Just around the corner from where I grew up, there was a house on the corner set away from all the others. The grass and plants of the front garden always grew haphazardly, out of control, and no-one was ever seen to come in or out of the house. But there was no doubt that someone lived there because sometimes at night you would hear strange noises from inside, the whirl and whine of machinery, though other than that there was always absolute silence in the house.
Sound familiar? The odds are that wherever you grew up there was an urban legend very specific to your area. Also odds are there was nothing to it but a series of coincidences. Urban legends can be tricky to define, but they are usually rooted – or at least begin – in a particular place and are initially spread by word of mouth. And they often lean towards the creepy, though not exclusively so.
This gives them a certain degree of
