BACK TO SPRIG HOME
Sprig Magazine publishes two articles per month, written by our wonderful team of freelance writers.
THE TEAM/WRITERS
BACK TO SPRIG HOME
Sprig Magazine publishes two articles per month, written by our wonderful team of freelance writers.
THE TEAM/WRITERS
Spatial Hauntings
By E.M. Bancroft
He/they, hy/hymn, voi/void
E.M. Bancroft is a queer writer, poet, zinemaker and artist based in Magandjin who loves all things horror and absurdist. He has a Bachelor of Arts in writing with a minor in film studies and is currently completing a Master’s in Writing, Editing and Publishing at the University of Queensland. They have self-published two books, The Receptionists and Around the Dark Corner. You can often find hymn haunting local cinemas, bookstores, and art galleries.
Edited by Claudia Cuthbert
associate editor
she/her
Claudia is an editor at Sprig Magazine, where she aspires to provide meaningful contributions to the arts scene based in Meanjin. Following a degree in creative writing and an unwavering love of literature, she is dedicated to celebrating Australian creatives and is excited for Sprig’s welcoming and inclusive works to reach an equally enthusiastic audience.
Claudia is an editor at Sprig Magazine, where she aspires to provide meaningful contributions to the arts scene based in Meanjin. Following a degree in creative writing and an unwavering love of literature, she is dedicated to celebrating Australian creatives and is excited for Sprig’s welcoming and inclusive works to reach an equally enthusiastic audience.
That's what one of my housemates said on Discord when we first saw photos of our new house.
Non-Euclidean, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, is ‘"literally any geometry that is not the same as Euclidean geometry.’" What's Euclidean geometry? I'll be honest, I still don't really know, but Wikipedia says it has to do with axioms (postulates).
I asked my clarifying question later in person,
‘Like House of Leaves?’
‘Like House of Leaves.’
House of Leaves is a 2000 horror novel by Mark Z. Danielewski. In it, the Navidsons discover that ‘the width of the house inside would appear to exceed the width of the house as measured by the outside by 1/4'.’ There's also this impossibly massive room that is less of a room and more of a labyrinth that can defy the laws of physics at random. House of Leaves is all about architectural horror and the different ways a house can be haunted without the presence of ghosts.
We moved in pretty quickly. Turns out the real estate agency was as desperate to sign the lease as we were to find a new place. Hence began the two weeks of moving boxes and bond cleaning. Somehow this step is the most stressful. On one end, we had our old property's real estate agency tried to do everything in their power to withhold our bond from us, and on the other end, our new property's real estate wanted us to move in as soon as possible.
Moving houses has always been a special kind of horror, but this horror has been intensified since the housing crisis began. Thousands of people need places to live, but there aren't enough houses. And the available houses are unsuitable for human life and cost over $600 a week, and that number can increase at any time.
One of the bedrooms was unlivable for the entire 2 years we were there. The reason? Black mould. There was black mould in the closet. Yes, the real estate knew. No, it was never fixed. Hey, did you know that's illegal under the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act 2008? That's what I mean when I say ‘unsuitable for human life’.
The toilet room in this house could be locked from the outside, had a broken occupied/vacant switch on it, and looked like it was straight out of the 2014 horror game PT. It lovingly got dubbed ‘The PT Bathroom’.
And don't get me started on the bond cleaning. Every surface from top to bottom had to be sparkling as if brand new. The main challenge in cleaning was the dust; it was everywhere.
Dust is invasive; it sticks to everything. If there were a ghost in that house, instead of a white sheet, it would've been blanketed with dust. And god, the smell. When we first moved in, there was this intense, musty smell that we were able to control, but it always sort of lingered. When we moved out but returned briefly to do bond cleaning, the smell had returned in full force.
Our new place is a lot nicer, larger, and cheaper per person. It's basically two homes in one; both levels have three bedrooms, one bathroom, one kitchen, and one living space. There is also an upstairs room that can only be accessed from the outside. The backyard is spacious and comes with a shed we lovingly dubbed ‘The Murder Shed’, and a jackfruit tree.
My bedroom's only source of light is an exposed fluorescent light that takes anywhere from 5 to 20 seconds to flicker on, and it occasionally makes insanity-inducing buzzing noises. There is also a small storage space underneath the stairs that none of us like thinking about.
Both houses are haunted, but not in the ways you might think. There aren't any spectres or poltergeists. The ghosts here take the form of black mould and questionable architectural choices. The poltergeists are the angry emails and phone calls to the real estate office demanding something be done about the mould. Houses, like ghosts, hold memories, and what these two houses hold are the all-too-normal experiences that come with renting in this era of economic instability.