I started this thread because I wanted to get the community's consensus on what exactly happened to Wilf in 1922. There are three main thought trains on this:

1. The whole thing is a perverse dream, he never had a family or farm to begin with, and he kills himself because of his insanity.

2. It all really happened, including the haunting in the house and the premonition, and the rats chewing him to death at the end, simply making it appear as though he had done it to himself.

3. It mostly really happened except for the haunting and the rats eating him, those were only a product of his guilt and he kills himself at the end.

I am one of the people that lean towards thought 3. I think everything happened up until the haunting and then all the rats are illusions. I say this because he mentions that others couldn't see them and the newspaper article says that he bit himself due to his own insanity. So, really, it could be any of the three because he also mentions that the people he tells about the rats may be trying to cover their ass. Still, I prefer to think of it as not a ghost story, but a story about a man falling deeper and deeper into his own insanity.