The ‘smallest house in Brussels’ goes up for sale Feb. 6.YVES HERMAN/Reuters
Cozy might be the best word to describe the smallest house in Brussels, which is about to go up for auction.
The centuries-old former furniture workshop and crêperie a stone's throw from the Belgian capital's picturesque central square is just nine feet wide and has a ground floor just under six feet wide.
"There's a lot of interest and there are also a lot of tourists who want to see it," said Claude Rotsart de Hertaing, a Brussels pensioner who works part time showing prospective buyers around houses.
The dilapidated five-floor Belgian townhouse, just off the central Grand Place, has "La plus petite maison de Bruxelles" (The smallest house in Brussels) written across a faded wooden sign above the entrance.
However, it is not Europe's narrowest, which tourist officials in Slovakia believe could be a four-foot wide house in its capital Bratislava.
The Brussels house, squeezed between a pizzeria and a souvenir shop, has floors of about 170 square feet each, apart from the ground floor, which is even tighter because of a pathway running to a courtyard down the side.
On one floor it has a potentially inviting fireplace, but you might singe your knees if you sat facing it on an armchair.
The house will be auctioned on Feb. 6, starting at a price of €146,200 (about $195,000).