Building Company Knocks Down ‘Haunted’ Church In Chicago. Neighbor Says They Now Can’t Sell The Apartments Because Of All The Paranormal Activity

A Chicago woman claims a batch of luxury homes are empty due to paranormal activity.

Tessa (@tessa420) says a “spooky old abandoned church” was knocked down to build the homes.

The neighborhood, she says, is comprised of apartments 70 to 120 years old. A longtime staple of the neighborhood was a “creepy” and desolate church across the street from her own home, she continues.

For years, she says, multiple developers attempted to repurpose the church. According to her, some tried renovating it; others tried knocking it down to erect a different building in its place.

But each venture was met with the same problem—spooked employees. Tessa says construction workers couldn’t bear to stay inside the building to complete these projects.

That’s because, she says, they were consistently experiencing hauntings and otherworldly activity, which, effectively, scared them off the premises.

Following this, she preempted any criticism viewers might have regarding her story. She concedes that, yes, contractors leaving their post in the middle of the day isn’t proof a building’s haunted.

However, Tessa says that she understands the Spanish word for demon, and that she heard several different workers scattering from the building shouting “demonio” on their way out.

The ‘Haunted’ Church Gets Demolished

Despite a series of unsuccessful contracting ventures, someone finally succeeded in razing the building. In its place, brand new luxury homes were built. Although Tessa says they’ve remained empty for months.

Rumor has it that the land the church once stood on was still rife with paranormal activity. So, in order to determine whether or not this was the case, Tessa says she attended an open house for one of the new homes.

As it turns out, Tessa and her husband were the only ones who attended the open house, along with the realtor. She informed the home seller she was only there out of curiosity.

The realtor didn’t mind that they weren’t serious buyers and opted to show them around the house anyway to highlight its features, she says. She adds that the tour was relatively uneventful.

That is, until the three of them entered the main bedroom. Providing a diagram for viewers as to the room’s layout, she highlighted its construction.

Tessa explains that the room has a double-door entrance. Furthermore, it packs his and her closets, both of which lead to the main bathroom with individual doorways.

“There are six doors in total,” she explains. She points out the double-door entrance, both closet doors, and the two doors to enter the bathroom from each closet.

Things Get Weird

Tessa says the main bathroom features two sinks, with opposing mirrors beside their respective walls. This means that these two mirrors are directly facing each other.

After giving this breakdown, she jumps into the bizarre experience she, her husband, and the realtor witnessed. While walking through the “hers” closet, she says they heard the door to the adjacent “his” closet close.

She says the noise was “clear as day.” In fact, it was so loud that she says they assumed someone else was in the room with them. After all, it was an open house, so they figured a person walked inside the home and checked it out on their own.

“None of us immediately assumed ghost,” she tells her audience. Upon hearing the sound, the realtor called out to who he assumed was a visitor. Tessa recalls him saying, “‘We’re in here. Why don’t you come in here? I’m actually giving a tour.'”

However, his remark was met with silence. So he assumed that whoever else was in the room was simply hard of hearing, Tessa says. So he left Tessa and her husband to go and attend to whoever was in the “his” closet.

Sink Turns On By Itself

Things got even weirder. One of the sinks, according to Tessa, turned on—seemingly on its own.

This prompted Tessa and her husband to see who was in the bathroom. While they saw the sink was on, there was no one inside the bathroom.

Shortly afterward, Tessa says the realtor saw the sink.

“The look on the realtor’s face was straight disappointment and frustration …. didn’t hardly look at us when he said this next sentence. He is looking directly at the sink as if he is talking to the f—— sink, and he goes, ‘You know, I’ve been trying to sell this house since June. And what can I say? There’s a bunch of unexplained quirks that just keep happening,'” she recalls him saying.

Are Hauntings Tied To Land?

Tessa says she asked the realtor if this happens routinely in the home. “‘This and 30 of its cousins,'” she recalls him responding.

Next, he says he’s been trying to sell the home since June of 2026, and strange phenomena is par for the course.

Doors open and close by themselves during tours, he told her.

At the end of her clip, Tessa says that she believes the activity is “demon karma” for developers tearing down the old church.

Throughout my own 20+ years of paranormal investigating experience, I’ve personally come across numerous claims that hauntings are tied to land.

One of the more prevalent examples of this is Perryville, Kentucky. The American Paranormal Research Association (APRA), which I’m part of, documented prevalent and persistent activity throughout the town. We theorized that the haunting of Perryville stems from the grisly Civil War battle that occurred there and that the hub of this activity was the JJ Polk House, which has since been restored and is now the home base of the APRA.

BroBible has reached out to Tessa via email for further comment.