If any of you Pandas have ever had to look for a house or an apartment to move into, then you’ll be familiar with how quirky the search can be. Among all of the listings that boast they’re right next to the city center (even if they’re in the suburbs) and the promises about ‘competitive prices,’ you’re bound to find some absolute legends that have to be seen to be believed. Some are hilarious while others will scare the bejesus outta ya.

These listings are so bizarre, they make you question whether the photos were made to be weird on purpose or if there’s something more sinister going on. [Occult chanting noises.] Case in point, one Zillow listing for a duplex in South Lake Tahoe in California is going viral after LA-based TV writer Amanda Deibert posted about it on Twitter.

Oh, the photos start out innocent enough. But then… they take a darker turn. Shall we dive headfirst through the looking glass? Take my hand, don’t let go, and whatever you do, don’t double-check to see if [THEY] have moved in the photos… Scroll down for Bored Panda’s interview with Amanda who helped the listing go viral. We also reached out to Dr. Stephanie Lay at the Open University and spoke to her about the uncanny valley and why we might find mannequins creepy.

TV writer Amanda shared a link to a listing for a duplex in California

Image credits: amandadeibert

The photos start off simple enough: just another lovely home

Image credits: zillow

“I came across the listing on Facebook. I belong to groups that show strange listings,” writer Amanda told Bored Panda. “Usually, it is things like awkward layouts or carpets or something, so I knew something was up, but much like the reactions of most people in my Twitter thread, I was just sort of like, ‘Okay, the place is a bit messy. That isn’t a big deal— Oh MY CREEPY WEIRDNESS.’ It really takes a sharp turn from messy to immaculate and deeply unsettling.”

The interior might be a bit quirky, but there’s 3 bedrooms, so there’s plenty of space

Image credits: zillow

In Amanda’s opinion, this isn’t the case of an agent doing a strange listing to get more attention online. However, they might have decided to go with the idea just because the mannequins were already there. “The only reason I am skeptical of this as a planned situation is that if an agent was going to go through all the work of finding every formalwear mannequin circa 1985, they’d probably also have cleaned up the weird mess in the first section of the duplex. There was possibly unwrapped bacon by the sofa?”

The kitchen is a callback to simpler times

Image credits: zillow

Like us, Amanda believes that mannequins are creepy because they fall into the Uncanny Valley. “I mean, look, it’s a pandemic and people gotta do what they need to get through to emotionally survive, but some of those poses are super strange and then there is that poor armless, legless lady chilling under the counter while her sisters casually stand around in evening gowns. The mannequins are disturbing enough, but the tableaux (especially in the bedroom) take it to the next level of WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE AND IS EVERYONE OKAY?”

While one of the bedrooms has enough room for a king-size bed

Image credits: zillow

Meanwhile, Dr. Lay at the Open University explained to Bored Panda that what made people respond with unease to the photos in the listing was the “incongruity between the normal pictures of a nice-looking house and the jarring pictures with the mannequins.”

She detailed that it’s all down to how unexpected and sudden the shift in tone was: “Mismatch is in play here: if the house had been more foreboding in general, the strange grouping of mannequins wouldn’t have come as such a shock.”

There are 2 bathrooms in the property and…

Image credits: zillow

Dr. Lay’s work focuses on how mismatches in the information that we get from “near-human faces” have a role in triggering the uncanny valley effect. “I looked specifically at facial expressions, and found that faces where the expressions we incongruent (such as a smiling mouth but fearful or angry eyes) were most associated with feelings of unease and disquiet, as well as being perceived as less than human. So, I think that even once faces start to look more realistic, there will still be an uncanny response if other aspects of the entity’s behavior or appearance aren’t as realistic: for example, even with a well-modeled human-like face, if the entity’s voice, movement or body language don’t convey the same emotional message, we’ll still find them unsettling.”

…wait a minute…

Image credits: zillow

So you’re looking through the photos and bam, out of nowhere, those darn mannequins pop in to say ‘hello there.’ I don’t know about you, dear Pandas, but mannequins really freak me out. I’ve played too many horror video games and seen too many scary movies not to be afraid of what they’re capable of.

What’s this? Why are there suddenly mannequins popping into the photos?

Image credits: zillow

What’s going on? Why are there so many of them?

Image credits: zillow

Is this some kind of mannequin gathering?

Image credits: zillow

The question is, why are they in the photos at all? My working theory is that the mannequins might be part of the real estate team’s attempts to draw in potential buyers by grabbing their attention with something shocking. We know for a fact that some agents convince the sellers to do this.

However, it’s unclear if this is one of those cases or if the sellers simply collect mannequins, use them for work, or have more nefarious plans for ritual summonings in mind.

It’s no surprise that the innocent-looking listing got a ton of attention online. People simply weren’t expecting to see lavishly-dressed mannequins everywhere

Image credits: zillow

Image credits: zillow

Image credits: zillow

Whatever the case, Amanda’s thread helped get the Zillow listing more attention. At the time of writing, over 2.6 million people have viewed the listing since it was put up 4 days ago. The centrally located duplex is “close to casinos, beaches, shopping, skiing, and the only cinema” in South Lake Tahoe.

There are dozens of them and the clothes they wear belong on a catwalk or a fancy-dress party

Image credits: zillow

They seem friendly enough, however, and–oh no, no, no, NO! They got me and I can’t get away. Run, save yourself, and get help!

Image credits: zillow

Image credits: zillow

The 2,116-square-foot (nearly 197-square-meter) property is on sale for 650,000 dollars. The home has 3 “spacious” bedrooms (enough for all the mannequins, I suppose), 2 bathrooms, and a garage for your car.

There’s also a large driveway if you’ve got more than one automobile. The property, according to the listing, is to be sold “as-is” which makes us wonder… are the mannequins included in the price?

There are plenty of theories floating about as to what’s going in this duplex that’s up for sale for 650,000 dollars

Image credits: zillow

The mannequins could be a way to grab everyone’s attention. Or they could be part of the sellers’ hobbies or even work. Or they could be moving around in the photos whenever you’re not looking

Image credits: zillow

There’s a reason why many people find mannequins and dolls to be creepy. To sum up, it’s because some of their faces are made to look like those of people, however, there’s just something off with the details, meaning that some dolls can end up scaring us despite trying to be as close to reality as possible.

We intuitively know that there’s something wrong with a robot, doll, or mannequin’s face even if we’re unable to vocalize exactly why. ‘Lifelike but lifeless’ is one way to look at them: they try to imitate human beings without getting the most important details right.

On the other hand, we might find dolls and mannequins creepy because they mimic human faces without actually having anybody ‘inside’ behind the eyes, thinking, feeling, looking back at us. Cognitive neuroscientist Thalia Wheatley from Dartmouth University explains that we need to be able to “discriminate faces worthy of our thoughts, feelings, and actions from false alarms that are not actually faces.”

“Otherwise we might regard clouds, cars, or houses as objects with a mental life.” That’s why we need to be able to, first, distinguish faces and, second, understand which faces actually mean that we’re dealing with other human beings whom we can connect to.

Dolls mimic what real faces look like and our minds can understand this, however, we also know that these aren’t people—they don’t have minds. This creates confusion which leads to creepiness. Wheatley explains: “There are these signals that are telling our brain this thing is alive,” she says. “But we know it’s not alive. And that juxtaposition is really creepy.” Welcome to the uncanny valley, population: far, far too many.

Here’s how social media users have been reacting to the unassuming listing that goes mega-creepy like a bolt from the blue

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I’ve had the pleasure of writing other articles about the weirdest house listings. You’ll find Bored Panda’s posts about Bigfoot’s home right here (including an interview with the real estate agent who told us all about the bizarre photoshoot), about a badly photoshopped apartment here, and about a house with a mundane exterior, but an intricate and thematically-varied interior right over here.

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