Image of Victorian Houses

Why is it haunted houses are almost exclusively pictured as run down Victorian mansions?

The Victorian Age is notorious for several things. Perhaps the best known is the excessive prudishness. They even went so far as to put skirts on tables so that the *gasp* 'limbs' wouldn't show.

Good grief.

Well to do Victorians were also obsessive collectors. Their homes could easily be nearly impassable mazes of vases, paintings, statues, and perhaps a mummy or two.

Yes, mummies. Egypt was all the rage at that time and archeology was in its infancy. Most archaeologists were really little more than treasure hunters. They'd find some odd bit of jewelry or part of a mummy and sell it to the highest bidder. Counterfeiting was a great side business.

I don't know why anyone would want to keep a mummy, let alone a copic jar, in their home, but the Victorian age did seem to attract macabre interests.

This was also the time of spiritualism, an increasing interest in East Asia, and the popularization of the Ouija board.

This was the age of Houdini and Charles Dickens. Both Braum Stocker and Mary Shelley wrote their infamous horror stories during this time. (Dracula and Frankenstein, respectively.)

The idea of reincarnation also became popular. It seemed every lovestruck woman was the reincarnation of an Egyptian dancing girl and the object of her desire a reincarnated prince.

And I haven't even gotten to the houses themselves. The fanciful turrets, decorative extentions, and occassionally cramped confines may well have given them an other worldly air when they were new. Now that they average a hundred years, the creakings and groanings natural to an aging structure can make the most sensible person uneasy.

I should know, I lived in one for most of my life.

Granted, it's an old farm house and thus of a more utilitarian design. Still, it's age gives it an air. It's been remodeled at least once in the interim, including a questionable electrical system. The plumbing is certainly from the second half of the 20th century, though it's showing its age more than some other parts of the house. Still, there are creaks, groans, and odd spaces left over from renovations.

It is, in short a house more than capable of frightening newcomers. Once you get used to the place, though, it's easy enough to distinguish the normal sounds of settling from things much more... unsettling.