The Spirit In The House

Surely it must rank within the
panoply of life's little mysteries
that household dwellings over time
appear to assume a spirit of
their very own? How else to
quantify the strangeness of some
homes rarely changing ownership
and those within them assume a
bright and contented outlook on
life, becoming actively engaged
in the community's social contract.
A darker covenant seems to hover
like a shadowy miasma over
those houses that oddly frequently
change hands where the owners
become, or bring with them, a
morose social distance and sharp
dissatisfaction, taking care to remain
aloof in their dysfunction. Perhaps
the greater mystery is whether the
malign spirit of the house beckons
those whose sociopathy it recognizes
or that prospective owners tend to
feel comfort within the dark spirit
found there, enabling a tradition of human
miserableness to thrive and endure 
beyond any reasonable explanation.