Not all houses come with good insulation. Some come with ghosts.

Forget granite countertops and energy-efficient windows—if you really want a property with character, you’ll need rattling chains, whispering corridors, and a portrait whose eyes definitely moved when you weren’t looking. Haunted houses have been captivating (and terrifying) people for centuries. They appear in folklore, fiction, and, if you’re Maggie Hawkins in The Haunting of Crumbleton Manor, they also come with sarcastic ghosts who steal your socks.

So why do haunted houses hold such a permanent spot in our imaginations? And what makes them so deliciously eerie, whether you’re wandering through a ruined Scottish castle or trying to livestream in Crumbleton’s drafty grand hall? Welcome to Haunted Houses 101. Consider this your crash course in crumbling staircases, restless spirits, and just how much pizza you need to survive an evening with the undead.

Why We Love Haunted Houses

On paper, there’s nothing appealing about them. They’re dark, damp, and riddled with drafts. The Wi-Fi is nonexistent, the plumbing groans like a dying walrus, and if you try to order takeout, the delivery driver usually refuses to get past the gates. And yet, people flock to haunted houses—both real and fictional. Why?

First, they’re what folklorists call “liminal spaces”: buildings caught between states of being. They’re not alive, but not quite dead either—just like the stories tied to them. That uncertainty is a magnet for human imagination. We’re hardwired to look at an empty window in a crumbling manor and wonder if someone is watching us back.

Second, haunted houses are layered with memory. They hold onto the lives, losses, and dramas of everyone who ever lived inside them. Unlike a new build, which still smells faintly of paint and optimism, these places feel saturated with secrets. A broken banister isn’t just a safety hazard—it’s a clue to a tragedy. A sudden cold spot isn’t poor insulation—it’s the Lady of the House checking in to make sure you dusted the grand piano.

And finally, there’s the thrill factor. Haunted houses let us flirt with danger at a safe distance. You can feel the adrenaline of fear without ever actually signing your soul over to a Victorian specter in pearls. Well, unless you’re Maggie Hawkins, whose sarcasm usually gets her in deeper trouble than holy water ever would.

Haunted Castles and Manor Legends in Scotland

Scotland is practically the Airbnb of ghosts. You can’t throw a scone without hitting a castle that claims at least three apparitions, two curses, and one suspiciously creaky staircase.

Take Edinburgh Castle, where headless drummers and restless prisoners are said to roam the stone halls. Then there’s Glamis Castle, infamous for the so-called Monster of Glamis—a family secret supposedly hidden in a walled-up room. Over at Fyvie Castle, legend insists that cursed stones built into the foundation doomed generations of owners to misery and misfortune. And of course, every castle worth its salt has its resident Lady in Grey, Green, or White, sighing dramatically through draughty corridors.

These ruins and manors became ghost magnets not because of any one event, but because of their layered histories. They were seats of power, sites of betrayal, homes where love and loss clung as stubbornly as ivy. Over centuries, every draft becomes a whisper, every creak a footstep, every cold spot a restless soul who missed their afterlife appointment.

Crumbleton Manor may be fictional, but it borrows from these very traditions. Its decaying grandeur, from the chandelier that doubles as a sock thief to the basement full of suspicious symbols, owes its DNA to Scotland’s legendary haunted estates. The only difference? Most castle ghosts don’t argue over Wi-Fi.

Gothic Tropes in Haunted Houses

You know them. You love them. You roll your eyes at them while secretly double-checking your locks at night. Haunted houses thrive on tropes, and the gothic genre has gifted us some of the best:

• The Grand Staircase: Always the stage for dramatic entrances. In Crumbleton Manor, Lady Eleanor descends hers like she’s auditioning for a West End revival of Hamlet.
• Drafty Hallways: Perfect for whispers, sighs, and making sure your hair stands on end for no logical reason.
• Portraits with Moving Eyes: Because nothing screams “family heirloom” like a great-uncle who refuses to blink, even in death.
• The Locked Door: Every haunted house has one. It’s never locked because of termites or structural instability. No, it’s always hiding the one room you really shouldn’t enter. Which, of course, is exactly where you’ll end up.

Maggie Hawkins’s “haunted house survival kit” skips the crucifixes and sage in favor of a flashlight, a slice of pepperoni pizza, and a healthy dose of sarcasm. Which, to be fair, worked almost as well as a Latin exorcism when it came to banishing a wraith.

Why do readers adore these tropes? Because they’re comfort food for the imagination. We know what to expect, but we still get chills when the chandelier swings, or the painting scowls, or the Wi-Fi cuts out at the worst possible moment. Haunted houses are familiar and terrifying all at once—a gothic paradox that keeps us coming back for more.

Crumbleton Manor vs. Real Haunted Houses

So how does a fictional manor compare to the “real” haunted houses of lore? Surprisingly well.

• Lady Eleanor is every dramatic castle apparition rolled into one. She sighs, she floats, she quotes Shakespeare unprompted. If she were alive today, she’d be running a TikTok account called Victorian Ghost Drama.
• Barnabas is the classic poltergeist with a 1920s twist. Instead of rattling chains, he prefers mocking your poor life choices and levitating your snacks. He’s essentially the paranormal equivalent of that one sarcastic uncle who never left the family reunion.
• The Wraith is drawn from the folkloric tradition of guardians—dark spirits bound to cursed sites. In lore, they exist to protect boundaries and scare off trespassers. In Crumbleton, this wraith gets mocked into submission by a blogger comparing it to bad Wi-Fi. Progress, I suppose.

The beauty of Crumbleton Manor is that it blends what we know from folklore with a tongue-in-cheek twist. The ghosts aren’t just terrifying—they’re ridiculous, too. And maybe that’s the point. Haunted houses don’t have to be all doom and dread. Sometimes they’re funny, petty, and as prone to boredom as the living.

Closing Thoughts

Haunted houses are never just about the ghosts. They’re about the spaces themselves—liminal, layered, alive with memory. They’re about the stories that linger when the people are gone, and about our own delight in stepping into those stories, if only for a night.

Crumbleton Manor may not exist on any map, but it follows the grand tradition of haunted houses everywhere: drafty, dramatic, and undeniably irresistible. Just remember, if your chandelier starts stealing socks or your pizza disappears mid-bite… you might have more than plumbing issues.

Want to experience the grand staircase, the sarcastic ghosts, and the one wraith who really can’t handle TikTok humor? The Haunting of Crumbleton Manor is available now on Kindle Unlimited → https://a.co/d/bb4WfaB. Perfect for your spooky season binge.

And if the ghosts at your next haunted house don’t RSVP? Keep your sarcasm ready. It worked for Maggie.