WINDHAM — For one client, it was tension in the ground a mile under the house.

For another, an oppressive, overgrown pine grove. For another: old, cold energy in the walls.

Surrounded by candles in the meditation room of their farmhouse, David Dobson and Kristine Schares claim they can home in on properties hundreds and even thousands of miles away — their most distant client has been in Sweden — identify sources of discontent, cap them off and clean them out.

Golden Ray Energetics‘ specialty is remote-energy house-clearings.

A quarter of clients are trying to move homes that have lingered for sale or for rent.

Dobson said they cut energetic cords (maybe owners don’t really want to sell, or the last tenant left behind a room full of pizza boxes and bad feelings) and shake out any negativity.

“If you’re not selling a home, there are other reasons than the market’s not good,” he said. “A Realtor recently asked, ‘Can you tell me if this place needs to be cleared?’ You’re asking me — you wouldn’t be asking if you weren’t feeling it.”

While most clients are homeowners, the couple is looking to expand the six-year-old company into the public and private sectors, specifically nursing homes, jails and nuclear power plants.

Dobson’s drafting a letter now to offer free services to the Maine Correctional Center.

“It’s like being put into this toxic soup: anger, rage,” he said. “What I’d like to do is play with that. Tell me your most difficult section, we’ll work on that.”

Dobson’s background is carpentry and art. Schares is a massage therapist.

It was natural, she said, to move from working on people’s energy to a home’s energy.

They operate on the belief that, when it comes to energy, there is no space between here and there.

“The quantum physics principle of non-locality says that there is essentially no distance between points A and B, whether we’re talking about our den in Maine or a home in California,” Dobson said.

The couple haven’t encountered a lot of skeptics, who generally are not going to pick up the phone to order a $175 energy house-clearing. The company relies on advertising and customer referrals. People have given their cleanings as wedding and birthday gifts.

“The last six, eight months we’ve done a lot of work in California,” he said.

One clearing takes about an hour in a meditative state. Clients are quizzed in advance about issues they might link to the property or past relationships. Dobson and Schares mentally work on the land and ground first. From there, she likes to move from room to room; he takes in the whole building.

Clients are alerted to the day and approximate time of the clearing and receive a detailed report after the fact. From past reports:

“While moving through the home we cleared a blockage in the kitchen dealing with the nurturing flow, then swept throughout the entire home anchoring the energy of joy throughout.”

“As we began to energetically clear this structure, there ensued a great deal of movement as the earth seemed to vomit as if in response to a poisoning that had been kept in place for quite some time.”

“We immediately felt an overlay of intense grief that was firmly anchored over and surrounding the house. This layer was pulled off and transmuted.”

“One of the last reports we did, Kristine had put down seeing someone covered in a death shroud,” Dobson said.

That someone was the still-very-alive homeowner. They debated whether to mention that, and did. It was a sign the homeowner was shutting down.

“We have to be honest,” Schares said. “Part of our thing is empowering people to make use of this information.”

Vicky Stover of Durham, N.C., found the couple through a local landscaper who did energy work. Less than a year after Stover moved into her new home, a nasty storm brought 8 inches of rain. Plugged drains in the neighborhood turned her lawn into a river and did extensive damage. It was just one of several issues with the property. The house had bedbugs when she moved in. Things would break, like one time, a gas line.

“It was like one drama after another,” she said. “It was crazy there were so many things going wrong with it.”

She’s had four remote clearings in the past year.

“The last two works he’s done with the property, the second one in particular, was pretty phenomenal,” Stover said. “He changed something from under the ground, and I know that might sound silly but I still walk in here and I can feel what he’s done. Because if there’s water on your property, you’ve got emotion running through it.”

The whole concept is akin to traditional spring cleaning, Dobson said. Dusting things off, clearing out clutter.

Some houses need it; some don’t.

Occasionally, they clandestinely clear without being hired. They’ve attempted war zones and spots in Washington, D.C.

“Can we just facilitate some open conversation here?” Schares said of their goal of working in the latter location.

Notice any results?

“Not yet,” she said. “I have to tell you, no.”

Weird, Wicked Weird is a monthly feature on the strange, intriguing and unexplained in Maine. Send ideas, photos and positive thoughts to kskelton@sunjournal.com.