In mine ears said the Lord of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant. Isaiah 5:9
Woe unto him buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour’s service without wages, and giveth him not for his work. Jeremiah 22:13
The winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. Matthew 7:25
When ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Matthew 10:14
A man’s foes shall be they of his own household. Matthew 10:36
If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. Mark 3:25
Homes fit for heroes. David Lloyd George
The children have their own wing. Storyville: Queen of Versailles, BBC 2012
‘You ask me why I’m building the largest home in America? My answer is because I could.’ ibid. David Siegel
2008: David Siegel is forced to lay off thousands of employees. ibid. caption
‘Everything’s available for a price.’ ibid. wife
Bank of America scheduled an online auction to sell Versailles. Just before the auction, David Siegel was able to borrow the money to take the house out of foreclosure. ibid. caption
In 2005, after a whirlwind romance, Helen and John sold up everything, got a huge bank loan and bought Gray’s Court, their dream house. Storyville: Hotel Folly – Folie a Deux, BBC 2013
The ghosts are moving tonight, restless, hungry. May I introduce myself – I’m Watson Pritchard. In a minute I’ll show you the only real haunted house in the world. Since it was built a century ago seven people including my brother have been murdered in it. Since then I’ve owned the house. I’ve only spent one night there and when they found me in the morning I was almost dead. House on Haunted Hill 1959 starring Vincent Price & Carolyn Craig & Elisha Cook & Carol Ohmart & Alan Marshal & Julie Mitchum & Richard Long et al, director William Castle, Watson Pritchard’s introduction
A haunted house party. ibid.
If any of you will spend the next twelve hours in this house, I’ll give you each ten thousand dollars. ibid. Frederick Loren’s introduction
All the details about running the house were done by mail. ibid. Watson Pritchard
Annabel, our guests are here and fortunately still alive. Is your face on yet? ibid. Frederick Loren to Annabelle
You remember the fun we had when you poisoned me? ibid.
Good evening. I’m your host. ibid. Frederick Loren to guests
Once the doors are locked there’s no way out. ibid.
She was supposed to stay down, but the bones came up. ibid. Watson Pritchard over pool of acid
It’s not my party but yours. And you are going. ibid. Frederick Loren to Annabelle
We’re all locked in now. ibid. Frederick to guests
So beautiful. So greedy. So cold. ibid. Frederick over body of dead wife
She was murdered by one of you. ibid. Frederick to guests
What husband hasn’t at some time wanted to kill his wife? ibid.
It’s almost over, darling. Every detail was perfect. We’ve done it. The perfect crime. ibid. Dr Trent to Annabelle
The victim is alive and the murderers are not. ibid. Frederick to self
I can tell you all now Trent and my wife were trying to kill me. ibid. Frederick to guests
They’re coming for me now. Then they will come for you. ibid. Watson Pritchard
No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together each the happier for the other. Frank Lloyd Wright
Between 1967 and 1976, 70,000 houses were demolished in London. The Secret History of Our Streets II: Camberwell Grove, BBC 2016
If history tells us anything it’s that you can’t be wrong buying a house you can’t afford. The Office US s5e7: Customer Survey s5e7, Jim, NBC 2008
Britain’s social housing crisis: anger on the streets and the families with nowhere to go. Tonight: Property – The True Cost, ITV 2015
There are over 1.3 million families on social housing waiting lists. ibid.
Tonight: Britain’s property crisis. The heartbroken and the homeless. The rise and rise of renting. Overcrowded or on the street? And the relief for those who finally find somewhere to live. Tonight: Britain’s Property Crisis, ITV 2018
After decades of missed building targets, it’s estimated the country needs four million houses right now. ibid.
The average house priced eight times higher than the average wage. ibid.
The right of a landlord to make someone homeless even when they’ve done nothing wrong … It can be whole communities. ibid.
House prices: how high will they go? Has gazumping made an unwelcome return? Why aren’t we building more houses? And a generation who may never own their own home. Tonight: House Prices: How Hight Will They Go? ITV 2022
While the economy was brought to its knees, the value of many properties just kept on rising. ibid.
The true cost of losing your home: why are so many families struggling to find somewhere affordable to live? … A wave of evictions is heading our way. Tonight: Losing Your Home: The True Cost, ITV 2022
The reality of Britain’s rental market. Prospective tenants being priced out. Existing tenants facing eviction. And housing stock in disrepair. Tonight: Rent Rises: The True Cost, ITV 2023
The market has become fiercely competative with prices hitting record highs. ibid.
The house – now almost destitute of furniture and without carpets or oilcloth on the floors – was deserted and cold and silent as a tomb. On the kitchen table were a few cracked cups and saucers, a broken knife, some lead teaspoons, a part of a loaf, a small basin containing some dripping and a broken earthenware teapot with a broken spout … The floor was unswept and littered with scraps of paper and dust: in one corner was a heap of twigs and small branches of trees that Charley had found somewhere and brought home for the fire. Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist
So a big part of a real-estate agent’s job, it would seem, is to persuade the homeowner to sell for less than he would like while at the same time letting potential buyers know that a house can be brought for less than its listing price. Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner, Freakonomics
On the day when there was a full chamber-pot under the breakfast table I decided to leave. The place was beginning to depress me. It was not only the dirt, the smells, and the vile food, but the feeling of stagnant meaningless decay, of having got down into some subterranean place where people go creeping round and round, like black beetles, in an endless muddle of slovened jobs and mean grievances. George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier
As you walk through the industrial towns you lose yourself in labyrinths of little bricks houses blackened by smoke, festering in planless chaos round miry alleys and little cindered yards where there are stinking dust-bins and lines of grimy washing and half-ruinous WCs. The interiors of these houses are always very much the same though the number of rooms varies between two and five. All have an almost exactly similar living-room, ten or fifteen feet square, with an open kitchen range; in the larger ones there is a scullery as well, in the smaller ones the sink and copper are in the living-room … Not a single one has hot water laid on … Great numbers of them are by any ordinary standard not fit for human habitation. ibid.
In a town like Wigan, for instance, there are over two thousand houses standing which have been condemned for years, and whole sections of the town would be condemned en bloc if there were any hope of other houses being built to replace them. ibid.
Then there is the misery of leaking roofs and oozing walls, which in winter makes some rooms almost unbearable. Then there are bugs. Once bugs get into a house they are in it till the crack of doom … Then there are the windows that will not open … And there are the special miseries attendant upon back-to-back houses. ibid.
Nobody now thinks it bearable to sleep eleven in a room, and that even people with comfortable incomes are vaguely troubled by the thought of ‘the slums’. Hence the clatter about ‘rehousing’ and ‘slum clearance’ which we have had at intervals ever since the war. Bishops, politicians, philanthropists, and what not enjoy talking piously about ‘slum clearance’, because they can thus divert attention from more serious evils and pretend that if you abolish the slums you abolish poverty. ibid.
One thing that always strikes me as mysterious is that so many of the northern towns see fit to build themselves immense and luxurious public buildings at the same time as they are in crying need of dwelling houses. ibid.
In a Corporation estate there is an uncomfortable, almost prison-like atmosphere, and the people who live there are perfectly well aware of it. ibid.