Why do some buildings feel unnerving, unsettling or just somehow wrong? Is it the location, the design, the geometry, or are there other forces at work? Why are we spooked by a house that doesn't feel like a home? What do the conventions and tropes of horror fiction and horror films reveal about our deepest anxieties about home? Why are we spooked by the echoes of former occupation in abandoned buildings? Is Birmingham city centre haunted by the ghost of Telly Savalas?

To discuss these and many other questions, Stephen and Hannah meet up with the wonderful Leila Taylor to discuss ideas from Leila's excellent book - Sick Houses: Haunted Homes and the Architecture of Dread.

Leila (she/they) is a Brooklyn-based writer, speaker, and designer whose work focuses on the intersection of history, horror and the gothic in contemporary art, media, and culture. Author of Sick Houses: Haunted Homes and the Architecture of Dread and Darkly: Black History and America’s Gothic Soul, her work has appeared in Lapham’s Quarterly, The Repeater Book of the Occult, Us: The Complete Annotated Screenplay, and the graphic novel Bitter Root. She’s given talks on the eerie and the esoteric for the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, Morbid Anatomy, The International Gothic Association, The Collective for Radical Death Studies, and The Occult Humanities Conference. By day, she is the Creative Director for Brooklyn Public Library.

You can find out more about Leila's work on Bluesky and Instagram.

Works referenced in this podcast:
Taylor, L. (2025), Sick Houses: Haunted Homes and the Architecture of Dread.
Pliny the Younger, Epistulae (Letters), Book VII, Letter 27.
Anson, J. (1977), The Amityville Horror.
Antosca, N., & Zion, L (Creators), (2021), Brand New Cherry Flavor [TV series].
Lowery, D. (Director), (2017), A Ghost Story [Film].
Soderbergh, S. (Director), (2024), Presence [Film].
Kiersch, F. (Director), (1984). Children of the Corn [Film].
Lanthimos, Y. (Director), (2009), Dogtooth [Film].
Golden, C. (2023), “The Importance of a Tidy Home” in Christmas and Other Horrors: A Winter Solstice Anthology, ed. Ellen Datlow
Haynes, T. (Director), (1987), Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story [Film].
Baim, H. (Director) (1981), Telly Savalas Looks at Birmingham

Richard was born to a single parent in Bradford in the 1950s, and experienced social housing for the first time when he moved into a council house on the newly built Thorpe Edge estate at the age of 3. He later trained as a teacher and worked in education for 36 years, becoming deputy head of a large Bradford comprehensive school. Richard has continued to champion the interests of others, serving on several boards in social housing, the NHS, and the university sector. He is currently a board member at Railway Housing Association.

Richard joins Hannah and Stephen to discuss the complex relationship we all have with the idea of home, drawing on stories and reflections from his varied and interesting life. We discuss social attitudes throughout the post-war period, and the challenges of home creation for people who find themselves outside the norm. We consider how experiences of difference may be essential to understanding others' needs.

We learn about the indignities of council-issued underpants, and Hannah speculates on the emergence of a superhero from these inauspicious beginnings. We each admit secret anxieties about the belated discovery of ancient misdemeanours when we hear our names being called out.

In this introductory episode, we discuss the origins of Closer to Home, the core ideas behind the podcast, and a number of other things which are at least tangentially associated with the core concept:

• Beyond housing supply: A stable sense of home is not the same as having a roof over your head. It's more than shelter, it’s about belonging, security, and the freedom to thrive.
• Home vs. housing crisis: We ask whether we face not just a housing shortage, but a deeper home crisis — a cultural drift toward instability and rootlessness and the marginalisation of our emotional and psychological needs.
• Emotional and social dimensions: Home is an emotional space as well as a material one. Yet policy and practice can sometimes reduce it to data points, neglecting what people actually experience.
• Shifting values: From post-war stability to housing-as-investment - has our cultural imagination of home has been reshaped, sometimes at the expense of community and collective wellbeing?
• Control vs. flow: Home is an open system, one which is full of spontaneity, chance encounters, and a degree of vulnerability. Attempts to optimise home using metrics or rigid processes may fail to hit the mark.
• A collective conversation: Home is personal, but also social. We want to open up space for reflection, challenge, and imagination rather than rushing to superficial fixes.

This is an expedition into the many meanings of home. We’d love others to join the conversation!

This episode references the following publication, which can be downloaded here:
Absalom, H. (2024) Home Encounters: Understanding and Improving the Emotional Impact of Home Visits.

Hannah and Stephen introduce Closer To Home, the podcast that asks the question: 'Are we dealing with a home crisis as much as we are a housing crisis?'