My MIL was a fastidious housekeeper but in her later years she slipped a little and one year never took down her Christmas wreath. That year, she had to have home health care, and the person who came to visit her refused to come in when she saw the wreath. She was Jamaican and it was something about bad spirits being in the house because of the dead wreath. (Maybe the Jamaican version of feng shui?).