Highlights

• 13% of Americans believe they currently live in a haunted home, according to Realtor.com survey
• The South reports the lowest rate of haunted home beliefs at 10%, compared to 18% in the West
• 56% of Americans who believe their home is haunted have not considered moving
• Strange noises top the list of paranormal experiences at 44%, followed by shadows at 38%
• Most Louisiana residents who suspect hauntings are comfortable sharing space with spirits

Is Your Louisiana Home Haunted? 13% of Americans Believe Their Home Is

Realtor.com survey reveals Louisiana homeowners aren’t alone in suspecting supernatural roommates, with the South reporting the lowest haunting rates nationwide

LAFAYETTE, La. (KPEL News) — That strange groaning sound echoing through your walls at night? The shadow that looked like a clawed hand creeping across your bedroom? Before you call a paranormal investigator, you might want to check the trees outside and listen for wind patterns. But if you’re convinced something supernatural is happening in your Louisiana home, a national survey shows you’re far from alone.

According to a Realtor.com survey of more than 2,000 Americans, 13 percent believe they currently live in a home that is haunted. Even more striking: a majority of them—54 percent—knew or suspected the house was haunted before moving in and chose to live there anyway.

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Louisiana falls into the South region, which reported the lowest rate of haunted home beliefs nationwide at just 10 percent. That’s significantly lower than the West at 18 percent, the Northeast at 13 percent, and the Midwest at 11 percent. But with New Orleans’ reputation as one of America’s most haunted cities, those Louisiana numbers likely skew higher in certain parishes.

What Louisiana Residents Experience in Their Homes

When it comes to the types of paranormal activity people report, the patterns are remarkably consistent—and often have perfectly rational explanations.

Strange noises topped the list of spooky happenings at 44 percent, followed by shadows at 38 percent and hot and cold spots at 37 percent. Thirty-four percent of respondents cited “the feel of certain rooms” as evidence of haunting, while 30 percent blamed odd pet behavior. Twenty-nine percent reported items moving or the sensation of being touched, and 17 percent claimed to have witnessed levitating objects.

In the South specifically, where Louisiana falls, strange noises dominated at 58 percent—the highest rate in the nation alongside the Midwest. Shadows came in second at 48 percent, followed by “the feel of a certain room” at 44 percent.

Walk through any older neighborhood in Lafayette, Baton Rouge, or New Orleans, and you’ll find homes with centuries of history. With that history comes stories, and with stories come beliefs about what might linger. From French Quarter townhouses to Acadian cottages to antebellum plantations, Louisiana’s historic architecture provides plenty of opportunities for creaking floorboards and settling foundations to spark supernatural speculation.

Why New Orleans Defies Southern Haunting Trends

While the South overall reports the lowest rates of haunted home beliefs, New Orleans stands as a notable exception. The city’s reputation as one of America’s most haunted places isn’t just tourism marketing—there are genuine cultural and historical reasons behind it.

The city’s location below sea level means above-ground cemeteries filled with ornate tombs that locals call “cities of the dead.” Its role as a major port brought yellow fever epidemics that killed thousands. The French Quarter alone has witnessed over 300 years of births, deaths, celebrations, and tragedies within the same compact blocks.

Add in Louisiana’s unique blend of Catholic, West African, and Caribbean spiritual traditions—including practices like voodoo that acknowledge the spirit world—and you have fertile ground for supernatural beliefs to take root and flourish across generations. This cultural context likely explains why Louisiana homeowners in certain areas report higher rates of paranormal experiences than the regional average would suggest.

Most “Haunted” Homeowners Aren’t Going Anywhere

Perhaps the most surprising finding from the Realtor.com survey: 56 percent of Americans who believe their home is haunted have not considered moving. They’re perfectly comfortable sharing their space with whatever goes bump in the night.

Regional comfort levels varied significantly. Of those who suspected their house was haunted before moving in, Northeasterners were most comfortable living with spirits at 76 percent, followed by those in the West at 57 percent, the South at 51 percent, and the Midwest at just 35 percent.

This willingness to coexist with the supernatural reflects a broader truth about haunted home beliefs: for most people, the occasional unexplained noise or eerie feeling isn’t disturbing enough to upend their lives. Especially in Louisiana, where ghost stories are woven into the cultural fabric, many residents view potential hauntings as just another quirk of living in historic homes with deep roots.

The Psychology Behind Supernatural Beliefs

People are drawn to the supernatural for reasons that go beyond simple superstition. The unknown taps into something primal in human nature—a mix of fear, wonder, and the eternal question of what happens after death.

In Louisiana, this fascination runs particularly deep because supernatural beliefs aren’t relegated to October or horror movies. They’re part of our cultural identity. Stories get passed down through families. Historic homes come with their own legends. Even skeptics might find themselves wondering about that unexplained cold spot in an old Creole cottage or the footsteps heard in a Lafayette bed and breakfast.

The supernatural offers us a way to make sense of the inexplicable. When we can’t explain a strange sound, an eerie feeling, or an unexpected occurrence, attributing it to ghosts or spirits provides an answer—even if it’s one that raises more questions. For many, especially those who’ve lost loved ones, believing in paranormal activity offers comfort: proof, perhaps, that death isn’t the end and that the people we love stay close even after they’re gone.

What Those “Haunted” Signs Usually Mean

Before you start shopping for sage bundles and calling in paranormal investigators, it helps to understand what’s really happening in most homes people believe are haunted.

That shadow creeping across your wall? Almost always a tree branch moving in the wind, casting shapes through your window. The groaning in the walls? Wind passing through gaps in older construction, or your home’s structure expanding and contracting with temperature changes—especially common in Louisiana’s humid climate where we see dramatic temperature swings.

Those hot and cold spots that 37 percent of people cite as evidence of hauntings? Usually poor insulation and air leaks, particularly relevant in Louisiana’s older homes built long before modern construction standards and air conditioning. Strange smells that appear and disappear? Often trapped moisture in old walls releasing as humidity changes, or air currents bringing scents from unexpected sources.

Doors that seem to open or close on their own? Uneven floors and changing air pressure, both extremely common in Louisiana’s older homes built on shifting soil. Objects that move? Usually vibrations from passing traffic, settling foundations, or simply forgetting where you placed something.

Odd pet behavior—cited by 30 percent of respondents—often reflects animals responding to sounds or smells humans can’t detect, like rodents in the walls or changes in barometric pressure before storms roll in from the Gulf.

The most “haunted” homes often turn out to be the oldest ones with the most character—which also means the most settling, the most gaps in construction, and the most opportunities for perfectly natural phenomena to seem supernatural, especially late at night when you’re already on edge.

Louisiana’s Real Haunted History

While most paranormal experiences have logical explanations, Louisiana’s genuine haunted reputation comes from its very real, very documented history of tragedy, disease, and death.

The state’s low-lying geography meant devastating floods and hurricanes throughout history. Yellow fever epidemics decimated New Orleans multiple times in the 1800s. The legacy of slavery haunts former plantation grounds. Civil War battles, including the Siege of Port Hudson, left thousands dead on Louisiana soil. And our above-ground cemeteries—necessary because of our high water table—create striking visual reminders of death that most other states bury underground and out of sight.

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In Acadiana specifically, we have our own layers of history: the trauma of the Acadian deportation, the harsh realities of frontier life in the swamps and prairies, and generations of families who’ve lived, loved, and died in the same small towns and parishes for centuries.

These aren’t ghost stories manufactured for tourists. They’re the accumulated weight of real history, real suffering, and real lives that played out in the places where we now live and work. Whether that history manifests as actual spirits is a matter of belief—but there’s no question it shapes how we experience these places and why certain Louisiana locations carry reputations that transcend simple superstition.