This is sort of how I see under the house in my memory/dreams.
My siblings (and perhaps even parents) can attest to the fact that the crawlspace in the basement of the house we grew up in was pretty much the most terrifying place in the world. It wasn’t called a “crawlspace” in our household, it was referred to as “under the house”. Even when I was a teenager the thought of going under the house gave me the squeedily deedily heebie jeebies. I still have bizarre dreams about it to this day and I’m sure I will for the rest of my life.
Under the House’s portal was located in the basement TV room between the icebox and the piano – it was a pitch-black creepy 3 foot rectangle in the wall that you had to blindly reach into to fish around for the pull string for the lighbulb before a monster ran up and swallowed you into the darkness. There was another portal in the laundry room behind the furnace and water heater that we didn’t use nearly as much just because it was hard to get to and all that was on that side was paint.
I wish that photos of Under the House existed, there are none to my knowledge and we moved out in the early 1990s when I was 19. Plus why would there be photos? This was the olden days when you had to pay money and wait for your pictures to be developed before you could see them… and the under the house aesthetic wasn’t necessarily screaming “Take my picture!” The floor was uneven sand, blobs of cement and small pebbles and covered with a big sheet of thick translucent plastic. Aside from monsters that immediately evaporated when the light was switched on I only remember a few specific details of what was else was stored down there. Inside to the left (at least I remember them being to the left) were long shelves filled with Ball jars and stacks of National Geographic magazines. Christmas decorations were toward the back. To the immediate right against the wall as you crawled in there were bottles of booze. My parents weren’t drinkers but always kept a stash of hooch under the house for when the cocktail-sipping members of the fambly came over. I remember opening and sniffing all of them when I was little wondering what they were. I tried one of the clear ones with a white cap and white label and almost gagged. Ew, why would anyone drink that? Thankfully I didn’t think the opposite (although about 10 years later my palate did a 180.)
“Hi there, Krenner kids!” (I couldn’t find a photo of the actual clown we had but this is pretty damn close)
What made Under the House extra scary (aside from the ambiance I’ve hopefully painted with these words) was The Clown. The Clown was a severely tattered 3 foot tall clown manboy mannequin with eyes that seemed to follow you wherever you were. He was bald on top with dirty sheepskin hair on the back/sides. Before I was old enough to remember stuff (maybe even before my existence) my Grandpa Freeman plucked The Clown out of somebody’s trash and brought it to my parents’ house for the kid(s) to play with. Geee, thanks, Grandpa! You wouldn’t see him at first but when you’d first flip that light on and panned the landscape you’d scream a little on the inside when you’d see that terrifying little head with convincingly human eyeballs staring at you from the back corner. Instead of meeting his demise in a landfill, where ALL clown dolls belong, The Clown ended up under the house. I can only assume that happened only because my parents didn’t want to give the garbage man a heart attack.
Whenever I played in the basement as a young tyke I’d feel Under the House looking at me. I avoided it for the most part but there were times when it would lure me in to explore. I would look through old books and boxes down there until I’d start to get freaked out, crawl out as fast as I could and run upstairs to safety. I remember the first time I saw A Nightmare On Elm Street on HBO I could see that hole in the wall out of the corner of my eye. I toughed it out until the end of the movie but then ran upstairs and shut the basement door. No Under the House for me for a long time after that.
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As mentioned I’ve had dreams about this crawlspace for my entire life. “Under the House” is a musical painting of said dreams. Nowadays they thankfully aren’t accompanied by terror, more so just “Woah, look, I’m under the house!” and then a slight bit of relief when I wake up and realize I’m not under there anymore.
