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MEAFORD–Rachael Chapman is not easily spooked.
After a fashion modelling career that took her to New York and London, Chapman, 33, travelled the world as a flight attendant before moving to a remote rural area near the Georgian Bay community of Meaford, where she lived alone in an old farmhouse with her young son, Adrian.
“We were miles from anywhere, but I wasn’t at all nervous,” she says.
Then last year, just before Halloween, Chapman and her partner, David MacLeod, decided to buy a home together.
The older three-bedroom, two-bathroom home they purchased for $164,000 on a tree-lined street just a few minutes’ walk from downtown Meaford has a large private backyard, so it appeared to be ideal for Adrian, now 13, as well as MacLeod’s 12-year-old son, Brian, and the baby the couple was expecting.
“We thought we had found our dream home,” she says.
The family has not lived in the house since May, although they struggle to make the mortgage payments while paying rent on another home, she explains, while reluctantly unlocking the door.
Chapman’s self-confident demeanour disappears when she steps into the kitchen that feels icy cold, although it’s a warm and sunny October day. The fully furnished house is neat as a pin with children’s toys tidily stacked on shelves, an empty baby’s crib and family keepsakes and photographs on display.
“We left our things behind because we were scared that we would take whatever it is that’s here with us,” she says…
