Fights between neighbors can be pretty intense. If you’ve ever had your neighbor’s trash can in front of your driveway, you know how frustrating having a neighbor can be.
Many feuds occur between neighbors, for plenty of reasons. Maybe your neighbor has a really loud dog that barks all night. Or they let their dog poop in your yard!
Whatever the fight might be about, chances are you aren’t petty enough to stoop to the level of a spite house.
According to Wikipedia, Spite houses are:
A spite house is a building constructed or substantially modified to irritate neighbors or any party with land stakes. Spite houses may create obstructions, such as blocking out light or blocking access to neighboring buildings, or can be flagrant symbols of defiance. Because long-term occupation is at best a secondary consideration, spite houses frequently sport strange and impractical structures.
1. The Equality House
Equality House was built right across the street from the Westboro Baptist Church. If you’re still unsure as to why this house was built out of spite, Westboro Baptist Church is known for hateful protests against the LGBTQ community. Westboro has also protested military funerals, Lady Gaga, Twitter, former President Barrack Obama’s daughters going to school, Judaism, and much more. Equality house is meant to be a symbol of peace.
2. The Boston Skinny House
According to local legend, this house that is 4 stories tall and sits at 44 Hull Street in the North End of Boston was built because…
… two brothers inherited land from their deceased father. While one brother was away serving in the military, the other built a large home, leaving the soldier only a shred of property that he felt certain was too tiny to build on. When the soldier returned, he found his inheritance depleted and built the narrow house to spite his brother by blocking the sunlight and ruining his view.
3. The Plum Island Pink House
This little pink house sits in Newbury, Massachusets. The story goes in 1925, during a bitter divorce, the wife agreed to the terms but only if her husband would build her an exact replica of their home. But she didn’t specify where! So he built it far away from what she loved, smack dab in the middle of a salt marsh. The home still stands to this day and Support the Pink House is working to keep it from being demolished and have it named a national landmark.
4. The Alexandria, Virgina Spite House
Apparently, in 1830 John Hollensbury was tired of hearing people moving on foot and on house through the alley across from his home. To get rid of the noise, he built this little home and blocked their way!
5. The Richardson House
This home was built in Manhattan in 1882 Hyman Samer wanted to build property on the land he owned but realized he didn’t own a little strip between the two properties. When he offered to buy the land from Joseph Richardson, he low-balled him. To spite his cheap neighbor, Joseph refused to sell Hyman the land and then he built a structure just five feet wide on top of it to make it that much more unusable. The structure only stood until 1915, as it was too small to inhabit.
6. The Alameda Spite House
At the turn of the 20th century, Charles Froling had dreams of building his dream home. But the town got in the way of his plans, by taking a portion of his land to build a street. To get back at the cold action from his city and the uncaring neighbors he had, he built a home on the 10 feet of property he had left, that came flush against his neighbor’s house. It is even rumored he had “spite” worked onto the front step of the home when it was built.
7. The Montlake Spite House
Another spite house that came from a neighbor being cheap! This house was built in Seattle, Washington in 1925 when one neighbor made a low-ball offer for this slice of land. The house occupies 826-square feet and recently sold for almost $400,000!
8. The West Cambridge Spite House
This house was build in 1908 when Frances O’Reilly’s neighbor refused to buy the parcel of land. The 308-square foot house is just 8 feet wide and still stands today!
9. The Freeport Spite House
This big house was built in the 19th century in Freeport, New York. Developer John Randall’s unusual “Freeport Spite House” was built to block a rival developer’s plan for the route of Freeport, New York’s Lena Avenue.
10. The Old Spite House
The oldest spite house on this list doesn’t actually have a confirmed reason for why it was built. It dates back to 1716 and was built in Marblehead, Massachusets. It is believed that two brothers hated each other and occupied opposites of the home.
11. The McCobb Spite House
This spite house was built in Phippsburg 1806 and moved to its current location at Deadman’s Point in Rockport, Maine in 1925. The house was built by Thomas McCobb as a deliberate elaborate building, to exceed in quality the fine house in which he had grown up, but which he had lost in a family dispute.
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