For as long as the residents of Clifton Avenue can remember (which isn't as long as you might think), the houses in their neighborhood have been...different. A leaky roof to the rest of the world is a potentially expensive-to-fix problem, but a leaky roof to the residents of Clifton Avenue is so much more than a problem easily fixed by a phone call and a bounceable check; a leaky roof means the house they're living in is irritated, playing a joke (one with a bad punchline--thanks, Hedge Row), or is constantly doing things to piss its 'owners' off. A leaky roof is more than just a problem to the people living on Clifton Avenue because the houses are alive.
Yeah, you read right. The houses are alive.
Of course, the aches and pains of living in what-should-be-but-isn't an inanimate object aren't all that come from living there. The tenants, for as long as they stay in the house, have magic. What that magic is depends solely on the individual, but there's another catch to this already catch-y deal. Because when you're living on Clifton Avenue, you don't choose the house.