Boston Strangler

Everybody's talking about those tiny houses nowadays! Talking about them, just not buying them, because claustrophobia is a horrible, horrible thing, and there is a well-known scientific rule called the Pauli exclusion principle (no two particles can occupy the same quantum state). Thank Austrian-Swiss physicist  Wolfgang Pauli for the definition. The concept came to him while watching two linemen for the Green Bay Packers try to occupy a phone booth to call a girl from Sheboygan. 

So these little houses might be good for one person, or two, if they don't want to be around each other very much. And if you're of a mind to live in a historic house, check out the "skinny house" up in Boston. Ten feet wide and thirty feet long (same size as a lot of cars I see), it can be yours for the un-skinny bop price of $1.2 million.

It was sold for $900,000 in 2017.

The backstory on this North End (44 Hull Street) dwelling is, two brothers inherited the land during the Civil War. One of them went off to fight in the war, and while he was gone, the other built a house on the lot.

Johnny came marching home to a house that took up most of the property he was supposed to be sharing equally. So, as brothers will, he exacted revenge by building this house, oddly-shapen as it was, just to block his brother's view! And that house is this one, still standing 4 stories high with a roof deck, private garden, 2 bedrooms, kitchen, and a bathroom.  This pie-shaped pied-à-terre narrows down further to a mere 9.25 feet wide at the rear. Total square footage is like 1,165 square feet.

It comes with a plaque on the front identifying it as "The Skinny House (Spite House)". 

Longtime Boston denizens will tell you the legend of the Spite House. 'Tis said that on clear, starry starry nights, you can hear the ghost of the first brother screaming, "I cahn't see the hahbuh or Hahvahd Yahd, you inconsiderate bahstahd!"