Haunted church to get makeover   

北京朝阳门内大街81号院将修缮 网上盛传鬼楼

(ECNS) -- Two dilapidated and allegedly haunted mansions on Chaonei Dajie in Beijing have been slated for renovation, according to the Beijing News.

The mansions, also known as Chaonei Church, are connected to a chilling story about the suicide of a National Party officer's wife.

Reporters visited the mansions at 11 p.m. on Saturday night and found nothing unusual, apart from red spray-painted words like "death" and "there is a ghost" cautioning visitors to stay away.

Meng Qi, head of the "infrastructure office" at the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which owns the property, denied the ghost rumor. "No officer has ever lived in the mansions, and only a Belgian senior woman lived there" he said, citing historic records, "and the story of the suicide is just rumors."

Meng said the mansions were built by the Catholic Church of the United States in 1910 to train missionaries, and by 1930 it was recruiting college students. After 1949, the buildings were used as offices by the civil affairs bureau, and not given back to the association until 1995.

Meng said the mansions had not been renovated earlier because of a lack of funding, and suggested that people should stay out of the buildings for safety reasons.