There was a house on my street that was always listed for sale.
I grew up on Carver Lane. The house — 14 Carver — was on the market my entire childhood. Families would move in. The for-sale sign would come down. Six months later, eight months later, rarely as long as a year, the sign would go back up. The family would be gone.
This happened with enough consistency that the neighborhood kids talked about it. A haunted house is romantic. A house where no one stays is something else. We weren't allowed to play in the yard.
When I was old enough I started asking adults about it. My mother said the house had "bad energy" and wouldn't elaborate. The woman three doors down was more forthcoming: she said it had been like this since she moved to the street in 1978. Before her, she'd asked the same questions and been told the same thing. 14 Carver had been cycling through families for as far back as the neighborhood's memory went.
The families never said why they left. They were just gone one day, and the sign was back up.
I became a realtor in my thirties. I got access to the property records.
14 Carver had a sale recorded, on average, once every eight months since 1951 — the earliest record I could find. Seventy-three years of records. Seventy-three transactions. No family lasting more than a year.
I requested inspection reports. The house was structurally sound. No mold, no radon, no foundation issues. Every report — dozens of them — found nothing wrong.
I contacted the most recent former owner. She wouldn't discuss it. I found the owner before that. Same response.
The one before that agreed to speak with me. She was elderly, living in another state, and she said: "The house isn't the problem. The problem is what the house is next to."
I asked what it was next to.
She said: "I'm not going to tell you that. But I'll tell you to look at the property records more carefully. Look at what's adjacent."
The adjacent property — 12 Carver, the empty lot between 14 and the street — was not a lot in earlier records. It was a structure. Demolished in 1949.
I couldn't find records of what the structure had been.
14 Carver went on the market again last spring. It's still listed.
I will not be purchasing it.