Growing up with psychic abilities, I'm comfortable engaging with the spirit world. I've seen a lot of ghosts in my lifetime. But there's only been one that really caught me by surprise.

In my mid-20s, I was looking to rent a house and came across a listing that sounded perfect. I met the owner, who led me to the back of the property where the house was located. It was charming, with a spiral staircase leading to the bedrooms on the second floor, exposed brick walls and hardwood floors. I fell in love -- hard -- and like other times when I've fallen in love, I became blind to everything else around me.

For a brief moment, I thought I felt something supernatural inside the house. But in my excitement, I quickly dismissed it. I signed a contract and the deal was done.

As I unpacked, I chatted on the phone, inviting friends to come over to see my new place. The days passed by peacefully, until I woke up one night with the feeling that someone was inside. Terrified, I walked around, baseball bat in hand, ready to club anyone I saw. I found nothing undisturbed and chalked it up to getting used to being in a new house.

On Friday evening, my friends arrived to celebrate my digs. We were downstairs enjoying a glass of wine when the noise began. We heard music from what sounded like an old scratchy record begin to play and the sound of heavy boots and someone in high heels clicking as they danced on the hardwood floor from my upstairs bedroom.

My friends and I crept up the stairs to see who was up in my room, but no one was there. We searched several times, thinking someone was playing a joke on us. Once we would calm down and go back downstairs, the music would start again.

This became a regular occurrence every Friday night. At first, it was almost endearing -- two sweethearts, locked in an embrace from the past, dancing together. I thought the ghosts were a time loop, like a tape that played over and over. Soon after, my theory was proven wrong, as the energy in the house began to change.

I discovered that while I was welcome here, men were not, and there was a definite 'other-worldly presence' in the house that was growing more and more active. My boyfriend and I began to quarrel. I got blamed for things I hadn't done. He'd accuse me of moving his things or hiding them.

One day, he yelled and said that I had pushed him hard while he was in the shower washing his hair. I was downstairs at the time in the kitchen cooking, and while he realized there was no way I could have pushed him, he couldn't live with the rationalization that something else might be in the house that he had no control over.

I began to notice that even when male friends came over to visit, they quickly grew agitated and angry.

Chatting with the neighbors, I learned that no one had lived in the house for years before me. It had been empty for so long that the spirit had grown weak and dormant. Once I moved in and had people over, it began to pull energy from all of us.

Having seen what the spirit world can do, I knew not to stay and hope that things would change. I could clearly feel the energy of this spirit, and it was not interested in crossing over to the other side or finding peace.

I called the owner and said, "I want to break my lease and move." When he asked why, I told him about the angry spirit. I didn't expect him to believe me, but to my surprise, he let me out of the lease.

He explained that shortly after moving in, he and his wife began to fight. Before six months had passed, they were engaged in a bitter divorce. They had learned that the main house had stood in the front of the property, which had mysteriously burned down. The home they owned where I was now living was the original servant's quarters.

The present owner had never understood why he was so angry when he and his wife lived there. He later rented the house out to his niece, and six months later, she and her husband also divorced. The house had stood empty until I moved in, and within six months, the relationship I had been in dissolved too.

My ability to explain the presence in the house allowed him to finally understand what was going on. We parted ways with him wondering if he would ever rent the place out again.

For my part, I learned a valuable lesson: Always check the energy in a house before you live in it, no matter how much you love the décor.

Kala Ambrose is an award-winning author, intuitive, paranormal researcher and host of the "Explore Your Spirit with Kala Show." Described by her guests and listeners as discerning, empowering and inspiring, she speaks with world-renowned authors, artists and researchers on metaphysical and paranormal topics. Her new book "Ghost Hunting, North Carolina" hits stores in September 2011. To find out more about Kala and her work, visit her on Red Room.