Investigation

Arrived approx. 7 PM, met our host Lynne in the Courtyard. Great weather, mild and cool but not cold. (no coats required, or wind/rain to deal with) We centered in The Mercantile, as it was empty. Lynne advised us that there was only one tenant at the moment, giving us uninterrupted access to the coffee shop "Café Whim", "The Mercantile", and "Dawn's Closet" (center and front), plus 2 basement areas -1 under Café Whim, the other under Dawn's Closet. We also met and did spend time in "Pearl's Gem" with the owner and her daughter-in-law. So, a total of 4 store spaces, and 2 basements.

Lynne gave us a tour of the spaces we would have access to, and talked about each space as we went along. Members present were Dan, Carolyn, Jennifer, and Sheena, plus Sheena's boyfriend Shane (with group permission).

We started in the Mercantile, doing an intro, and 'going dark', then began with asking standard questions, but with a quiet space we moved on to Café Whim. Repeated the same there. Struggles here for audio were the coolers and blowers that came on/off thru the night. Will make audio difficult to listen through. Some neat local artifacts repurposed in here, with local antique postcards supersized on the walls, giving an old days theme, which was quite inviting. A good question period here, with several members taking turns with addressing the space.

Moving on to the basement below Café Whim. Sheena, Jennifer and Shane set up downstairs. Dan snapped some photos, then left, shutting off the lights as he went. The space was very dark, and had pipe hazards, so we planned to stay in one spot while down there. Sheena and Jen set up in chairs on the far side near a bricked up old access space. Shelves were stacked in front, so it was difficult to see the bricked up wall, but we had been told it was there and no one knew what was really behind it. Lynne had introduced it as a supposed space for the coal oven to heat the old bread bakery above. There was an odd vibe over here but not much else. This basement did have a dampness to it, but no wet spaces. Shane settled over near the stairs and in front of a stand up cooler, and small chest freezer. He had the Mel, and our base reads revealed nothing extraordinary. Average temp down here was around 16C. Sheena and Jen had an audio and video cam, plus the K2. We proceeded with questions and periods of quiet to assess/listen to the space. At one point the K2 blipped twice, enough to catch our attention. Sheena radio'd Carolyn as we heard noises too. It was them. While radio'ing, we noticed the K2 blips when the radio is deployed. Interesting, but does not explain why it went off before we used the radio?? We also had a significant rise, then fall in temperature on the Mel. Shane reported a jump of around 8C over the room temp, only to fall back down to the standard 16 within a minute. The Mel was resting on the concrete floor, the coolest part of the space.

We 3 went back upstairs to the Mercantile, talked about our experiences, and regrouped to go on to the next space.

A few of us went to Pearls Gem, and asked that owner if she'd like to be a part, and talk to us about any experiences she had had while there. She had only taken possession of the property mid September, and spent some time painting and prepping the space. Her mum was named Pearl, hence the name of her store. At one point when working there one night, she felt a presence in her face, and when she stopped to consider what was happening, felt air blown in her face a couple of times. She responded with 'you can stay, but be nice'. She didn't speak of any other events, but did admit to not being fond of the dark, so quite often the space was well let and she was busy. She spoke on camera and audio of her experience, plus her daughter in law spoke too. Q/A period resulted in nothing outwardly interesting, but maybe on audio.

Heading to the Dawn's Closet building, we had 2 of 3 sections of this store completely empty to us. The last (rear) was occupied by Dawn's store items, so we spent very little time in there. (there wasn't much room to wander through)

We settled in the center of the building for a time. This space had double doors to the courtyard, with full glass windows, letting in plenty of outside light. Q/A period as before. At one point, someone outside walked by quickly, casting a large fast moving shadow through the space. I was facing outside, so saw him walk by, but it startled some members understandably. ?The Mel again did some odd things? - One of the Mel readings happened when Jenn was playing with one of the toys from Dawn's closet. Again, coincidence on timing probably. But was interesting. No corroborating events happened to support that this could have been paranormal. We soon moved on to a team in the basement below the front portion of the store. Dan and Jennifer sat in chairs upstairs, and turned off the lights for downstairs once the team was settled. Carolyn, Sheena and Shane were downstairs. Dan, myself Sheena and Shane went into the basement under the Dawn's closet building. Small space with awkward stairs to navigate. initial readings indicated normal EMF. Slightly higher at the panel but dissipated once you moved away from the panel. We had very odd readings on the Mel meter which seemed to correspond with questions Shane was asking. However these were drastic temperature changes (from negative to plus 25 I think) which led us to believe there was an issue with the Mel meter. This would prove to be true later in the evening. I was on audio. Unfortunately the tenants in the upstairs apartment flushed the toilet which through the head phones sounded like a tidal wave was coming at us! Other than the unusual fluctuations in the Mel meter I can not say we had much happen down there. Dan and I experienced some noise from upstairs apartment tenants coming and going, so this was probably an issue for the audio. At one point Dan flipped on the light to the basement, inadvertently thinking it was for the tenant stairs so they could see. The sudden light surprised our team downstairs, and blew their night vision for a bit once back in the dark. - Thanks Dan, we were all temporarily blinded down there!

While heading back to the Mercantile, the team spent a few minutes examining the still existing historical flour elevator, to raise the 100 lb bags of flour for the bakery. Its still in place outside the building.

We headed back to the Mercantile after finishing downstairs. Batteries needed to be checked/charged etc on some equipment. Shane had left to go lay down in the car.

Friends of the owner of Pearls Gem were in the Café, but left as we came back through. After a quick 'live' in Café Whim, Sheena and Jennifer went back down to the basement under the Café, to see if we could repeat the previous temp variance. Sheena and Jen set up again in the same spot. Jen turned off the lights and moved back there with flashlight assistance, head hazards (pipes) in this area. Q/A again, same general temp (16c), with audio, K2 and video. We talked about the space some, asked questions, all fairly neutral feeling. The Mel produced some high temp, and sudden very cold temp readings (down to -24c), but we were having trouble seeing the screen too. After several restart attempts, with the same 16 to +24, to -24 jumps, we turned it off, deciding the batteries were dying. We asked a few more questions, and began to talk about the space behind the bricks. The temp felt somewhat colder, but we had nothing to read if it actually had dropped. While Jen was supposing out loud what it may have been like, to be the one feeding the bake oven burners with coal, she was also testing for seeing her breathe (it felt that cold), but never saw body mist. Sheena and Jen both felt suddenly not good, a very strong unease had entered the space. While this isn't something we can measure with equipment, we agreed that we didn't want to be down there anymore. Jen got the lights turned on, we packed up and headed back upstairs quickly.

We finished with a 'lights on' in the Mercantile again. We did spend a short time speaking with Lyne and another gentleman at the end in the Café. They were very gracious the whole evening, and thanked us for coming.

While having no tenants (except Pearls Gem) was nice, the empty spaces had a lot of echo's, and no personal space claimed, simply leaving them as 'empty spaces' for us to visit.

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