This house listing seems normal at first, but then the pictures get weird

If you've never scrolled through a house listing and had this reaction: "OK, cool, sure, nice, great, fun, that's, wait, what's that? Hold on. No seriously. WHAT?! WHY?! How? In what world — I mean, no thank you. WHAT?!" today's your lucky day. This house for sale in Fayatte, Missouri seems fairly normal at first, but once you get to image 30, it gets really strange. We won't make you scroll through all 30 images to get to the bonkers stuff, but just know the actual listing has way more photos if you find yourself mouth agape, wondering how you got to this point in your life.

What a cute, normal-looking brick home. Brianna Wu shared this listing on her Twitter, where it garnered many, many shocked reactions. "Pics 1-29: 'Okay, it's a bit small, but I could work with that.' PIC 30: "WHAT THE FRAK IS GOING ON?" she wrote. What the frak, indeed.

The first 30 pictures (out of 70) on this listing are fairly normal. It's a nice looking house with hardwood floors and a cozy fireplace and cool ceilings. It does sort of feel like something's off, though, doesn't it?

One commenter pointed out that while it sort of seems like a normal house, it also looks like it has "non-Euclidian angles," in other words, rooms are not perfect squares or rectangles but more like rhombuses or diamonds. Maybe it's just the angle of the photos, but it really looks like that might be the case.

But heck, I'd live in a diamond-shaped house if it came with a kitchen like this. Look at all that cabinet space! And that window reading nook! I would have breakfast there every day while looking out of the window and thinking about how supremely normal my house is...as long as you don't look around the corner.

But then, all of a sudden, we're upstairs and everything seems fine. Sure, the banisters are a little old-school, but that just adds to the charm of the place. And that looks like maybe a fancy shower in the bathroom there. Who doesn't love a fancy shower?

And it is a fancy shower! There's also a claw foot tub, a perfect place to rest in a bubble bath and think about how even though your house is a diamond shape and evokes a Willy Wonka quality, that has to be the weirdest thing about it. Right?

But hold on. Go back downstairs into that kitchen for a minute. There's something we seem to have missed. It looks like maybe the door to a vault or an underground bunker or something. What could it be?

Hm. Well, it's definitely not an underground bunker because those stairs go up. What's happening over there? It's a totally different feel from the rest of the house. I suppose it's time to investigate.

I guess this is good storage space to have but now my eyes are traveling up the stairs and what are those doors? They look suspiciously like jail cells. But there's no way they're jail cells, right?

Wrong. They're 100 percent jail cells. Why? What? How? Who would want to live in an old jail? Apparently, someone. The description of the listing tries to get one and all excited about the prospect of buying this house, which is actually the 1875 Howard County Sheriff's House and Jail. "Extremely unique opportunity!!" the listing desperately tries to spin it by saying.

The listing claims that the "BEST PART" of this house/jail is that connected to the home is a "2500 sq. ft. legitimate jail with nine cells, booking room, and 1/2 bath. The cell door lock throws appear to be operational." I'd really like someone to explain to me how nine jail cells are better than that fancy shower and tub situation. Because they're definitely not.

I can't imagine who would want to live in a house with a spooky jail attached, even if it is a "notable historical property." It's not fun or cool; it's weird and creepy. And it's making me uncomfortable, so I'm going to go now.

Editor's Note: The article was originally published in August 2020.