‘MY DOLLS ARE HAUNTED'

POSSESSED DOLLS ARE BIG BUSINESS ONLINE BUT A BIG HASSLE IF YOU SUSPECT YOU HAVE ONE

- Melenie Ambrose

Swiping through Facebook Marketplace on February 28, Perth vintage store owner Linda Parri spied the quirkiest of dolls. “It was such bad timing. I had guests arriving for my son’s third birthday party, but something just compelled me to get it,” says Parri, 44, of the peculiar cloth figure dressed in a pink tutu with a ceramic poodle’s head. At the seller’s home, she was offered more dolls, including an automated choirboy once displayed at Boans department store, which operated in Perth from 1895 to 1986.“I wondered why they were so cheap, so I jokingly asked, ‘They’re not haunted are they?’ and she said, ‘No, but they freak my daughter out.’”

Since placing them in the Bayswater home she shares with partner Daren Reid, 54, Parri has come to think there’s more at play with her “quirky conversation starters” after a series of strange events.

At her son’s party, a child fell down the stairs landing at the feet of the poodle doll and that night, a kitchen tap exploded narrowly missing Parri’s head. The next 10 days saw broken appliances, strange footsteps in the house, a dislocated toe and a deadly dugite snake on the front porch at the couple’s riverside property.