Minxiong Ghost House
A three-storey red-baroque mansion in rural Chiayi, built in 1929, abandoned for decades and slowly swallowed by banyan roots — Taiwan's most famous haunted house, with a maid and an old well at the centre of its legend.
Case File No. 106
FILE 01 The Legend
The Liu family mansion was the grandest house in Minxiong when it rose in 1929, mixing baroque brickwork with Taiwanese vernacular form. The story that attached to it: a young maid was mistreated — or loved and discarded — by the master of the house, and drowned in the courtyard well; some versions say Japanese soldiers billeted there during the war added their own layer of deaths. After the family moved out following the war, the house stood open to the weather, and a giant banyan grew down its facade like a hand closing over a face.
FILE 02 The Sightings Log
Visitors describe cold spots on the upper landing even at noon, the smell of well water in dry rooms, and a woman's silhouette in the second-floor windows at dusk. Documentary crews and paranormal teams have filmed inside repeatedly; the house anchors whole seasons of Taiwanese ghost-hunting television.
FILE 03 The Skeptic’s File
The Liu descendants, who still own the house, have repeatedly denied the maid story — no family or village record supports a death in the well, and the soldiers' tales grew from the wartime billeting rather than any documented incident. The family attributes the ruin to ordinary economics: the household moved to the city, and an unoccupied brick mansion in a humid climate does the rest. Restoration work has since stabilised parts of the house for limited openings.