Why Every Old House Had a Door That Led to Nowhere

Why did almost every old house have a door on the second floor that opens into thin air? For over a hundred years people blamed ghosts, but the real reasons are stranger and far more human: vanished porches, furniture hoists, coffin doors for carrying out the dead, the English window tax, hidden priest holes, and a grieving widow's endless mansion. Here's the forgotten history sealed inside your walls, and the psychology of why these doors still make our skin crawl.