POST FALLS — In an abbreviated probe Friday, an area ghost hunter wasn’t able to scare up signs of paranormal activity inside the historic Pleasantview School in rural Post Falls.

Brad Lane, an investigator for the Spokane Paranormal Team, deployed multiple instruments for about an hour in the upstairs rooms of the school.

He walked among dusty piles of old student desks, chairs and other school furniture, building supplies, ancient-looking chalkboards and crumbling floors and walls.

“You have to ... get lucky enough to be there at the right time,” said Lane. He entered the frigid interior of the building about 1:30 p.m. Friday, wearing an all-black uniform and toting two black instrument cases filled with instruments that both looked and sounded bizarre.

“Just the age and traffic that’s been through it, there’s a possibility” of paranormal activity, Lane speculated. “Not only that, if it’s a place that’s not frequently used on a daily basis, then it kind of gives them more freedom.”

“Them,” of course being ghosts, maybe demons.

Normally, for a business or public building, a team of investigators would spend several hours on each of three visits to a location, Lane said. The multiple team members would work off each other, he added, applying their individual talents and specialties to a hunt.

Lane worked alone Friday.

The school, located at 18724 W. Riverview Drive, in Post Falls, is owned by the Pleasantview Community Association, which is trying to restore the building to a fully usable condition.

Lane’s instruments searched the rooms for what he called “conductive energy sources,” temperature and light fluctuations, sounds human ears can’t hear, and unexplained shadows.

He deployed a high-definition video camera to document his movements in and approach to the new environment.

He shouted out questions to any hidden entities, asking for names, physical or personal descriptions, and whether they had been teachers or students at the school.

He asked any entities to demonstrate their presence, requesting they slam a door closed, move a chair, or drop a piece of lumber.

They didn’t.

Bob Ickes, president of the Pleasantview Community Association, said he’s never seen any ghosts at the school house.

People who visit the place, however, have commented that “this would be a good place for a haunted house,” he said.

That was particularly so when association members first started the restoration process.

“It was spooky and dusty” inside, Ickes said. “There are bats in the summertime.”

Kathy Darrar, another member of the PCA, said she once overheard a spooky story about a free-standing woodshed near the school. The shed doesn’t exist anymore.

Those telling the story said “they plainly heard somebody up there rustling around,” she said. “But when they got up there, there was nobody up there.”

Association member Judy Cowan has experienced something far creepier herself.

While going through images captured by a surveillance camera installed for security, she came across what she simply described as “a face,” belonging to a very large man or beast-like man, she said.

To clarify, she said, “These (images) are in the dark, but you could just see it right there in the picture.”

OK, but still confused, a reporter asked for further clarification.

“It kind of felt like bad energy at first,” she said. “And then I got to looking at it, and it was like he was looking into the camera, like going, ‘I’m here and I’m protecting this place.’”

She saw the “entity” about two weeks ago.

Bethany Tarnowski, 21, who lived in Spirit Lake for 15 years, called The Press earlier in the week to say she knows for sure the school building is haunted.

She visited it one summer afternoon a couple years ago with a friend, and she hasn’t been back since. The friend told her a teacher who worked there early on had gone completely crazy and was known to be haunting it.

“Apparently, the ghost still lingers,” she said. “About a mile before we got there I got really, really sick.” She didn’t feel much better when she arrived.

“Looking up in the windows, you could see faces looking out at you,” she said.

Brian Auer, who grew up in the Rathdrum area, said he heard while growing up from friends that the place was haunted.

“I heard the same story from several people,” Auer said Friday. Many of the accounts were second or third hand, he said.

“I believe it was usually at night that they say they saw or heard something,” said Auer, who currently lives in the Twin Lakes area.

Jenn Morin, who co-founded the Boise-based research team Paranormal Investigators of Idaho, said in an email Friday that she “heard that it is rumored to be haunted.”

She’s disappointed the school is so far from Boise, she said. “I would love to get my team in there to investigate though!”

According to the school association’s website, the building was used for community activities after the students moved on to newer facilities.

There were many years of neglect. Time, weather and gravity took a toll. Lack of money and manpower has hindered the restoration. Much of the main floor has been completed, but upstairs, far more work remains.

In 1971, Glen Madison, a longtime resident of the area, organized the association and took the first steps toward having it registered with the Idaho Historic Preservation Council.

The school district gave the building and land to the association, and in 1985, the building was placed on the National Historic Registry.