Hobgoblins Love to Torment Seniors

January 2026

By Richard Fleming

Photo courtesy of David Trinks

As the years accumulate, I have recently become aware of an unusual phenomenon predominantly affecting seniors. This curious trend is the fact that hobgoblins often take up residence in the homes of people over the age of 70. There is no question they have moved into our house. I try to be accommodating and would not mind a single hobgoblin living under our roof. Maybe even one couple. But the problem is the hobgoblins are reproducing at a good clip and the creatures appear to be laying claim to every room.

We had none of these creatures living in our house ten years ago. But they’re here now, in force. And their sole purpose is to make the lives of my wife and I more difficult.

Hobgoblins are masters of grabbing things and hiding them. Before mentioning a few examples I want to first acknowledge that everyone occasionally misplaces things, including young people enjoying their care-free lives as 50-something-year-olds. But the hobgoblin taunting of seniors, their dastardly games of hide-and-seek, are far more pernicious.

Multiple times a month I find myself wandering around the house looking for missing items. A new tube of toothpaste I placed under the bathroom sink. A bottle of neem oil spray for plants that I put on a shelf in the garage. A sticky-note listing chores I need to do which I placed on the desk. I recall exactly where each of these items was placed, but they disappeared. My wife’s glasses are often missing from her bedside table. Her purse vanishes from the chair she placed it in.

There is only one possible explanation: hobgoblins at work. I could list countless examples, but I need to be careful about how long this post runs.

For some reason, the hobgoblins enjoy tormenting us by waiting a few hours, sometimes several days, then returning the item they pilfered, but putting it in a different location. So we often stumble across something they stole, but it is not where we placed it. This is a simple statement of fact.

Hobgoblins also know how to make me lose information inside my brain. Over the last few years it is becoming more common for me to walk upstairs to get something, but when I get there I no longer recall what I needed. Ditto for heading out to the garage. What did I need from there? I know it must have been important, since getting to the garage required me to get up from a very comfortable couch in our family room.

In a similar vein hobgoblins are adept at throwing wrenches into the functions of common household appliances. They clog toilets. They love to prevent showers and sinks from draining. They muck up garbage disposals. They mess with windows to allow rain water to leak inside and cover the windowsill.

And do not get me started on what the hobgoblins have done to our house plants. They have executed many of them, including nice plants which were living healthy, unassuming lives for many years.

Hobgoblins regularly invite ants, spiders, and sundry unidentified bugs into the house. And I assume it is the hobgoblins that have advised owls to start hooting loudly outside our bedroom window. Usually at 2:30 am.

Now I can already imagine what some of you are thinking. How could this guy have hobgoblins residing throughout his house but he can’t see them. Fair question. But I can assure you they do live here. The last few years I have started to hear more frequent creaking noises coming from the ceiling or walls while I am sitting quietly, having my morning coffee and reading about the latest assault on our democracy. Skeptics may claim these are common noises from the normal settling of a three-decade old house. But when you combine these noises with all the other nefarious events taking place under our roof in recent years, there is only one possibility: hobgoblins.

I have many friends and acquaintances in their 70s and older who describe similar problems, confirming this is a phenomenon linked to the aging process. Why do hobgoblins choose to torment us old folks? They know we are slow of step, our vision is slipping, and our reflexes have diminished. They have discovered over time that living in the homes of seniors is a safe refuge.

OK, I will acknowledge my assessment that hobgoblins have moved into our house and are making mischief may be a bit of a stretch. Maybe there is another explanation. Maybe it’s gremlins. Or elves. Pixies, perhaps. Maybe regular goblins. Gnomes or trolls certainly merit consideration. I’m open to any evidence-based theory. But the existence of these devilish creatures inside our house, running amok, is not open to question.

*    *    *

I am not naïve about the challenges of aging. During my long years in medical practice, I took care of many seniors. I did my best to help them accommodate and adjust to the increasing limitations which accrue as we age. And there are many. Chronic medical conditions of all sorts. Increasing pharmaceuticals. Declining energy. Memory lapses. Traitorous joints.

But at no time was I asked to address the problem of hobgoblins moving into seniors’ homes. For some reason, this never surfaced as a clinical problem.

I suspect the reason is that many seniors, though they wondered about the increasing incidence of unusual, hard-to-explain phenomena taking place where they lived, felt it was not an appropriate topic to bring up with their doctor. I’m sure many of them never considered the possibility that hobgoblins were responsible.

Well, I am here to clear up the mystery. If I was still in practice, I could do so much more to help my older patients better understand the aging process.

But. There is one big remaining problem. And that is how best to get rid of the hobgoblins. So far, I have not come up with any preventive  or therapeutic measures to address this common problem of old age. Hopefully research scientists will be able to provide some answers in the next few years. Until they do, I wish all seniors the happiest new year possible during these trying times.

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