Item #: SCP-1988

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: As SCP-1988 is spread by residence relocation, agents embedded in real estate firms in Chicago, IL; Dover, DE; and Portland, ME are to artificially alter the market such that it becomes an unfavorable decision to relocate out of the city. A budget is to be allocated for the purpose of advertising a telephone hotline in these cities for civilians to report faulty hardware, appliances, and installations in their houses. In addition, satellites are to monitor these cities for abnormal increases in carbon dioxide emissions.

When an infected house is discovered, the occupants are to be relocated to a new house that was constructed after 1961 1971. Occupants are to be given vouchers on newly manufactured energy-efficient appliances under the artifice of a government program. The old property is then to be claimed and redeveloped for civilian use. No part of the redeveloped property is to have been constructed before 1961 1971.

Description: SCP-1988 is a communicable infection of bioarchitectural nature that affects houses built before 1961 1971. It is largely geographically confined to Chicago, Illinois and its suburbs, but outbreaks have been reported in Dover, Delaware and Portland, Maine. It is spread by relocation from an infected house to an uninfected house by the house's occupants. Whether or not the occupants themselves are the causative factor is not possible to determine.

SCP-1988 affects a house in three stages. Stage one typically begins within 120 days of a house being occupied. In stage one, the house acquires noticeable drafts or cold spots. Doors and windows in general may become difficult to open or close, and they may occasionally open and close by themselves. Metal doors and windows begin to cyclically heat up and cool down. Wooden doors and windows alternate between decreasing and increasing in size; this would normally occur on a seasonal scale with annually changing temperature and pressure, however, each cycle takes place in a matter of hours. Eventually the cycles of the doors and windows synchronize across the whole house. This leads to stage two.

In stage two, electrical appliances and plumbing begin to malfunction. Short circuits and burnt fuses are common. Heat-transfer appliances, such as refrigerators and ovens, will begin to reverse or otherwise change the direction in which they transfer heat. Drains and faucets may become clogged with no discernible physical explanation. At this stage, the occupants of the house will definitely become aware of the house's abnormal behavior. In virtually all cases, they will decide to relocate to another residence in one of the other two affected cities. The relocation of the occupants leads to stage three.

In stage three, the insulation, wiring, and plumbing of the house are gradually transfigured by an unidentified process of structural decay into a highly complex system of living, functional biological organs resembling the lungs, bronchial tubes, and alveoli of various mammalian species1. Faucets, drains, and electrical outlets become trachea-like organs to interface with the house's rooms; electrical devices that are plugged into outlets are ejected in the process. Although the organs are not visible without opening the walls, the house now demonstrably breathes, increasing and decreasing in size by roughly 5cm per cycle. The interior of the house fills with carbon dioxide periodically, which is then released through the autonomously operative windows and doors and replaced with oxygen from outside. This leads to buildup of greenhouses gases, which in turn spurs the rapid growth of additional plant life. However, the dramatic rate of increase in plant life surrounding infected houses does not appear to be fully explained by the rate of carbon dioxide production.

The progression of SCP-1988 symptoms has been found to be somewhat dependent on the occupants' knowledge of the house's abnormal behavior. If an occupant is unaware or unable to remember that there is anything out of the ordinary, the symptoms will not move past stage two, and with time they will regress and cease. This was discovered when an elderly man with Alzheimer's Syndrome returned to his infected house in Chicago after initially leaving to relocate to Dover, and the symptoms of SCP-1988 infection had been completely eradicated. Initial point of infection was traced to a house in Park Ridge, IL which was the childhood home of ████████ ████, but no connection has been established. Neither the causative factor behind SCP-1988, nor the reason why only Chicago, Dover and Portland are affected, is yet known.

Addendum: On █/██/20██, roughly ten years after initial documentation of SCP-1988, a change in the parameters of the anomaly was noted. SCP-1988 now affects not only houses built before 1961, but houses built in the ten years after such a date as well.

Footnotes

1. Found to correspond to any mammalian species that had lived in the house prior to the onset of stage three.