It has to be mentioned.

Almost all paranormal groups are doing this as their preferred ‘hobby’. We don’t like to think of it that way because most of us would wish to do this full time – and have our bills paid.

But we fit in our investigations in between our Monday – Friday, 8-5pm jobs which means we are usually at a client’s home or business during the evening hours, or on weekends. This makes Saturday nights prime for bypassing work traffic and having more time to get there and be focused on only the client and their possible haunting. Since there are only a handful of Saturday nights in any month, they can book up really fast. That’s when we start trying to accommodate the clients by fitting them in during the week evening hours, Friday nights with heavy traffic, or Sunday afternoons.

By the time a client contacts a paranormal group, they have been experiencing confusing and sometimes frightening events for a few months or even years. Contacting a paranormal group is sometimes the last thing they ever thought they would do. Just like any plumber or electrician, the client would prefer if we were available TOMORROW. But unlike plumbers, etc., this does not pay our bills. We have to look at our calendars and see how many team members are necessary for a thorough investigation, then try to figure out when we are available AND have room on the calendar. Many times, certain investigations require our top members and that can be tricky to schedule.

While we want to come right away and alleviate the fears, it cannot always be done.

The second part of this issue is that we have been known to cancel our personal plans, dentist appointments, even go so far as to take a day off work – only to have the client reschedule. Again, unlike the electricians, it impacts our lives much more than a client realizes. Setting up five team members to go to a location on a Saturday means that we have bumped out another investigation that was less imperative (perhaps a business where we initiated the contact; they did not call us for help), cancelled all of our personal plans, made phone calls and texts about who will be carpooling with whom, arranged for babysitters – only to have the client call the night before or THAT morning to say that another day would be better. Sometimes, it’s because the client is nervous. We understand. It’s in their right to decide which strangers walk into their home. But often, it’s nothing more than ‘my sister and I want to go to a movie’ or something along those lines.

We can wish for more, but we cannot expect more. It truly is up to the client dictate the time and date for paranormal research. It comes with the territory.

But it can contribute to the problem: if they want help, validation, or answers, they must respect that many of these hauntings will not go away on their own. The sooner they are assessed, the sooner we can advise solutions.

A huge thank you to those clients that already realized the above!

As Kermit the Frog said: It’s not easy being green. It’s also not always easy being a paranormal investigator.