Both novels make the architecture the antagonist rather than putting a ghost inside it. Jackson's house is described as wrong in its angles, with doors that will not stay open and a floor plan nobody can hold in their head; Danielewski's house is a quarter of an inch larger inside than out, and then a good deal more than that. The move is the same one, measuring a building and finding the measurement impossible, and Danielewski takes it from implication to the literal fact the whole book is about.