Trepassen House has been the Westaway family home for generations, bought and expanded by the wealth allotted over many years. When Hal first researches the estate, she considers it symbolic of the kind of money she lacks. Her own cramped apartment is impoverished by comparison, and the simple thought of such a lavish property as Trepassen House inspires her envy. Hal cannot even imagine a life of such wealth and, glimpsing the property from afar, she is reminded of her own poverty.

When she arrives at Trepassen House, Hal learns that appearances can be deceiving. While the house seems glamorous from afar, the reality is very different. The house is rundown, windows are smashed, the grounds are unkempt, and entire rooms are coated in a thick layer of dust. The house changes to a symbol of the Westaways’ decline. Though the family may appear happy and successful from the outside, they are each traumatized by the many dark secrets in their past. Like the family itself, the once-lavish house has frayed at the edges and fallen into disrepair.

Hal ultimately inherits the Westaway family fortune, and the house newly symbolizes the inheritance, both the good and the bad; the house will allow Hal to escape her financial woes, but it is also a symbol of her traumatic family history.