Ghost signs Melbourne #4 : time for a cuppa

Park Street, Carlton North

The neighbours thought it was a house. There were the windows, the front door; the walls of solid red bricks. And for many years this was what it was: a house. But just as the trees in the backyard grew taller over the years, so did this house. Windows lengthened, the walls pushed upwards, and the tenants started to leave. For it was not just the noise and the cracking walls that made people despair, but the heat: the constant, boiling heat. The chimney drooped into a thin curving spout and several roof tiles formed themselves into hinges, so that on a night when the wind blew hard from the north, the roof would gently lift like a lid before it settled, on the house, once again. So now, there it stands, on the corner of Park Street, Carlton North: a teapot.