Crytoscopophilia

As I'm revising my post-apocalyptic young adult novel (Again! Once more, with feeling...) I realize there's a lot of going-into-strangers'-houses-and-checking-out-what-they've-got. You can tell a lot about people from the stuff they have or don't have, what they want you to see and what they don't. When I walk or drive by houses at night, yeah, I like to look in the windows. I'm reading Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue: English & How it Got That Way" and he noted that there's actually word for that (see title of post). I think most of us have it otherwise social networking sites wouldn't be so popular. Windows all over the place. But there, too, people mostly show you what they want you to see, the living room but not the crawlspace. Fiction lets you open the boxes hidden in dark corners.