What's scary is when you've known someone for years, and then when adversity arises within your family or circle of close friends, and that person - that person who you've known since school, whose birthing of their children you've attended, birthday parties, weddings, funerals for family members, heartbreaks, divorces, and health-threatening sicknesses, is suddenly your enemy over a non-sensical issue. You realize after the fact and much too late that they were never your family or friends to begin with.
Hawaii is an ancient place. So many people have lived - and died - here. With such a rich, cultural history, chances are that, in our small community, at least one person in nearly every household has had some kind of supernatural "chicken skin" occurrence. Welcome to Ghosts Next Door, a collection of ghost stories and other thoughts about and around the Mysteries of Hawaii.
Ghosts Next Door
by Lopaka Kapanui
Aug 31, 2025
Aug 30, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #38. Aunty Rosalia.
Aunty Rosalia was the one who held the family together, so much so that she hardly had time for herself.
Aug 29, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #37. Alishia.
The radio I had in 1978 was bought for me on my 16th birthday.
Aug 28, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #36. Tuahine.
As a child growing up, I initially had a fear of old people due to their appearance and the odor they often emitted.
Aug 27, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #35. Olita Kala'imainu'u.
The way the therapist looks makes me question her credentials.
Aug 26, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #34. Dora Pungsulan.
The woman who moved in down the street is working in her yard, carefully pruning the hedges and gently removing the mock orange blossoms, which she collects in a basket hanging from her arm.
Aug 25, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #33. Trade The Day.
I went from being a more than well-to-do day trader to delivering pizza. It's a long story, but let's say that a lawsuit and deferred jail time were the result of the whole fiasco.
Aug 24, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #32. Bellows 1973.
It was an Impala station wagon that drove us all the way from Wai'anae, through the Likelike tunnel to the beaches at Bellows.
Aug 23, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #31. Hotel Street Bar.
This worn, cracked piece of wood has seen years of service.
Aug 22, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #30. Kaleikaumaka.
The culmination of an all-out war had been brewing for months. Kaleikaumaka knew that thousands of able-bodied men of all ages would be needed.
Aug 21, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #29. Pete and The Layer of Dirt.
My brother brought home his girlfriend, Rachel.
Aug 20, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #29. The Kiawe Acreage.
In my days as a child, when the green in the grass held a much richer hue of its own color than it had before, there was something about it that made me want to get on my knees and run my fingers through the blades until I could pull up a clump just for myself.
Aug 19, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #28. Rain Tuahine.
4 in the morning, and the beach is already overcrowded with people gathering for the sunrise.
Aug 18, 2025
Aug 17, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #26. Myles and The Manapua Truck.
What does it take to operate a Manapua truck?
Aug 16, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #25. Young Hiram.
In a swank neighborhood in Hahaione, bedecked with sprawling mansions with swimming pools and working gyms inside and beautiful women sunbathing on the outside, it's a feast for the hungry eyes of people who wish they could afford such a lifestyle.
Aug 15, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #24. Throwback Thursday.
Periodically, my business brings me to Waikiki.
Aug 14, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #23. Renaldo's Contract. Part. 2.
The four women realized that what Renaldo offered them was not beneficial.
Aug 13, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #22. Renaldo's Contract. Part 1.
Estralita Guimao, Fredlyn Abayon, Dolores Lontayao, and Lorna Pansacala stood in line together at the general store, bitterly complaining about the fact that the horn that goes off at the sugar mill, to signify the end of the day, should also signify to their husbands that it's time to come home from work and spend time with the family.
Aug 12, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #21. Contrasting Syncronicity.
Between 1985 and 1986, five women were kidnapped, raped, and murdered.
Aug 11, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #20. Hojo.
Huaka'i Street in Waipahu was where I grew up until my parents died.
Aug 10, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #19. Luana.
This story is fictional, but it could have happened.
Aug 9, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #18. Waikiki Ali'i Hotel.
Waikiki is a perfect location for its purpose, which is tourism.
Aug 8, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #17. Consequences.
If you hadn't known it was Waipahu Depot Road, you would swear that you walked into a bar from the days of your father's father.
Aug 7, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #16. Priscilla.
This story was told to me by the person who used to work in this office.
Aug 6, 2025
Aug 5, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #14. Trent.
Even from the vantage point on Queen Emma Street, near Kamāmalu Park, with tall glass towers muting the sunset, I can still see the last dying glow of the sun before it retires beyond the island of Kaua'i.
Aug 4, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #13. Ke'alaloa'opi'ilani.
It’s 1967. In the heights of Ka’ulula’au street, a 29-year-old Hawaiian girl sits among her kupuna strumming her late grandfather’s prized possession. It's his ukulele made from Koa, or acacia.
Aug 3, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #12. Alika.
When I sought the solace and silence of one of our native forests, it didn’t last long because of the propensity of tourists who inundated my once quiet spot.
Aug 2, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #11. Horace.
One night, out playing football late at Pu'iwa park, Horace and his friends played tackle past the park's closing hour.
Aug 1, 2025
100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #10. Back Seat Edmond.
In the parking lot at Pu'iwa Park sits Edmond De Costa, waiting patiently for Sheryl's car to roll up.