Horror and property go hand-in-hand, from Castle Dracula to the plethora of haunted house movies made each year. But Diary has been struck, in its choice of scary fare this spooky season, by just how much actual real estate is in the mix.
First, our binge-watch of choice while gorging on all the leftover sweets is The Watcher on Netflix, the latest slice of darkness from American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy. It has the requisite incredible-yet-creepy abode (complete with dumb waiter and crackling intercom for chills), but a surprising amount of time is spent with the all-too-eager realtor looking to relist it at a knockdown price no sooner than she has just sold it, as well as a fairly thorough discussion of New Jersey state law on sellers’ duties to disclose trivial details like, say, multiple murders in the property.
But that’s nothing compared to Barbarian, our big-screen selection for Halloween night itself that is very much not for the squeamish. We’ll avoid spoilers, but as well as the collapse of the property market in Detroit, it involves the perils of Airbnb-style accommodation, the urgent need to divest a property portfolio, the headaches that can result from entrusting said portfolio into the hands of third-party managers, and the potential benefits (and, it has to be said, drawbacks) of discovering you own additional square footage. If the state of the actual market isn’t terrifying enough for you, it should do the trick.
Legoing up
Credit to property influencer Wowhaus (@WowHauser) for spotting a vintage Lego set that even Diary, as an avowed fan of the colourful bricks, had never seen before.
Just seen this vintage Lego Town Planner set on an auction site and now I can’t think of anything else. pic.twitter.com/2jSGh0H2Xl
— WowHaus (@WowHauser) October 27, 2022
“Just seen this vintage Lego Town Planner set on an auction site and now I can’t think of anything else,” WowHaus tweeted – and, we have to confess, we are now in the same boat.
So much so, it sent us down the Google rabbithole to discover that set 810 – “The Complete Town Plan Set” – dates back to 1962, when children wore their very best dresses, shirts and ties to play. One wonders if young Michael Gove perhaps enjoyed a hand-me-down set as a lad.
Boasting 755 pieces, a complete version will cost you close to £2,000, according to Lego value guide Brickset. For town planners out there looking to entice their kids into the family business with less of an outlay, an updated version (10184) was released in 2008, with 1,981 pieces, former Lego Group president and chief executive Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen on the box (looking more convincingly like a town planner) and a current value of around £400.
With our high streets now in urgent need of a rethink, surely it’s high time for a fresh iteration. Perhaps a special levelling up set?
Oh what a feeling, when you’re sleeping on the ceiling
The other thing that has occupied our brain ever since we saw it is this seemingly magical, floating bed, which allows studio apartment residents in Dandi’s Wembley co-living development to have a lounge space during the day and a bedroom at night. The beds can be pulled up and down by hand, or by a pulley on the bedside. They are equipped with an award-winning “Dandi Happy Light” at the bottom, designed to combat the symptoms of seasonal affective disorder.
Diary loves it, but suspects that the amount of junk we keep under the bed might offset the daytime advantage somewhat. More suited, one expects, to the current generation, with their disconcerting lack of focus on “stuff” – after all, you can’t spell millennial without minimal (well, almost). Diary also fears struggling to sleep, lest the bed rise up and crush you in the night – but that might just be all the horror films.
