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Homes You Wouldn't Want: Houses With Creepy Atmospheres

Victory said:
I think many Londoners would understand that.
It's a phrase that has been widely used in New York Hip Hop records for decades.

LeFrak City's Akinyele was using it in the 1990's

"It's the bomb, baby. The bomb, baby. With no ifs, no ands, no buts, and no maybes."
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I think I picked up quite a bit of slang when bartending for a number of years.
Totally different crowd of people who have their own style of speaking.
And different ethnic groups also have another speech pattern.
I notice too that down south at the Jersey Shore they speak differently than we do in north NJ, being so close to NYC.
 
I'm not sure if you have discussed Mark Twain's haunted house in Greenwich Village, New York City, before, I haven't found a thread on it.
Mark Twain lived there from 1900 - 1901, and had some experiences in this 'House of Death', as they call it:

https://nyghosts.com/the-house-of-death/

The House of Death – Greenwich Village

Unassuming brownstone in the heart of Greenwich hides a dark and scary past.

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But the most interesting thing about the house is that Jan Bryant Bartell moved there in 1957, and was terrified. She wrote a book about her experience, which I read:

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Spindrift was written in 1974. If you're interested in true haunted house stories, get a copy!

"Jan Bryant Bartell and her daughter took up residency of a spacious apartment on the top floor, In 1957. The famous actress, psychic, and writer moved into the apartment which once housed the servants. Bartell reported almost immediately that “a monstrous moving shadow” would often follow her around the house. One time she writes that she had seen a ghostly figure of a man standing in a hall. Bravely she reached out and tried to touch whatever she was seeing, she felt something, but nothing like she had felt before, she described it as, “A substance without substance. Chilly, damp. Diaphanous as marsh mist or a cloud of ether. I could feel my fingers freeze at the tips. They were numb, and yet they tingled. In the split second between contact and recoil, the scent came. Fragile and languorous. And sweet; unbearably, cloyingly sweet.” This unusual scent was not the only odd and bitter scents the Bartell family reported smelling during their time at The House of Death. Food not purchased by them, and already rotting, as if it had been sitting around for days would suddenly appear at the table. Their many small animals would also often become aggressive for no reason as if disturbed by invisible enemies in the building."
 
Ronnie Jersey said:
I'm not sure if you have discussed Mark Twain's haunted house in Greenwich Village, New York City, before, I haven't found a thread on it.
Mark Twain lived there from 1900 - 1901, and had some experiences in this 'House of Death', as they call it:

https://nyghosts.com/the-house-of-death/

The House of Death – Greenwich Village

Unassuming brownstone in the heart of Greenwich hides a dark and scary past.

View attachment 56787

But the most interesting thing about the house is that Jan Bryant Bartell moved there in 1957, and was terrified. She wrote a book about her experience, which I read:

View attachment 56788


View attachment 56790

Spindrift was written in 1974. If you're interested in true haunted house stories, get a copy!

"Jan Bryant Bartell and her daughter took up residency of a spacious apartment on the top floor, In 1957. The famous actress, psychic, and writer moved into the apartment which once housed the servants. Bartell reported almost immediately that “a monstrous moving shadow” would often follow her around the house. One time she writes that she had seen a ghostly figure of a man standing in a hall. Bravely she reached out and tried to touch whatever she was seeing, she felt something, but nothing like she had felt before, she described it as, “A substance without substance. Chilly, damp. Diaphanous as marsh mist or a cloud of ether. I could feel my fingers freeze at the tips. They were numb, and yet they tingled. In the split second between contact and recoil, the scent came. Fragile and languorous. And sweet; unbearably, cloyingly sweet.” This unusual scent was not the only odd and bitter scents the Bartell family reported smelling during their time at The House of Death. Food not purchased by them, and already rotting, as if it had been sitting around for days would suddenly appear at the table. Their many small animals would also often become aggressive for no reason as if disturbed by invisible enemies in the building."
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“Jan, according to those who knew her in the West 10th Street buildings, was a very spoiled and neurotic person who also probably suffered from clinical depression. Since there was little that could be done for this problem in the 1950's and 60's, it became a major factor in her life and certainly colored her writing. It is also believed that she attempted suicide on more than one occasion while living in the apartments.

…Jan Bartell apparently committed suicide on June 18, 1973, just prior to the publication of her book.”

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/74654140/jannis-muriel-bartell

maximus otter
 
There are several versions of Jan Bryant Bartell's life, such as this one, where she apparently died of a heart attack:

http://wikibin.org/articles/jan-bryant-bartell-6.html

"Bartell and her husband left Greenwich Village and moved to suburban New Rochelle where they bought a home. There Jan Bartell died, of an apparent heart attack on June 18, 1973 prior to the publication of her book."

In any case, there were many more happenings in that house (the Steinberg case for one), I would never be able to live in a place with that history.
 
Is there a thread dedicated to Fortean houses or buildings, or oddities in the built environment? [Now merged - Yith]

I’m in Windermere at the moment, the skies are heavy and foreboding (the weather is a disgrace tbh), and this curious house on a rise just outside of Bowness caught my attention today - It is much creepier in the flesh, my rain soaked iPhone 6 couldn’t quite capture the deepening gloom of the place just prior to dusk. Fortified by skeleton trees and a grim non stop mizzle, it looms oddly above the more typical, Victorian holiday homes and terraced stone cottages. I wonder who lives there….

There’s creepy, and then there’s just plain weird; I suppose this might fit either description, depending on your angle of view.

If there is an existing thread of this type, please merge. If not, please add your creepy structures, gloomy cottages and weird architecture here. I don’t think ‘chat’ is quite the best place for it but couldn’t decide on an appropriate place to post.

If someone could kindly shrink it a bit that would be great.

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merricat said:
Is there a thread dedicated to Fortean houses or buildings, or oddities in the built environment?

I’m in Windermere at the moment, the skies are heavy and foreboding (the weather is a disgrace tbh), and this curious house on a rise just outside of Bowness caught my attention today - It is much creepier in the flesh, my rain soaked iPhone 6 couldn’t quite capture the deepening gloom of the place just prior to dusk. Fortified by skeleton trees and a grim non stop mizzle, it looms oddly above the more typical, Victorian holiday homes and terraced stone cottages. I wonder who lives there….

There’s creepy, and then there’s just plain weird; I suppose this might fit either description, depending on your angle of view.
If there is an existing thread of this type, please merge. If not, please add your creepy structures, gloomy cottages and weird architecture here. I don’t think ‘chat’ is quite the best place for it but couldn’t decide on an appropriate place to post.

If someone could kindly shrink it a bit that would be great

View attachment 62965
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It has a sort of Amytiville vibe with that roof and windows doesn't it? Although architecturally it's nothing like!
 
escargot said:
My current home is known locally as the 'unlucky' house because the last few families living in it had awful bad luck.

The immediately previous owners lost the house when they suffered various disasters and couldn't pay the mortgage.

Things went wrong for my family too. It was like Eastenders for years.

One day during a spot of garden remodelling I came across a pair of scissors buried under a step, wide open, the points towards the back of the house.

Dug them out and binned them, if only because they were dirty nasty rusty rubbish, and I have to say things improved.
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URRGH That's creepy as hell
 
According to the eggspurts a majority of buyers immediately know whether a house they are looking at is right for them. I've always thought that this applies also to houses which have a peculiar atmosphere. Maybe not everyone has that sort of sense though.
 
PeteS said:
According to the eggspurts a majority of buyers immediately know whether a house they are looking at is right for them. I've always thought that this applies also to houses which have a peculiar atmosphere. Maybe not everyone has that sort of sense though.
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My daughter and her partner are buying a house (they move in next week!) and it's got a lovely atmosphere except for one room. The back bedroom gives me the heebies.

I actually put this down to the heating boiler being on the wall in there, the room being long and thin with a large window at the end, and entered via a 'step down'. It all conspires to make me not like it. I'm not telling THEM that, though!
 
SimonBurchell said:
A genuine curse on the house? :omg: Who would do such a thing?
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Dunno. Well, it certainly did look creepy, and I do come from a family with connections to tailoring which is FULL of scissor-superstitions; so it was possibly the most unnerving object to find short of a dusty green bottle full of bones and witch-wee and stoppered with a stoat's head.

The house was only built in the 1950s so doesn't have a long, satisfyingly occult history. Just the scissors!
 
catseye said:
My daughter and her partner are buying a house (they move in next week!) and it's got a lovely atmosphere except for one room. The back bedroom gives me the heebies.

I actually put this down to the heating boiler being on the wall in there, the room being long and thin with a large window at the end, and entered via a 'step down'. It all conspires to make me not like it. I'm not telling THEM that, though!
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Yes! A step down for some reason does make it seem 'more spooky'.
Not quite as bad as a door at the bottom ot the stairs though.
 
Floyd1 said:
Yes! A step down for some reason does make it seem 'more spooky'.
Not quite as bad as a door at the bottom ot the stairs though.
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I've got a door at the bottom of the downstairs stairs, but not at the bottom of the upstairs stairs. It's not spooky, it's to stop the dog jumping on the bed when I'm not here.
 
catseye said:
I've got a door at the bottom of the downstairs stairs, but not at the bottom of the upstairs stairs. It's not spooky, it's to stop the dog jumping on the bed when I'm not here.
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Poor old dog's probably too tired to walk up all those stairs anyway.
 
catseye said:
I've got a door at the bottom of the downstairs stairs, but not at the bottom of the upstairs stairs. It's not spooky, it's to stop the dog jumping on the bed when I'm not here.
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My big dog Rocky used to love to lie on my bed, which was not allowed. Daughter 1 once spotted him gleefully rolling about on it when I went out and left the door open. :chuckle:

He also learned to look for me approaching along the upstairs hall in a mirror. I'd creep along quietly and watch him lean up and cock his ears to listen for me. When I reached the bedroom door I'd leap in and shout 'WHAT are you doing on THERE!' and he'd do the Scooby Doo scramble to get off. :rollingw:

All good doggy-banter. He was a sport. :cool:
 
I once came downstairs into the living room after midnight and found our big old labrador sitting bolt upright in a chair, her hind legs sticking out and the front paws resting between them. She was staring into the dark with such a wise and serene gaze. When she eventually noticed me she got down with a very sheepish look but I still wonder what she was contemplating at the time.
 
Bad Bungle said:
I once came downstairs into the living room after midnight and found our big old labrador sitting bolt upright in a chair, her hind legs sticking out and the front paws resting between them. She was staring into the dark with such a wise and serene gaze. When she eventually noticed me she got down with a very sheepish look but I still wonder what she was contemplating at the time.
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Food.
 
Bad Bungle said:
I once came downstairs into the living room after midnight and found our big old labrador sitting bolt upright in a chair, her hind legs sticking out and the front paws resting between them. She was staring into the dark with such a wise and serene gaze. When she eventually noticed me she got down with a very sheepish look but I still wonder what she was contemplating at the time.
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Bungle, she was pretending to be you.
 
catseye said:
My daughter and her partner are buying a house (they move in next week!) and it's got a lovely atmosphere except for one room. The back bedroom gives me the heebies.

I actually put this down to the heating boiler being on the wall in there, the room being long and thin with a large window at the end, and entered via a 'step down'. It all conspires to make me not like it. I'm not telling THEM that, though!
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Funny you should say that C. Daughter has just moved into a modern flat. It's a big flat but apart from the lounge all the rooms are long and thin with a large window at the end and feel very weird to me and didn't like it at all. (didn't say that though). Possibly a bit of claustrophobia?
 
PeteS said:
Funny you should say that C. Daughter has just moved into a modern flat. It's a big flat but apart from the lounge all the rooms are long and thin with a large window at the end and feel very weird to me and didn't like it at all. (didn't say that though). Possibly a bit of claustrophobia?
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Could be. Could also be vibrations from the boiler (which is mounted high up on one wall, very oddly) and, as others have said, the step down on the way in might make the proportions look weird.

Or it could be haunted, of course.
 
What an interesting thread. It made me think back on the various houses I have been in and what I like. Both Mr. EA and I like rooms upstairs, and would greatly prefer bedrooms upstairs. I also think a room entered by going up even a few stairs is much more comforting or secure feeling than going down a few stairs. I wonder if this is a genetic response to when sleeping in trees was more secure than sleeping on the ground. A few generations ago, of course.

Currently, because of aging and mobility challenges, we sleep in a one level home, and don't like it nearly as much. I sleep with my curtains open at night so I can look at the stars. Anyone, once they trespass into the back yard by climbing a 5 1/2 foot wall and negotiating their way around cactus in the dark, can look in on me.
 
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Endlessly Amazed said:
What an interesting thread. It made me think back on the various houses I have been in and what I like. Both Mr. EA and I like rooms upstairs, and would greatly prefer bedrooms upstairs. I also think a room entered by going up even a few stairs is much more comforting or secure feeling than going down a few stairs. I wonder if this is a genetic response to when sleeping in trees was more secure than sleeping on the ground. A few generations ago, of course.

Currently, because of aging and mobility challenges, we sleep in one level home, and don't like it nearly as much. I sleep with my curtains open at night so I can look at the stars. Anyone, once they trespass into the back yard by climbing a 5 1/2 foot wall and negotiating their way around cactus, can look in on me.
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Plant more cactus with bigger spines! Set up a sound-activated video system so you can enjoy replaying the recordings.
 
catseye said:
Could be. Could also be vibrations from the boiler (which is mounted high up on one wall, very oddly) and, as others have said, the step down on the way in might make the proportions look weird.

Or it could be haunted, of course.
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I often have bad dreams that involve long rooms. The door shuts behind me on it's own (as it's haunted).
 
Endlessly Amazed said:
What an interesting thread. It made me think back on the various houses I have been in and what I like. Both Mr. EA and I like rooms upstairs, and would greatly prefer bedrooms upstairs. I also think a room entered by going up even a few stairs is much more comforting or secure feeling than going down a few stairs. I wonder if this is a genetic response to when sleeping in trees was more secure than sleeping on the ground. A few generations ago, of course.

Currently, because of aging and mobility challenges, we sleep in a one level home, and don't like it nearly as much. I sleep with my curtains open at night so I can look at the stars. Anyone, once they trespass into the back yard by climbing a 5 1/2 foot wall and negotiating their way around cactus, can look in on me.
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Interesting. because we've been tempted to look for a bungalow and I've wondered whether the feeling of safety being upstairs would be an issue.
 
merricat said:
Is there a thread dedicated to Fortean houses or buildings, or oddities in the built environment? [Now merged - Yith]

I’m in Windermere at the moment, the skies are heavy and foreboding (the weather is a disgrace tbh), and this curious house on a rise just outside of Bowness caught my attention today - It is much creepier in the flesh, my rain soaked iPhone 6 couldn’t quite capture the deepening gloom of the place just prior to dusk. Fortified by skeleton trees and a grim non stop mizzle, it looms oddly above the more typical, Victorian holiday homes and terraced stone cottages. I wonder who lives there….

There’s creepy, and then there’s just plain weird; I suppose this might fit either description, depending on your angle of view.

If there is an existing thread of this type, please merge. If not, please add your creepy structures, gloomy cottages and weird architecture here. I don’t think ‘chat’ is quite the best place for it but couldn’t decide on an appropriate place to post.

If someone could kindly shrink it a bit that would be great.

View attachment 62965
Click to expand...

My first thought on seeing that house is that is reminded me of the original 'River Cottage' from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's t.v series, albeit a little more sinister looking and lacking the charm.
 
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