NEW ORLEANS – For our first installment of “Hometown Haunts,” we’re meeting a prankster ghost named Billy, but you’d better hope he likes you.
Billy has been spotted on many occasions in many different rooms of the Fleur De Lis Mansion on Annunciation Street in the Lower Garden District.
The mansion was vacant for 25 years beginning in the 1970s and homeless people would seek shelter in the mansion. In the winters when it was cold, they would start fires to keep warm.
One room in the house called the Red Room has evidence of a fire breaking out. The owners think that Billy was burnt to a crisp, and hasn’t left the property since.
In the Red Room, Bily will often move things, especially the heart shaped dish the staff place on top of the toilet. In the River Room, Billy once scared a dog and his owners by slamming a door in the middle of the night.
The owner reports that sometimes earrings and her things would go missing, then they would mysteriously appear somewhere else. Most of the time Billy is playful and just wants the guests to know he’s there.
On a few instances though, Billy has made it clear that he does not like certain guests.
A couple was staying the Fleur De Lis Suite one night and the woman woke up to the covers being pulled off of her. Assuming it was her husband, she looked over at him, but its hands were both up by his head.
When she looked at the foot of the bed she saw a black figure standing over her menacingly. She screamed, but when she looked back, no one was there.