If you've ever lived in a house where someone died, you may have been a little creeped out. Those times when the lights go out and nobody else is home-- you're just as likely to attribute it to ghosts as a busted light bulb.

Even if you're not a "ghost person," you probably still want to know if people have died in the places you frequent, right?

So, "ghost person" or not-- now there's a "Death Map" of New York City, and it's just in time for Halloween.

Now, the origins of the map are pretty wild. NYC cyclist Zach Schwartz found himself in a bad situation a while back.

Many cyclists are hit by automobiles every day, most of them don't even go reported because they're minor. But of the overall number of collisions, most of them aren't minor. Mostly, people get mangled pretty badly, and that's exactly what happened to Schwartz. 

[anad]

He'd been "doored," or hit by a car door, while riding in the bicycle lane, and due to the conditions of the collision, he ended up with a giant gash in his neck that severed his carotid artery. He was almost a death statistic, but with lots of luck and surgery, he thankfully came out the other side OK.

Soon after, he found himself in proximity to another cyclist's collision, resulting in the individual's death. And around that time he decided to take his interest in the relationship between death and location to another level by mapping vehicle deaths and homicide.  

via Death Map NYC

Schwartz has noted homicides with pistols pointing at skulls and vehicle deaths as skulls. The data on the map represents 2,237 homicides and 2,810 vehicle deaths throughout the City, and seeing those numbers executed geographically, some trends emerge.

You'll see there have been lots and lots of people killed all over the place, but there are clusters in certain places. Decide for yourself why you think that is, but there's no question that some parts of the City have seen so much death that it's hard to believe they're not haunted...

Check out 6 Most Haunted Places You Should Visit in NYC.

[via Gothamist]

[Feature Image Courtesy Technical.ly]