Every day, twice a day, on my commute to and from work, I pass a very large house in a well-off community. It’s the kind of house my wife calls a “McMansion”, because it’s not exactly unique, and appears to be the kind of place the nouveau well-off if not riche buy to celebrate and show off. Except that this one isn’t nestled among a lot of others of its kind. There are some nearby, but not next door. This house stands out because a.) it’s new, b.) it’s got a lot of space around it; and c.) It’s immediate neighbors are much more modest.
The reason that this house keeps my attention is that there’s never anyone there. It’s as if they bought the house merely to say “I can afford a big house”, and kept on living wherever he or she had been living before. The house does gets its walks shoveled and its yard raked of autumn leaves, but that grunt work (along with planting of new trees and the like) is clearly being done by hired labor. Sometimes I see them there, but it’s obviously not the inhabitants (unless the inhabitants have taken to wearing work fatigues with logos on them.) I suspect hired labor puts up the scant Christmas lighting and decorations, too.
Because I never see cars parked there. I never see anyone not a worker in the yard. I never see lights on in one of the not-main rooms. I never see people moving around inside.
Granted, they have a garage that might have the cars in them, but I’m not familiar with anyone who always puts all their cars in the garage. Granted many of the other houses nearby are also pretty anonymous – but I generally see cars parked, or lights on in the upper bedrooms, or individual touches like balloons tied to mailboxes announcing births, or toys left in the yard, or obviously used outdoor furniture. This house continues to grab my attention because it’s so conspicuous, standing out in its large space and with no comparable nearest neighbors, but, for the same reason, I’d notice signs of individual occupancy./ This house looks like a huge purchase that was made for whatever reason, and carefully maintained, but not obviously lived in.
There’s a related phenomenon I’ve noticed examples of – the Ultra-Modern Glass-Sided House plunked down in a sea of Traditional Houses. This is a house of unusual architecture, with many lights on the outside, lots of stonework, and floor-to-ceiling windows on several walls, as if the inhabitants had no need of privacy. These people clearly never walk around in the nude, or have sex in the main room, or even do anything in the slightest non-picturesque, because those window-walled rooms are always aesthetically perfect.
I know of at least two of these nearby, and I’m almost as bothered by them. But in these cases, even though I don’t see people inside them (why not? The walls are all glass!) , I at least see lights in the non-main rooms, and cars parked out front.
