These houses were built just to annoy other people

Imagine being so sick of your neighbours or a family member, you construct a house that will torment and menace them until to the end of time.

It’s the definition of petty and the real estate world is the richer for it.

Here are a handful of homes around the world built just to annoy other people.

Beirut, Lebanon

Named The Grudge, or Al Ba’sa, the house is only half-a-metre at its narrowest and 4.2-metres at its widest.

The paper-thin property – which looks more like a wall than dwelling – was allegedly built by a man to tick off his brother, who owned the house behind it. The brother had a view of the sea. So his sibling erected a tall, slender, obstructive house, to forever veil those vistas.

The aggrieved brother was said to be cross that his flesh and blood owned a better block of land than he did.

It looks impossible to live in, but it is. Apartments occupy multiple levels and have all have been rented over the years.

City laws have almost guaranteed this relic of a family feud will never be torn down.

Modern local planning rules stipulate the plot is too small to build on. If this was ever demolished, nothing could replace it. Why would anyone bother to spend the money razing it and leave only dirt? Unless you were the owner at the rear. And so The Grudge endures.

Jacksonville Beach, Florida

Someone unwisely told the owner of this land – an itty-bitty wedge left over from a wider development – that they could not possibly build anything habitable on it.

It sparked a determined response.

Listing agent Ryan Wetherhold of Oceanside Real Estate told Business Insider when it hit the market in May this year: “[To] be honest, the builder almost built this out of spite just because of that fact. ‘Oh, you don’t think we can build, hold my beer’.”

It sold for $US619,000 ($AU952,000) and contains two bedrooms, a living zone, kitchen, mud room and a loft over two slim but deep levels.

Seattle, Washington

“Like a little wedge of cheese” is how the agent of this Seattle house explained the weird configuration.

Its wide and handsome Spanish Mission-style façade gradually narrows to only the width of a door at the rear – like a piece of cake or a slice of parmesan cheese.

Nicknamed the Montlake Spite House, it was for sale in 2019 but did not transact, according to the Zillow listing.

After

Before

The chat around town? The design is the result of a woman scorned. The other rumour is that it was created over a good old-fashioned neighbour spat.

“There are a couple of stories around why this house is called the Spite House,” the agent said in the Zillow YouTube video. “One is that there was a husband and wife, they lived in a large house on the lot, and when they were divorced, the husband kept the house and his wife got this little sliver of property.

“And she wasn’t happy so she had this house built in order to spite him.

“The other is that someone owned a large home on the property next to it and wanted to purchase this property to make his yard larger. They made the owner a ridiculously low offer and the owner was unhappy, and so had the house built to spite the gentleman who made the low offer.”

Boston, Massachusetts

The property is only three-metres wide and the little wooden sign on the front states its purpose: “The Skinny House (Spite House)”.

There is no mistaking that this house was designed in a fit of vengeance and the owner was content for the world to know it.

It sold in 2021 for $US1.25 million ($AU1.92 million) and was described on the Zillow listing as an ” iconic landmark property deep rooted in Boston history”.

The legend goes that the property was built after the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865, by a brother retaliating against his selfish sibling.

One of the pair went off to war and when he came back, found his brother had built a substantial house on the block owned by their family – and thus, the brother had infringed on his portion of the inheritance. He constructed the little spite house on the space that remained.