Why is This ‘Creepy’ Quincy House Suddenly Going Viral?

This photo popped up on my Facebook feed recently with the caption “Quincy, Illinois” and a credit to the @loveofhouses Instagram account. If you’re like me and can’t quite put your finger on where you’ve seen it before, it’s one of the beautiful and historic mansions on Maine Street (2020 Maine Street to be precise). I probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it had it not been shared by a Facebook page entitled “Creepy Things” (check it out HERE).

Quincy, IL.

A post shared by Abby (@loveofhouses) on May 23, 2017 at 12:26pm PDT

(If you can't see the photo, CLICK HERE to view on Instagram)

And for the life of me, I can’t figure out what is so “creepy” about it—and apparently, neither can many of the commenters on the original post.

I mean, I guess giving the original poster a huge benefit of the doubt, the bare tree branches might be a little creepy maybe? But there’s not much we can do about that (it tends to happen annually here on Earth).

With nearly 770,000 total page likes, “Creepy Things” bills itself as “a fun page of creepy things and haunted/abandoned places and not so creepy places”. So things that are both “creepy” and “not creepy”—really widening that net there, aren’t they? I’ve got an idea for a page made up of both “pictures of Nicolas Cage” and “not pictures of Nicolas Cage”.

How'd you do?

In any case, the post has more than 1,300 interactions and 250+ shares, so apparently it’s resonating with people for one reason or another. I just don’t get a “creepy” vibe from it. What do you think?