November 5, 2025
Ghosted by your realtor?
Gloomth
Gloomth: Internet melts down over haunted house disclosures
TLDR: A famous New York case declared a house legally “haunted,” reigniting debates on whether sellers must disclose spooky or violent histories. Commenters are split between demanding full transparency and mocking ghost talk, with memes, skeptics, and renters all asking: what exactly should be on the listing—and why it matters.
A court once ruled “as a matter of law, the house is haunted”—and the comment sections have never recovered. The Stambovsky v. Ackley case lit up forums as users split into Team “Ghost Carfax” (a Carfax-style history report for houses) and Team “buyer beware,” arguing whether sellers must disclose spooky pasts like Japan’s jiko bukken rules. Brits swapped “my flat’s dark past” stories, Americans linked diedinhouse.com, and everyone started photoshopping Zillow listings with “3 bed, 2 bath, 3 ghosts.”
Enter journalist Matt Blake’s saga: rats, random radios, and a burned floor revealing his home’s link to a notorious criminal—cue chaos. Believers say trauma lingers; skeptics yelled “call a plumber, not a psychic.” The “stone tape” idea (buildings replaying violent events) got roasted as cassette-era ghost tech, while quantum explanations were meme’d into “Schrödinger’s Realtor.” An exorcist cameo and a couple thriving in Dennis Nilsen’s old flat sparked the feel-good camp: reclaim the space, write new stories. Realtors chimed in that laws are murky across the US and UK, fanning the flames. The mood? Half “give me disclosure, salt, and sage,” half “ghosts aren’t real; prices are scarier.” It’s a haunted-open-house of jokes, ethics, and pure drama.
Key Points
- •In 1991, the New York Supreme Court allowed Jeffrey Stambovsky to rescind a home purchase, declaring the Nyack property haunted as a matter of law.
- •Property disclosure rules vary: Japan mandates advertising tainted homes; some U.S. states require listing murders; the UK lacks strict disclosure requirements.
- •A resource, diedinhouse.com, helps buyers check for recorded hauntings and other past uses of properties.
- •Journalist Matt Blake experienced unusual events in his Walthamstow home and learned it had belonged to Aman Vyas, later extradited and convicted in the UK in 2020.
- •Blake’s book explores causes of hauntings, consulting experts and referencing the “stone tape” theory; a couple living at a former Dennis Nilsen crime scene reclaimed their space positively.