Cleansing the aura...

Ever since June last year when I first entered the House at Porter Street, the thing that has lingered most intensely in my memory is the feeling of the place.  I have had photos and a shaky little handheld movie to remind me of the details, dimensions and colour scheme (brown and brown) but unaided yet crisp in my memory remains the lingering sadness that pervaded the space.


Don't get me wrong.  It wasn't badness.  It wasn't wrongness.  It wasn't something that a lively, loving family with vigour, colour and enthusiasm couldn't remedy.  It just was what it was: a sense of defeat.


To compare, Mum and I, in the early days of looking, had entered a house in Coolabah Street, East Doncaster that had the worst feeling of any house I have ever been in, EVER.  The representing agents must've felt it too, because at the open, they'd hired a band to stand outside performing rousing ragtime in a vain attempt to distract the prospectives from the unmissable, palpable echo of death, sustained suffering and malevolence that seeped through every atom of the place.


The house at Coolabah Street was "The Vortex of Doom" and even now, six months later, the title understates the horror.  The feeling had nothing to do with the decor:  the bitumen surface of the front verandah or the derelict state of the rooms:  after all, I've been able to see possibilities in the most dire of housing environments (as evidenced by the house at Byron Street).  This was different.  This was unspeakable evil. In fact there was a life-sized image of a byzantine Jesus pasted to the wall surface facing the front door and icons in every room but I'm not sure even they helped combat the enmity (if you believe in that kind of thing).


I now need to go and take a shower after thinking about it.


Anyway, the point is that the House at Porter Street is a bit sad and longing for some life.  We have plenty to offer.  But I was wondering if a non-religious cleansing ceremony might be in order.  I've looked them up and found that many have to do with the burning of sage or pine (we have plenty of pine to sacrifice).  Sending smoke to the corners of every room and chanting incantations about air and fire and water and earth and energy and spirit and so on.


I'm sure it'd be great if we went there.  


But I don't think we will.  A thorough paint out, and a lifetime dose of Milo should do the trick equally well.

*The Vortex of Doom is at number XXIII.  I see that it has been sold and leased. Oh my.