My friend, uncomfortable with his new business space, wanted to know if I could come by.

He explained that he and his business partner opened a music/video recording studio in an old renovated house just west of downtown Reno. Soon after settling in, weird noises (laughter, talking and stomping up the stairs) had begun. The spirits had been so boisterous; they could hear them over their headphones which played the hip hop music they worked on.

On another occasion, the doorbell had rang repeatedly, but each time his partner had opened the door, no one stood there. Could it have been a doorbell ditch? No, as his mother had sat in the car waiting for him to finish a project and she never saw anyone else around.

A few days prior to my visit, an unexpected spirit had dropped into my meditation. My chest had tightened and the name George had popped into my mind. I’d the impression that he’d died in that building, possibly from smoke inhalation. I’d also received a message from him—he liked my friend’s creative spirit, but not the music he played.

The office, located on the top floor of this 1940s two-story house, has an odd aura. Was it because it’d been damaged by an arsonist in the 1990s? Or could it be because the building is located in what I would call a mortuary district? (The owner of this house runs a funerary service on the first floor. Plus, two funeral homes are located on the same block.)

Could the haunting be a result of the fire, related to the nearby funeral industries or the house’s past residents? To find out, me, my friend and his partner tried to converse with the spirits while the digital voice recorders ran.

The only EVP captured was unexplainable. While recording, my friend mentioned his ears were ringing. Once we amplified that segment of the recording, we heard birds chirp several times after he said that. Personally, I don’t know any birds who sing at 9 p.m. on a winter’s night.

Then, we moved the investigation downstairs to the conference room. During that EVP session, his partner asked if any of the spirits was female. We received a response—knocking on an interior wall.

As we talked and laughed on the first floor, my friend and his business partner saw the wood slats in the window shutter open on their own. Curious to gauge if the slats were loose, I played with the shutter and found it stiff and secure. Something had opened it. I found it interesting that this action caught the attention of the two people who worked in the building and not me.

By the end of the evening, we concluded the spirits were positive and meant them no harm.

Even though we didn’t uncover anything more, I’m told the studio has been much quieter since our investigation. Perhaps the ghosts just wanted to be acknowledged or my friends needed to grow comfortable with their ethereal neighbors.