Every neighborhood has That House - the house that doesn't look lived in without being abandoned, the house where you never see anyone. In our neighborhood, it's a house we've been seeing on our daily walks.
Now that we have Elianna in the stroller, and the Jack Russell down the street doesn't get along with Athena, we've been taking walks up the other direction, deeper into our neighborhood. We had been passing this house every day and after a while I started noticing that you never see a car in the driveway, never see the flag up on the mail box. Jason pointed out that you never see trash cans, or anyone out mowing or working in the yard. The yard never looks freshly mowed, but also never looks overgrown. After the last round of storms came through, sticks sat in the yard for several days. There are curtains across the windows and bushes cut down to stubs. There is something about the house that seems... empty, bare.
A week or two ago, after staring at the house and speculating every time we saw it, Jason looked it up on Zillow - and found that it last sold in the late 90's. We thought that was even more intriguing. We had almost expected to see either that it had been on the market for years (despite the lack of a lock box on the doorknob), or that it had sold multiple times recently. We started wondering if it might be a property owned by a company - somewhere that they put up visiting consultants for a few weeks or something. That would explain the lack of activity while it also looking at least somewhat cared-for.
I said every neighborhood has That House. The ghost house in our neighborhood suits the other houses around it. Doesn't look exactly like any other house, but it doesn't stand out, either. It's just one more standard suburban brick house - brown and unremarkable. The ghost house in the neighborhood I grew up in, on the other hand...
Most of the houses in the neighborhood were ranches or very classic two stories. This house, though... It was a contemporary house that sat at the top of the hill like an overgrown Art Deco hat box. It was an odd slate blue color. It was curved in the front, with step-like windows that got progressively smaller as they neared the front door. The door itself was partly hidden by the curve of the front of the house. The front door had no adornment whatsoever and just sat there like someone had suddenly remembered you needed a way to get in and out and just slapped it on. There was a single light above the front door and it was always on. There was also a large swath of overgrown wooded area between it and both houses on either side. It just looked weird and creepy, but not in an obvious Addams Family house way.
Unlike our current ghost house, this one did have a lock box. All the time. Every year at Halloween, we would check - there was always a lock box. Sometimes one of us (me, my sister, or one of the neighbors we were trick-or-treating with) would get brave enough to go up and ring the bell. There was never an answer, never any lights aside from the one over the front door. I still don't know what the deal was with that house.
But back to my current ghost house. One day this week, we came upon the ghost house - and there was a guy down the side with a weed whacker! I didn't even notice him at first. Jason pointed him out. I wanted to call down to him, "excuse me, are you the imprint of a departed soul?" After we turned around at the cul-de-sac and passed the house again, we watched the Ghost House Guy very normally switching out gardening tools in his very normal garage where his very normal car was parked. Jason commented on how disappointing this was. I agree - the legend has died.