Main Piece:

Participant – “Well, you see, there’s this home in my neighborhood, and… a hoarder lived there so basically…there was like always like all this stuff just like lined up outside of the house and like, so they couldn’t even get in the doorway… and the superstition was…once you go into the home, you never come out.”

Context:

My friends and I were discussing the different legends and ghost stories from our hometowns, the participant offered up this popular story from her old neighborhood.

Background:

The participant is a freshman accounting major at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She grew up in Seattle, Washington where her family still currently lives. This legend was shared with the participant at a young age by the other kids in her neighborhood. This was a common belief and story shared by them all.      

Analysis: 

Almost every neighborhood has its own unique stories. Most often they relate to a house which looks uncared for or abandoned and the kids start making up a variety of stories. In some cases, a witch lives in the house, in others its haunted, but in almost all cases it stems from children’s imaginations. Most often, the house is nothing more than ordinary, but the legend serves as a shared bond and connection between the kids of the community.