Haunted houses are a classic horror trope – but are they scarier than damp, mould and landlords?

Liquid drips through the walls. Black mould creeps around the windows towards my bed. I hear strangers’ voices outside my door and screaming from downstairs. The electric shower is stuck at scalding temperatures and the fuse box trips. Rodents sneak out of the floorboards. A strange man lets himself into my home unasked. 

These are not fragments of a ghost story but experiences I faced while renting my first flat in London, and that strange man was my landlord. We are enduring a housing crisis across the UK which means too many of us feel trapped in horror homes, unable to get out because we cannot afford to move. 

It’s a fundamental fear which has been explored for centuries. In Gothic literature and horror films, the haunted house trope appears time and again. The Shining, The Haunting of Hill House and The Yellow
Wallpaper are just a few examples that explore a protagonist’s descent into madness as their home becomes monstrous. 

“They say you take your ghosts with you wherever you go and, since home should be a place of comfort and protection, there’s probably nothing scarier than getting no reprieve there,” says Xavier Reyes, a Gothic specialist at Manchester Metropolitan University. 

The House at Hallow End is a powerful new film in the genre. Angela Gulner’s debut follows single mother Harper (Katie Parker), who moves in with her mother Sadie (Patricia Heaton) into a house they plan to flip and sell. Disturbing events occur as Harper falls into apparent madness and people lose trust that she can take care of her baby. 

“We want the home to be this warm, safe space, and there are a few moments where it is, but as the film progresses and as our hero becomes more and more distressed, it becomes sort of a cage,” Gulner tells Big Issue. “These spaces can flip when there’s trauma.” 

The house has a physical impact on Harper, with grotesque moments representing the “constant anxiety” faced by a new mother who loses control over her body and life. Sadie searches for ways to “get rid of this space which has become unpleasant” for their family, but “she has this burden of caretaking, and it is echoed in the home where some horrible things have happened”. 

Home ownership is a key theme in the horror film canon: who owns a house? Is it the person who signed a legal document or the spirits of past tenants? Beetlejuice explores this idea with dark comedy, as the ghosts of married couple Barbara and Adam attempt to drive out the new residents from their home. 

Evert Jan van Leeuwen, a Leiden University lecturer who has written a book about home ownership in horror due to be published by Liverpool University Press in 2026, says most home owners are “in fact deeply in debt to a faceless financial corporation that is the actual owner of their house and can kick them out as soon as they fail to make their payments”. 

He says western ideology’s idea of ‘the good life’ is materialistic and linked to property ownership, and that homeowners can “come to feel they own those people who live in the home they own, which leads to relations based on coercion and exploitation”. 

Read more:

• Family trapped in damp and mouldy horror home for 10 years: ‘This family is owed respect’
• Dad of boy who died due to mould in flat says he’s ‘proud’ of his son for saving lives
• I never used to believe in ghosts. Until I visited a haunted house

Róisín Lanigan’s novel, I Want to Go Home But I’m Already There, published this year, deals directly with the London rental crisis through a ghost story. 

“Historically, haunted houses have been vehicles for us to talk about the financial burden of owning property, of being tied to a place you’re not sure of and which feels increasingly malevolent,” Lanigan tells Big Issue.  

“The horror trope usually dictates that a family (often a mother) wants to leave the dilapidated mansion but can’t, because her husband has poured all their money into owning it. Our generation is unlikely to experience that reality – supernatural or otherwise – so I wanted to frame the book around a different horror.” 

Lanigan says millennials and Gen Zs grew up with an “idea fed to us through TV and film that one day we would grow up through the prism of the home”.  

“We’d choose a partner we liked, we’d give them a key, we’d buy our own place, a starter house, then a big forever house. That just doesn’t exist any more. You can leave a rental property if you hate the place you live in or the people you live with, but to do so you’re throwing yourself at the mercy of the private rental market, which is as malevolent as whatever’s inside your flat.”

Another modern haunted house horror is Barbarian, Zach Cregger’s 2022 film set in a Detroit Airbnb. A woman arrives at the property and discovers a man already staying there. They agree to share the house, but there are chilling twists ahead – and something lurking in the basement.

“Parts of houses that are normally dark and empty or unused, like basements and attics, tend to be favourite settings because they correlate well with secrets and repressed experiences or emotions,” Reyes explains. 

“They are spaces connected to signs of decay too, like mould, damp, asbestos and other substances harmful to humans – again, an echo of psychological deterioration.” 

Brits continue to face horrors in our homes which are perhaps worse than the paranormal. Millions of us have damp and mould. Councils are sending pest control to hundreds of thousands of homes each year, and 45% of private renters have experienced illegal activity from their landlord, Shelter found.

Stephen Shapiro, a professor at the University of Warwick, said: “Housing is more than a roof that doesn’t leak or rooms that have heat – it often stands for our identity.  

“Where we live and what we live in is often used to describe us as much as features like nationality or gender. So when horror shows a haunted house, it’s often less about the presence of ghosts, but a sense that it’s our identities that are at risk.  

“A society that ensures everyone has the human dignity of safe housing, regardless of income, isn’t one that needs haunted home tales. The horror of the spectral house will always be with us until housing justice and equality is ensured.” 

The House at Hallow End is available to buy on digital platforms including Amazon Prime, Sky Store and Apple TV+

Win a stay in Britain’s most haunted house

30 East Drive in Pontefract has been recognised as the “most haunted house in Britain”.

Its owner Bil Bungay claims he has witnessed unsettling happenings, mostly from a poltergeist ‘Black Monk’ called Fred. He has never stayed a night in the house because he is too afraid. 

But it is popular with visitors. A night at 30 East Drive will set you back at least £350 (£450 on Fridays, weekends and bank holidays). There is a two-year waiting list, but Big Issue readers can win a night there. 

Enter the competition here and buy a Big Issue magazine to find out more.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. 

Reader-funded since 1991 – Big Issue brings you trustworthy journalism that drives real change.

Every day, our journalists dig deeper, speaking up for those society overlooks.

Could you help us keep doing this vital work? Support our journalism from £5 a month.