BFFs Bethany Watson and Kathleen Heaney chat about all things weird in our world and more on ‘An Acquired Taste Podcast’

Audioboom presents “An Acquired Taste Podcast,” a weekly series making space at the Tastebud Table for you and yours. So get comfy, grab your favorite drink, and tune in for some satisfyingly fun and inclusive convos. And with their show’s description, they want you to know, “If you’ve ever felt like you don’t belong, you belong with us.”

Hosts and friends Bethany Watson and Kathleen Heaney hang every week to share about their lives and the world’s weirdness. They enjoy self-love, self-care, and they’ll take a headfirst dive into a chosen, random topic each episode! How random are we talking?

Randomly wild and fascinating! Cheerleading deepfake scandals, stealing shoes at a party, why your friend unfollowed you on social media? These are all previous topics where the conversations twist and turn. Can birds really predict storms? Ever wonder if your Airbnb host actually left the place, or if they’re hiding in a hidden room somewhere? What’s the deal with prosopagnosia (face blindness), the visual equivalent of blanking on someone’s name?

A Brooklyn brownstone haunting

In time for spooky season, Bethany and Kathleen shared two stories involving hauntings and people lurking inside walls. What?!? Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn homes a haunted three-story brownstone where people have reportedly seen a little boy on fire and spirits walking around.

This gorgeous brownstone’s estimated rent cost is a jaw-dropping $11K a month, complete with a garden and balcony — what’s the max price you’d pay for a premiere haunting experience? Previous residents and neighbors said there were plenty of hauntings: weird smells, unexplained sounds, a caved-in ceiling, sourceless fires, and a girl locked in her room while it was on fire.

Trips to the brownstone’s basement were ominous. Lights would flicker off and residents would feel cold hands on their shoulders. Home phone lines could not be installed by the phone company for poor connectivity and other unknown reasons. When a new family moved in around 1998, they renovated the basement and allegedly found a boy’s body in the wall. They high-tailed out of there!

When researching this story online, Bethany and Kathleen found other horrors people shared while living in that home. A tenant claimed to find a hidden altar in the wall and bloody roller skates in a storage compartment under the porch.

Apropos to this episode’s theme, Bethany shared she attended the Seattle horror convention, Crypticon, and the film festival, BoneBat, that played her short film Lonely Hearts. They talked about horror films’ rise in popularity during the pandemic, and referenced a previous episode they did on how watching horror films can help anxiety.

Living inside their walls…

Imagine finding out you’ve been sharing your home with a stranger living behind your walls or lurking in your closet’s crawlspace. Yes, we’re thinking of the film Parasite, too. This episode also shares stories from people who have found randos claiming homeowners’ space as their humble abode — all without the owner’s knowledge or consent. Yikes!

The hosts recommend Tarryn Fisher’s The Wrong Family, a book about someone creeping around, silently observing a family while she lives in their house. We hear about a Seattle man squatting in a woman’s basement earlier this year. He had also been freeloading food from the nearby fridge, and slept in the bed, until she stumbled upon his stuff and called the police. He likely snuck in through the side door. These are just some of the freaky home invasions retold on this episode. Be safe, y’all!

We cannot recommend “An Acquired Taste Podcast” enough! Tune in weekly for new episodes.