Madam LaLaurie Mansion - New Orleans, LA - Scores 6/6!

This mansion in New Orleans is very well known for its ghosts. Apparently, Madam LaLaurie lived there and was a horribly cruel slavemaster who performed all manner of experiments and torture on her slaves. It was said her cook started the house on fire. The LaLaurie's fled and were never found, but when the smoke cleared they found bodies of slaves in the attic, having been chained and tortured in unfathomable ways.

This site scored a 6/6 on my Haunting Formula:

1. The house is older than 50 years.
2. It is encircled by train tracks.
3. It is encircled by water.
4. It has a traumatic/death history.
5. The land is marine sediment.
6. It has a foundation of stone.

I'm not surprised that people associate ghosts with New Orleans. These things generally don't just come from nothing. The people living there feel it every day. There's a few cities that seem to be dripping with ghosts, and this is one of them. It has fantastic conditions to be a very haunted city.

I'll keep you updated on other scores as I go along with my research. Eventually, we'll get to the part where I can compare the scores with the evidence of haunting and perfect the haunted formula.

If any of you are curious about testing your own home just to prove it is or isn't haunted, here's how to go about it:

1. Check on Mapquest.com your address. Zoom in on it and find out if there are train tracks or waterways within a mile of the house. The closer, the more powerful (give yourself a point for water and a point for train tracks if you have them).

2. Type in Google your state's name and "geology map" and you'll find a map of the geology of your state (if it's sedimentary rock, limestone, shale, schist, quartzite, granite, or sandstone, give yourself a point).

3. Find out when your house was built (older than 50 years gets a point) and if it might carry a history of death or tragedy (one point). These things aren't always passed on from owner to owner, but a check at the city registrar can help and archived newspapers with your address as the search.

4. Check how your house is built, if it's stone foundation or frame or block construction (if it's stone or block, give yourself a point). I'm giving a point for block because it's made of sand and lime and often seems to set itself up as yet another amplifier of what's already in the ground.

Bonus: You get a bigger boost if the house is within a mile of a cemetery or if it's round shaped.

I'd like to hear from anyone who can give me their points and tell me if they have activity in their house or not. You're helping me to refine my research.

Here's how I rate so far:
1-2 score means the place will likely never be haunted.
3-4 score means the place could in the future be haunted if something happens there that is tragic.
5-6 score means it's haunted.

Of course, the meaning of haunted can be thrown around a lot, but in the research so far I have no reason to think any of these are intelligent hauntings, but tend to be more recordings or "residual" haunts that get locked into the right environment. I hope to be able to set aside the ones that believe they have proof of intelligent hauntings to find out what factors they might possess.