This storyline is based on me as a kid.  Our dogs’ food was in a bin under the stairs in the basement, and I was always convinced that ghosts lived down there and were just waiting to get me alone so that they could kill me.  As ghosts will do to unsuspecting children, from time to time.  I never saw anything remotely resembling a ghost down there, but if a ghost were going to hide out in our house and wait to kill me, what other room would he do it in??  It made perfect sense to me at the time.