As a kid, it wasn’t unusual to find me hanging out with my friends at the local cemetery. Sometimes, we’d scare ourselves with tales of the dead arising and chasing us. But, mostly, we searched out the older headstones so we could trace them with paper and pencil. We liked the sounds of those long-dead names on our tongues and competed to find the oldest graves.
When we were tired of running around looking for ancestors, we would throw ourselves on the grass and rest between the graves as the sun warmed our faces. Sometimes, we would have a picnic. It was peaceful and quiet. We felt happy there. For us, playing in the cemetery was no big deal. It was fun.
Apparently not everyone thinks so.
My husband still talks about how, when he was selling his bachelor home in London, Ont., more than a decade ago, a little girl who went to view the house with her mother ran out screaming bloody murder after she spotted the cemetery over the back fence. That nice, quiet neighbour turned out to be a drawback to a quick sale.
And it’s not just cemeteries that can keep your house on the market longer than it should when feng shui practitioners are house-hunting.
When an Ottawa man tried to sell his home in the desirable Westboro area of the capital, he figured it would be a quick sale with multiple offers. It didn’t take long before the price had to be reduced — from $599,000 to $529,000 — because he found his location, across from a funeral home, was a negative for many people. “I had a few agents call with clients, but when they heard where it was, the viewings were cancelled,” he said, adding that he had no idea that a funeral home was considered bad luck.
Call it bad feng shui. Tabitha Miller has an interesting article that explains why trying to sell a home near a cemetery, funeral home and even a hospital can get tricky. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the ancient Chinese art of feng shui is all about location, location, location. You can have the inside designed to maximize that good chi energy, but it won’t mean anything if your home’s location doesn’t have the right balance of yin and yang.
Think of yin as earth, emitting dark energy. And think of yang as sun, emitting light energy. With the right amount of both, we can all lead happy, positive lives. Too much of one and things go wonky.
Cemeteries are yin. That’s why you don’t want your home near one. Who needs all that dark energy? There are some who believe that cemeteries draw the bright yang energy away from their living neighbours, leaving them at risk of depression, illness and just plain bad luck.
Carol, who lives near a cemetery, posted a comment on this blog asking if there is any way “I can have positive feng shui next to this lovely, tranquil piece of greenspace that just happens to be filled with headstones?” The good news is yes, there are cures for the cemetery blues! Depending who you talk to, you can either paint your house a bright red, a strong yang colour to balance the dark energy, or hang a mirror outside your home to deflect the bad energy away from you.
Even if you aren’t located near a hospital, cemetery or funeral home, you might still find some people turning around and walking away after they see your street address. For example, if your address has a 4 in it, that’s considered bad luck by some Chinese because in Cantonese, “four” sounds like “death.” That same house hunter will be smiling if your address has an 8 in it — it sounds like “prosperous” in Cantonese and signals good luck.
And you thought selling a house was easy!
Like it or not, feng shui can make or break a sale. Even real estate agents are learning feng shui so they know what to show, and what not to show, clients who have adopted the ancient Chinese art as their own rules to live by. Even if you think it’s nothing but superstition, it’s wise to learn what is considered a good feng shui property before you buy — unless you plan to live there for life.