A witness House is a living House whose retained response is consulted about an event involving another household. Its response is evidence, not a verdict: the Archive preserves human accounts, material traces and the House's response separately, especially where they disagree.
How Testimony Is Taken
An examiner first records the question and the observers' positions, then compares the response with ordinary causes such as draughts, loose fittings and footsteps. The witness House cannot be required to reproduce an answer at will. A silence may be significant or merely inconclusive.
Limits
A House's retention is shaped by its own line and long use. Its certainty about a neighbouring event may exceed its accuracy. Collators and the Archive therefore keep the source and circumstances of a response rather than entering it as an independent human witness.
A Disputed Anecdote
A craft tale describes a supposed witness House whose rhythmic answer proved to be a loose shelf in the next room. The tale is told to apprentices as a warning against calling every repeated sound a memory; no surviving report establishes which House, if any, was involved.