Hm, this isn't exactly house related, but my stomach drops when I hear those loud warning sirens (like the ones you hear for tornado warnings). It sounds like doom. And spiders. I hate spiders and their leftover webs. I traded in my childish fears of ghosts and goblins for rapists and human traffickers a looong time ago! That is what I truly fear!

Porcelain Dolls. Their sad, lifeless facial expressions scare the crap out of me.

Growing old, alone and unhealthy. This is why I try and live a healthy life with an occasional ice cream and short bread cookie.

Unfinished basements! When I was a kid, our house had an unfinished basement with a crawlspace that led to...dirt, which just made me think of nameless dead things coming out of it (and I'd never even seen the Evil Dead movies).

The basement also had concrete walls that had a pattern on them of the rebar used in constructing the house. So the basement looked like a big cage. Ugh, I still have nightmares about that house, 24 years later!

Night mirrors. Not nightmares, but mirrors at night.

Yay! I am so glad I am not the only scaredy-cat out there! Here is goes...I am afraid of:
1. The dark- sometimes it doesn't bother me as I really do like star gazing etc. but it kind of goes with...
2. Silence- i grew up in a house with 5 other people. There is always noise somewhere. But when it is quiet and dark...I...FREAK...OUT! (that's usually when things jump out after people in the paranormal activities movies too!)
3. Aliens- Crazy I know. But my dad would always joke about them and the 90's they were always on tv. One should not allow a kid to see "Fire in the Sky" EVER. To this day I am unable to sleep in a room if the blinds or curtains to a window show any of the outside and my parents house always had all the blinds at an angle stuck in the crack of the window so I didn't have to see dark from my bed. Not that it would stop an alien coming through a wall, but it would stop me from seeing them first!
4. Ghost- No explanations needed!
5. Gypsies- Funny story here. Favorite saying in my area of the south. "Behave or I will sell you to the Gypsies!" I misbehaved a lot...First time I met a gypsy in Spain it didn't go well. I couldn't really understand her, but I am pretty sure she put a curse on me. (Note if you travel to Spain and a touristy place, don't let someone grab your hand because they may curse you if you don't give them money)
The list could go on...heights, snakes...freaky children that pop up when you least expect them...HA! but I am not sure there is room or time! :) Happy Halloween!

Rats and clowns. Yikes.

Grasshoppers. I know it's totally irrational yet they scare me like nothing else. I have fled from my car more than once because a grasshopper got in the car with me.

Being just outside my house (like right outside the door) at night. I feared this for years and never knew why it creeped me out until my brother told me he used to yell "the burglars are going to get you" as we ran home after my parents turned the porch light on... Brothers!

Also, I'm legitimately afraid that my neighbor's nearly dead live oak is going to fall on my house during a storm. I usually make my dog and I evacuate the room that is the most in harm's way during big storms.

For being someone who hates scary movies, I somehow ended up seeing The Ring in theaters when it came out and then harbored an embarrassing fear of televisions for several months.

@akay. ha. my sister wouldnt' stay alone in the same room with a TV for months after watching The Ring...she TOLD me about the plotline and it scared me.

Scary movies really REALLY mess with my head. Scary movie commercials do the same...right now- that Sinister commercial keeps disturbing my peace of mind while I'm watching TV...I'll be laughing at the Daily SHow and then BAM! evil clown face demon on my tv...late at night? in a lonely apt? no no no no....

Also after watching Signs, I can't sleep where I can see an open doorway...I just always envision that alient walking by the doorway...and that was in the middle of the day!

@ Cremedela: Oh wow, yes. I thought I didn't have any irrational fears but now that you gave it a name, yes, yes I do avoid looking at mirrors at night, when I get up to use the loo and wash my hands and I close my eyes, haha!!

cremedela I totally get this one! Bloody Mary memories as a kid...I either cover them up if they are in a room or work very hard not to look into them at night. I also don't like being in houses that have a tone of mirrors.
Mirrors and Windows I am not sure how people do it!

you've named several of my house-related fears/dislikes:
attics
(being in) houses out in the middle of nowhere
unfinished basements
too much silence
pitch-darkness
windows uncovered at night ...

i'd add (sadly i have several house fears):
bugs/bats/mice/anything creepy-crawly that really belongs outside - and hearing dogs bark outside when i am home alone at night because it makes me wonder what they are barking about
branches that scrape against the windows (day or night)
when the phone rings/someone knocks on the door and i am home alone (only at night)

thanks to some scary movies and a couple creepy neighbors in my past and for having a vivid imagination, i have to limit what i watch or listen to when i am home alone at night. :1

happy halloween!

Snakes.

Scary movies usually don't affect me very much with the exception of the Blair Witch. Now THAT was one blood-chilling movie.

Lol @ Artisnecessary: You named 6 things I have lived through and never thought of as scary. My parents live in rural Idaho in the woods and it is pitch black and quiet at night. I lived in the basement( it was a daylight basement with large windows) and because it was so dark I did not have curtains or blinds. Our dogs and the neighbours (about a half mile away) barked all the time, but over dumb things like deer and my dads snores). The phone would ring at 11 or midnight and it never startled me because it was usually a friend calling! I've played hide and seek in the dark in the woods and was never worried! Even after watching Wrong Turn I shrugged it off, lol.

Spiders. I mean, I break out in hives - it's probably diagnosable at this point. Just as scary: forests at night.

The sound the Penguin from Batman makes, the sound like the kid from the Grudge, dehumanized humans (cracky walking like from those creepy, Japanese horror remakes). I am creeped out by bugs with lots of legs, spiders, bridges. I like ghosts (and believe in them) though.

Big machinery...somewhere like a factory with huge loud things running.

The furnace, the well pump and the far reaches of our dungeonous unfinished basement. There's a room I hung a curtain over that is an old well. I've never looked in there or gotten close in 7 years. It doesn't help that it leaks and my husband has found dead snakes back there!! The oil tank and the window right next to it with massive spiders. Too tight of a space. Basically I can only function in two or three areas in the basement and not be creeped out.

Mice make me scream like a horror movie. We had mice in our city apartment...the cat rubbed up against my leg shortly after a mouse encounter and I screamed so loud. :) Poor cat looked at me like "What?!?!" Ick. Mice.

Sometimes mirrors are creepy at night and basements give me the chills (probably because I took a class on Serial Killers), but what really scares me are slasher or torture movies. I once got taken to Saw without knowing what movie it we were going to. I couldn't take the trash to the ally at night for months and felt a compulsive urge to check under my car for a killer before getting too close to the car! The reason probably comes from the aforementioned class, but really, if someone can think of it these days, someone else in the past has probably done it and perfected it. Just look at the Vikings. Fun hats, scary tactics. Happy Halloween!

cremedela - Aaaaah. Me too! Mirrors in darkness make my skin crawl.

I also really hate open curtains on the ground floor at night. The idea of someone being able to look in, but me not being able to see them outside makes me so nervous!

All rodents, snakes, spiders, bugs of all sorts, lizards, and suburbia. My entire adult life I've lived in high security high rises; the idea that absolutely anyone could walk off the street and up to my front door freaks me out. There are many layers of security that one has to go through, including a 24 hour concierge, to get to my door. I like that just fine.

I love my ghost (yes, I do have one) and I also love spiders, BUT ... I am absolutely terrified of all the black widows on my property. The babies find their way into my house. Also, I'm afraid of the mountain lions lurking not much further away. Even though I haven't seen one, thank god, a neighborhood three miles down the road is riddled with them. And I live right at the edge of the canyon they live in and come out of. And my yard is full of deer from dusk till dawn. So basically my yard is a ticking time bomb. I may as well be ringing a dinner bell and yelling, "Come and get it!" It's not a question of if, but when.

Oh yeah, the open curtains thing scares me, too! And I have the kind of matchstick blinds in several rooms that I can't see out of during the day, but at night, looking from outside, you can see right through them like there's nothing there. Even sheer curtains would afford more privacy than these worthless things. I don't know why the previous owners didn't get them fabric-backed the way they did the ones in the bedrooms. So until I can afford to get better window coverings, I try not to sit in those rooms at night. At least, not with the lights on.

I just found out recently that my sister is freaked out by a lot of things in my house...as in she is afraid of antiques, especially the vintage kitchen scissors that I recently bought. I thought it was funny, but she explained "you never know what you may drag into your house that way".

I have a fear of spiders that I have been slowly getting over for years. There is a huge spider (probably an orb weaver) I named Steve (though its probably female) that lived outside my shed. I watched it create 3 beautiful webs and kept tabs on it daily. The other day Steve was gone, it made me kinda sad.

Cane spiders, centipedes, rats and my visa bill ;-) I'm a-ok with dolls, clowns, open curtains and strange noises. Of course I have a big furry gal to warn me of things (or people) that go bump in the night.

lowercasesandcapitals
See some of my fears come from the fact that one of my sisters had a friend who used to come around and then would come in and tell us what we had been doing for the last 30 minutes or so. He thought it was funny and the dogs wouldn't bark because they knew him...Talk about making someone even more paranoid!!!
I am not sure how people live in those all glass houses!

Word and word.

The piles of papers on my husband's desk, and in the kitchen.

That, and the back of the pantry.

Not much fear, here, happy to say.

I USED to be afraid of mirrors at night, too, because of specific episodes of "The Outer Limits" and "The Twilight Zone" (in black and white) when I was a kid. I finally outgrew it, thank goodness. I knew it was irrational, but I couldn't help it!

Nowadays I mainly fear things like Alzheimer's or other illness, pain, and poverty, but you asked about house-related fears. All I can think of is infestations of spiders or snakes, and then only if numerous or likely to actually touch me -- otherwise I can live and let live. Darn, I didn't realize how well adjusted I am!! ;^) (OK, so this doesn't prove that!)

But: Dolls??? Clowns??? Those mystify me!

I will even admit how terrified I am of the dark and mirrors etc. I went to a friend's home recently where she rents from her parents. Her mother was sitting only a foot or so from their bathroom door at the time this occurred just so you have an idea.
I went into the bathroom (and this house is at least 100 years old) and it shares 2 doors, one with the living room and one with a bedroom. The bedroom was dark and it freaked me out so I ran over and shut that door before I could do anything else. after using the bathroom I turned off the light (which was next to the door to the bedroom NOT the livingroom) and ran over to the other door. The second door would not open. It was a little stuck but I didn't know it. I was in the dark, in an old house that I frankly get the willies in and I started to panic and I screamed for help. My friend's mom was laughing outside the door when my friend opened the door. I couldn't catch my breath I was so freaked out.

Funny you should ask; yesterday I was on the roof, doing pre-rains maintenance. Then the rains started, perfect timing! But when I went to get in bed, it was SOAKED - I thought somehow I'd moved something that caused a real roof leak, which can of course be such a problem - ESPECIALLY in wet weather! Luckily, I realized I'd just failed to reset one of the skylights properly (after removing the smokey-film that dminishes summer heat).

Bottom line, it's REAL stuff that scares me - leaky roofs, mold, dry rot, etc!

Oh, and don't be afraid of extra terrestrials. If they're advanced enough to get here, and meant us harm, they'd have done it long ago! More likely, we'd be lucky to have them~!

I was deathly afraid of getting laid off with no other visible means of support and having to support my teenaged daughter without her losing her mind during her last two years of school in the midst of the Little Depression.
Then it happened.
Not so terrifying after all. It's the anticipation that's terrifying. Once the reality sinks in, it's kind of liberating actually. One less thing to worry about.

I'm not really scared of much, but I can't sleep unless the window blinds are closed and my bedroom door is closed (even though I live alone in a one bedroom apartment). I also prefer to not look into mirrors at night.

Fear is a useless emotion.

Spiders and where they hang out.

@Rahskolnikov I am sorry but fear is not a useless emotion it is instinctual in every human. Fear is the ability to recognize danger, without fear humans would never have evolved.
Yes, I sound silly for all of my anxieties. But many others also have them.
Fear of the dark happens because as humans we don't have the ability to see in the dark and our ancestors knew that predators could.
Fear of windows at night-I would add that to the one before and add that historically once people were in for the night, they were essentially bared in with windows shuttered for protection.
Fear of Silence- people talk of the "calm before the storm" being a bad thing, you often hear stories of animals in the woods going completely silent when a predator is near by, or silence of animals right before an earthquake...It means something bad is coming
For people who are afraid of clowns...it makes sense...They are not able to see a person's humanity under the makeup. The same goes for masks...they probably don't really like those either.
Fear isn't a bad thing. It isn't stupid or useless. Sure, you can become anxious over stupid things...but there is a reason people dislike these things maybe you should ask WHY they are afraid...

A tornado hittng the house.
No. wait, that's a rational fear if you live in Indiana.
At least that's what I tell myself when I snatch up my cats & dogs & head for the basement at the first blast of the tornado siren.
You couldn't have paid me enough to watch "Twister".

i'm afraid to drive in snowstorms. people drive like idiots. i've lived in maine my entire life and even though *I* can drive well (and safely), i don't trust overconfident morons.

I'm deathly afraid of Romney winning the election . . . and not being able to find my dog. I have nightmares about both.

I get freaked out by spending a lot of time in places that smell old. Homes that smell clean and fresh (specifically the sofa or chair I sit in while visiting) still feel modern, even if the design is retro, but places that both smell and look like, well, a grandmother house freak me out. First of all, eww, and second of all I get all kinds of weird heebie-jeebies in places that feel super-outdated. (It's not a design thing, it's an existential thing. Please don't get judgmental.)

I'm also afraid of sleeping in rooms with lots of portraits (ie eyes), or anywhere with too much stuff on the walls (particularly of the collectible variety). I don't mind clutter on the floors, but there's something about over-full walls that makes my really claustrophobic.

Doug Hutchison from a really early episode of the X-Files, squeezing through chimneys and 6x12 air vents like a creepy snake to eat peoples' livers... even worse since the actor married that weird 16 y/o aspiring porn actress

Heights. I like flying in planes, but I don't like driving or even walking over bridges, especially if they're over traffic ... brrrrr. I guess it's vertigo or something similar. Interestingly, one time I noticed that I was perceiving the light coming through the bridge supports as a type of *strobing,* which discombobulated me all the more. (But actual strobe lights in theaters don't seem to bother me.)

Economic uncertainty: being in an underwater condo, needing some contractors to improve the place but being leery of the inept ones, doing well in my job but in the back of my mind thinking about the possibility I could be laid off and out of work for a long time.

The possibility that I'll eventually wind up an old and alone, in poor health with little money and few resources.

On the other hand, I'm fine with snakes and I'm OK with mice except when they try to move in and take up permanent residence (as opposed to staying outdoors, where I'm very live-and-let-live toward them).

Deep water where you can't see the bottom. I'm okay on boats, but the idea of being in the water, without knowing what's beneath me, knowing that ANYTHING could be beneath my feet... shudder.

And more real-world fears, of course - something happening to my family (cats included!), friends, or my home.

Hmm..
Spiders
Snakes
Porcelain dolls
Ghosts (I live in a haunted house -_-)
Closed shower curtains (haunted house)
Dark rooms at night (haunted house)
Tornadoes coming towards my house
Paintings of people, they drive me crazy.

Well, not the lead picture for sure. It's beautiful. And I'd love to see that place, just in that state, in person. I'd take some lovely pictures myself. :)
I am afraid of chicken on a stick at the state fair. My negative reaction is so strong it's almost as though I can actually see the salmonella breeding and oozing around the undercooked chicken and batter. :P bleh.

And I'm afraid of dark deep water. I'll swim almost anywhere as long as I can see the bottom. When the Planet Earth series came out and I learned about the cenotes in Central and/or South America.... Oh my soul. The idea of getting in or anywhere near those things completely creeped me out. Just watching that episode had me fidgeting on the couch constantly.

Ugh. I can't watch any horror movies. I had to leave the room when the Scream movies came out and again when that Urban Legend movie came out. Everyone else was in there laughing and making fun of all the over the top or stupid stuff and I just couldn't handle it.
I watched What Lies Beneath without knowing what it was. My then-boyfriend had an old fashioned couch that was like a very long, very tall wingback chair. When the bathtub scene happened, I managed to clear the back of the couch from my laying-on-the-couch position without actually sitting up. It kind of freaked bf out. One moment I was there, the next moment I had disappeared.

Absolutely terrifying. I was always too chicken to play Bloody Mary as a kid (still am), but I'm terrified of mirrors during the night time. I always imagine looking in a mirror, just to see someone behind me.

Also, open closet doors. Again, in my head, I look up to my closet to admire my collection of shoes and, alas, a ghost serial killer or Newt Gingrich is wickedly staring back at me.

Clowns or dolls as decor. And I've told me husband repeatedly one of my primary reasons for marrying him was so that he could take care of any bugs. Sadly, after more than 15 years, I'm still the one who helps the many-legged creatures out the door.

Snails/slugs.

It's a competely irrational fear, but I can't help it.

The size of the oceans.
Blue whales.
Jupiter.
The Universe
...ya know, big things.
Oh, and Sloths!
It's a great source of amusement for my friends, but it's ridiculous.

love it..... I was afraid of Bush winning.

I'm afraid of dying, of being alone later in life.
I'm claustrophobic to a small degree. I can't stand closed doors and closed window curtains! It surprises me that so many of you feel the opposite!
I'm afraid of the dark, but not the night.
I'm afraid of heights, but only when standing on the edge of a precipice or something similar.
The idea of floating in the deep ocean freaks me out, and drowning. Both could probably be filed under claustrophobia and Acrophobia.

Tornadoes, tiny attic doors, night swimming in large bodies of water and tiny moth eggs that look like perfectly round white sprinkles.

Lizards, specifically geckos. I hate Geico specifically because of their mascot.

Bedbugs. I lived through an infestation that cost me thousands of dollars (that I'm still paying off) and eventually moved to another city. But as anyone who's had them knows, they're not just inconvenient or gross. It's truly horrifying to know that when you are at your most vulnerable, asleep and in your bed, that creatures designed for stealth are going to come out and drink blood and then go back and HIDE. Waking up with blood on your sheets is really like a horror movie. And of course feeling dirty and contagious, worried you'll pass them on to a friend....

And as a result, I'm now anxious about anything that could LEAD to another infestation. Like used books, anything vintage, staying in hotels, etc.

On the plus side, as a result I'm far LESS afraid of other creepy-crawlies like spiders, etc. Having gone through bedbugs, spiders seem downright friendly!

Oh and one other thing, ever since I first read Stephen King's "IT," I NEVER step on or even near a storm drain, and I never look into them. I'm afraid my heart would stop if I glanced into one and saw ... balloons ....

dolls.
portraits.
old houses that are empty, with UNKNOWN HISTORY
suburbs