A potential dream home posted for auction in Australia is “not for the faint hearted,” according to the listing agent who is completely underselling the horrors hidden within.
The so-called Mystic House looks normal at first glance. It’s a 163-year-old, two-storey brick heritage home with a rich history in South Australia. It’s got fancy fireplaces, pretty doors, picturesque grounds and a lovely viewing platform on the roof.
It also has five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a three-car garage, a tiny chapel — and an utterly terrifying side room filled with the stuff of nightmares.
“History. Excitement. Challenge your senses,” real estate agent Anthony Toop wrote in the listing. “If you’re a scaredy cat, don’t come.”
The listing includes a drone video showing the picturesque grounds, and a photo gallery that simply does not prepare you for some of the bizarre accents inside the home.
The first 10 photos in the gallery are normal for a real estate listing. They show the pool, the doors, the stairs and the living room.
Then things get weird.
The 11th photo in the set shows several ghoulish mannequins wearing raggedy bedsheets and standing in a room filled with altars and fake bats.
The real estate listing went viral over the weekend as people reacted to image No. 11 and picked through some of the other strange items in the house.
“I was like ‘Damn this house is really nice,’ and then I got there and ‘Oh,'” one user wrote on Twitter.
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“I was thinking OK, so it needs some work but nice,” wrote user David Long. “Then I got to photo 11/37 … and … WTAF?!”
“Wait wait wait,” another person wrote. “What the heck happened in the middle?”
Another photo in the series shows what could only be described as a fully decorated Halloween room under creepy fluorescent lights. It depicts several hideous mannequins, including a black-robed figure wearing a cross and a horned pagan mask, in the same room with giant toy spiders hanging from the roof.
There’s also a weird pig-like head on the floor and a creepy ghoul behind a veil in the background of the shot.
Another photo captured from elsewhere in the house shows a framed photo of shock rocker Alice Cooper on the wall. A grey skull is visible at the edge of the frame.
The rest of the house is filled with statues, including several that appear to have religious significance. It also contains several rather intense carpet patterns that a few people described as the real “nightmare” about the home.
Another photo reveals the owner’s curious tastes in the living room decor. A skull can be seen inside the fireplace, a fake spider is visible on one of the lamps and a pillow on the couch reads “Crusty Demons.”
It’s difficult to make out the titles on the VHS tapes stacked against the wall, but one can imagine that there are more than a few Tim Burton films in the mix.
The seller compares the decor to the house on the hill in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, according to the listing.
A few Twitter users tried to look on the bright side of the listing.
“I like it,” wrote user Matthew James. “It’s messy and creepy but in a goth kind of way.”
User Andrew Tobin suggested most of the creepy decor would “disappear with the owners.”
“The owners already disappeared,” user @Real_Ry_Ry wrote. “Probably into a painting,” another user added.
The home is being sold by a 76-year-old widow who loves papier-mache, according to Australia’s Perth Now.
“She’s quite an elderly lady, so it was just a lot simpler to run with it as is, because the place needs renovating, but it is magnificent,” Toop told 7 News in Australia.
“The owner of the home has got a lot of character,” he added.
Toop is hosting open-house viewings starting next weekend. The house is slated for auction on Sept. 25.
“Brave people only,” he writes in a note to agents. “Leave the kids at home or keep them supervised … Watch the cob webs, and don’t wear a suit.”
So grab a plane ticket (or a witch’s broom) and see this lovely home for yourself.