Flowers and Ghosts . The Haunted Flower Shop location in Etna

 In the 90s I did sub contracted telephone installation work for Avaya  Business Partner Phone Systems and one of the places I put a new updated system was  Micheal Blahas Flower Shop in Etna its a neat old building built in 1800s .

Thou Blahas has been in business for over 100 years it moved into its new location on Bridge street in 1991  after moving from a previous location up the street on Butler Street 

The buildings owner Mr .Kevin Burke was dead serious when he told the new owner Dave Kornely who kept the Blaha name  for the flower shop that it was haunted . 

Yes while I was there I got to meet the mischievous  Peter who messed with me trying to get the new phones working  but I did not hear or see him. I had all kind of problems I normally did not have setting up the phone system.

So who is Peter ? well according to the story the whole front and back buildings where a one time hotel and bordello  then a bar and restaurant

. When it was a bordello in 1920's a  worker there had an illegitimate son named Peter 

who perished in a fire in the attic of the back building. 

Now is there any truth to the story I don't know I have not had time to track it down .

But many claim Peter has done all kind of mischievous things around there. but after a spiritual cleansing of the building his presence has not been felt. 

So was Peter messing with me or was it just bad wiring etc. I guess we will never know. But a grizzly Murder Occurred right by there when a man was shot and killed very brutally in 70s.  whose murder has never been solved.

 and about 3 blocks away on main St. in Sharpsburg an apartment building I worked  in is said to be haunted by a well loved maintenance man who was brutally murdered and found in basement hall

A secret hidden apartment with 5 ft high ceilings .

 I have a realty customer who buys old apartment buildings and fixes them up and makes them habitable.

Recently he purchased a  a very rundown building in the South Hills of Pittsburgh in a very prominent community .

Needless to say the local Code Enforcement where ecstatic he was going to clean up this property.

But unknown to them and my customer was a  small secret apartment with just 5 ft ceilings you access off a boiler room stairway. 

At 6 ft tall I had to crouch down to even fit in the rooms which where very small . The apartment had Cable TV  and internet  a small kitchen stall for a toilet and separate stall for a tiny shower  but the person occupying it had already moved out .

You never would have suspected this apartment was there in the Boiler / laundry room  because you had to go up a set of metal steps which looked like it was the back door for one of the 9 apartments.

Neeedless to say it can no longer be used as an apartment it has been cleaned out and turned into storage for maintnance men. 

The mysstery thou was why was it even built and who lived there. 

We found out it was rented aparently for free or big discount by a elderly  widow .

The Big Question is How did it get built and no one knew? 

There is no way Fire prevention would have allowed it . Only one door out past a boiler room and bedroom was behind kitchen no way to escape if stove caught fire. 

Like Fire Inpsector said . This would have ben a classic case of a fire entrapping some one and they being found days later because no one knew to search for her .

 What ever the story the old owner has split town for florida and he is not talking .