NEW WESTMINSTER (NEWS1130) – New Westminster is the oldest city in Metro Vancouver and has had plenty of time to collect a fair share of the region’s ghosts and hauntings.
    
News1130 continues a series on some of Vancouver’s most haunted locations with paranormal investigator Rick Pedersen.

The Irving House Historic Centre

The old Irving House is a landmark in New West, built in 1862 on Royal Avenue. Some say the original owner Captain Irving and his daughter never left.
    
Paranormal investigator Rick Pedersen has been there, and you can tour it too, by donation.
    
“Tons of energy in that place and there’s some really cool history there,” says Pedersen, lead investigator and founder of Society of Paranormal Incident Research Investigation Team. (SPIRIT)
    
“When I go through a location, I tell them not to give me any history, I don’t want to know about it. When I was going room-by-room, I was picking up on different things and there’s one room where there’s still a male spirit for sure. I was also picking up some female energy in the place. There are probably two or three spirits I was picking up on that are linked to that location,” he describes.
    
The male spirit is said to be Captain Irving himself, who died in bed. Some say, at times, the imprint of his body can be seen on the mattress in his bedroom.
    
“When I went to go into the room, they allowed me to step over the barricade. I literally felt like I was getting pushed back. It was like ‘No, you’re not coming in here,’” claims Pedersen.
    
“They know on the other side what I do and they’re like ‘no this is my room, you’re not coming in here’ and I had to basically say I wasn’t there to clear them so relax,” he laughs. “I was just going in because I was curious. Definitely there’s a male there who is linked to the history of the house who is still residing there. People have actually seen an apparition of the man laying in the bed.”
    
Reported phenomena in the house include unexplained noises, shivering walls in the main dining, and a voice calling for a name.
    
Others report the sound of footsteps and claim the female spirit is the Captain’s daughter, her attachment to the family home reaching beyond the grave.