What would it be like to live near a haunted house?

How about people be affected if there was a Haunted House in their town? The first thing I can think of is this would give a boost to local tourism, which could be a benefit or a nuisance. What about psychological effects? What would happen if you were constantly seeing paranormal phenomena or hearing stories of spooky event? Would this take a mental toll on people?

A real Haunted House or a "Haunted House"? In other words, are paranormal phenomena legit in this setting? If yes, and there isn't an Occult Detective or Paranormal Investigation, then I wonder what genre we're in. If it's Horror, then nobody ever believes in those things except the victims and the locals. They probably just don't go near the place and give cryptic warnings to any strangers in town. The tropes of this genre are well-established.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 24th 2021 at 6:39:57 AM

In this scenario, the paranormal phenomena are real. What I'm wondering is how the locals would be affected by living near a Haunted House and constantly witnessing bizarre occurrences that they can't explain.

ANY building near a haunted house would have it's property value lowered due to the fact no one wants to buy a property near a haunted house,also note that if the haunted house has a notorious story and history most people in the area will know of it.

But, again, what genre are we in? It matters since, in the real world, legit paranormal phenomena would attract hosts of scientists and the place would be turned into a research lab or something. In fiction, paranormal activity is handled different depending on the genre.

• In Horror stories, nobody ever believes anyone, the victims are called insane, and everyone in the immediate vicinity clams up and pretends things are great or forms a cult around the house or something. Property values may be affected, but only to make it a "steal" for some innocent family to move into and get torn to shreds by the poltergeist.
• In Paranormal Investigation stories, the presence of spooks is either ignored or downplayed by the media and it's just a few questionably sane individuals who run around dealing with ghosts. The town may be keeping the secret because they don't think anyone will believe them or because they fear the attention.
• In stories with The Men in Black, there's a deliberate masquerade hiding paranormal events and a secret agency tasked with eliminating them or co-opting them. When a haunted house pops up on the radar there's usually a visit from some agents, the ghosts go away, and everyone "forgets" they were there.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 24th 2021 at 9:10:46 AM

It would be Horror.

In that case, the neighbors will most likely avoid the house since hauntings usually stay focused in one specific space and live like normal.

If it's a dangerous ghost, all who know will keep it under wraps.

The ghosts will usually just leave their neighbors alone, yes, even the dangerous spirits, because they know that "No neighbors = No food deliveries"

("1408" is a good example, as that is just a single room that's haunted in a skyscraper-hotel with hundreds of rooms where life goes on as usual and the staff has fully adapted to its existence in order to keep the hotel going just fine. Except for the occasional deaths from those that stay in the room anyway despite the warnings from the staff.)

You would be surprised in regards to how easy people have it when getting used to the unusual when given enough time.

Edited by TitanJump on Oct 24th 2021 at 4:56:13 PM

Well, what sort of occurrences? Most standard haunting behaviours are fairly well-established in lore of one sort or another, so explanations would be available for at least some of those, I imagine.

Mostly it has to do with seeing ghosts.

Again, if these are realistically behaving people and the setting is not one in which paranormal phenomena are generally known and accepted, most would refuse to believe ghosts exist even when seeing them with their own eyes. If this has been going on long enough it'd be the Town with a Dark Secret. Everybody shuts up and tries to go about their lives whether they believe or not.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 25th 2021 at 8:55:37 AM

Is it just one place that is haunted or is it so common that real-estate agents has to hire psychics in order to determine if an empty house can be sold or not by determining the "grudge-miasma" within the building itself first?

...

How dangerous are the ghosts in your setting anyway?

And do they "look" human or not?

Or can they even be seen at all by the naked eye, (meaning they will still be visible to cameras and surveillance cameras, when the characters themselves sees nothing...)

Edited by TitanJump on Oct 25th 2021 at 3:13:35 PM

It's just one house that's haunted. As for how the ghosts look like, they appear human. They also can be seen by the naked eye.

In that case, the odds are 99% that no one besides the neighbors (and perhaps not even those) knows the place is haunted to begin with.

No need to cope.

No need to hide.

Ignorance just never let it reach their minds.

(Also, they would ignore or just disbelieve anything of the haunting coming out from it by default. People tend to rather not think about what does not concern them.)

(Especially if it is just one little house...)

Edited by TitanJump on Oct 25th 2021 at 6:59:58 PM

I'm inclined to think that those near the haunting would likely talk about it with others—even if only a few close people. From there the story will spread through the community—ghost stories, after all, are popular, as is news of local interest. Furthermore, the stories will draw more local people to investigate or challenge the report.

As a result, I would expect the haunting to be well-known locally, and word of it to at least reach paranormal investigators further afield.

As to how people take to the ghosts, I suspect that this depends somewhat on whether the haunting is dangerous.

If it's not, then I imagine that the presence of the ghosts would simply come to be accepted—after all, ghostly presence in the world of the living has a long tradition behind it. There is, I do think, history of people living near to sites believed to be haunted.

There might even be those who visit the ghosts.

If the haunting is dangerous, then I would expect cautionary tales and more-explicit warnings and prohibitions to come to be. And, of course, a subset of people willing to dare the danger...