It’s not enough these days for some Halloween enthusiasts to be scared by actors dressed up in spooky getups at makeshift haunted houses: They want the “real” thing.

At a former psychiatric hospital in suburban Detroit and a former funeral home in Toledo , Ohio , visitors can embark on guided paranormal investigations or even set out on their own with rented equipment, such as a handheld electromagnetic field (EMF) meter.

“Guests that come here on our paranormal tours, they get touched, they get grabbed, handprints on clothing, whistled at,” said Justin Cox, founder of Michighost Paranormal, which leads paranormal investigation tours of the Eloise Asylum attraction’s upper floors, where patients were treated. “Everything that you can imagine has happened here, and we’ve heard it all.”

The facility began as a 19th-century poorhouse and operated under various names as it expanded into a complex with dozens of buildings.…