in the cemetery and very busy recording the graves and felt like somebody was watching them. They finished and started to have a conversation saying, "I thought I saw and heard kids playing in the cemetery". And said she thought she seen them dressed in old-fashioned clothing, 1800s. They tried some of the locals about this area and nobody wants to talk about it.
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Seneca Caverns - Riverton,West Virginia

Tour guides and tourists have reported seeing small balls of light bounce along the floor and walls of the caverns. If the balls are approached, they move away. Also, a "ghost tour" sometimes follows unsuspecting individuals through the cave. Other strange things, such as doors slamming as tours approach, and lights flickering off and on are regular happenings.
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Peterkin Religious Retreat / Gravity Hall - Romney,West Virginia

Back in the early 70's, a black preacher died of a heart attack in his room while getting up to use the bathroom. His wife didn't discover this until the morning. Ever since then, the piano upstairs plays music. As soon as you open the door to walk up the stairway, you can hear the stairs creaking as he comes down to greet you. When you walk up the stairs, you can hear him following you. You can hear talking behind several of the closed doors. Cold spots can be felt. Doors sometimes open and shut. You can feel his presence behind you as he watches you go about your business. (My mom used to work here, cleaning the rooms after guests stayed there. He would sometimes follow her, watch her, and sometimes play the piano while she was there.) Guests have reported odd happenings, but they do not fear him. If you ask him nicely to leave you alone, he will go about his business.
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