If you’re just strolling down the street or driving in your car, you’d never notice anything weird with this house in the US state of North Carolina. It looks like a house is supposed to look. You can imagine the family that lives there and the weekday dinners they throw for the neighbourhood. You can imagine the kids in the yard. But no. It’s not a real house. This home hides a noisy water pump station for the city. What?
Yep, there is no family, no kids, no nothing. Nobody actually lives in the house because it’s not a house at all. And if you took a closer look at the house, you’d recognise that it was a fake. There’s no driveway or garage to park a car. There’s not even a walkway to the front door. The windows are clearly blocked and you’ll never see the lights never turn on. It’s all just a facade for the hidden water pump station.
When you come around to the back of the house, you can see that the house still tries to fake being a house. Windows are there, an AC unit is connected but it’s all for show. A simple doorway reveals the government’s truth. It’s a water pump station that supercharges water flow to allow water to be pushed uphill. What’s with all the secrecy though?
WUNC explored the ‘home’ and discovered that the station blends it “out of courtesy”. WUNC explains:
Mostly out of courtesy, the city decided to help the station blend in. The house looks just like all the other houses in the neighbourhood in terms of architectural style. And to deal with the noise problem, they used sound dampening materials in the construction. So while the walls of your house might be made of wood and plaster, these are made of cinder block.
There are plenty of homes and buildings that hide something all across the country. Maybe we should take all take closer looks at houses on our blocks. You never know what’s real and what’s not. Check out WUNC’s full report below.