Barring the Door

Barring the Door is one of the oldest rural traditions of the Dain continent. Its intention is to prevent disease, spirits and all other harmful entities, like the Blue Cat from affecting people living in a house.
The premise of the tradition is simple. When a family is spending the first night in a new home, they should be there alone and bar the door, so that the home remembers its inhabitants and doesn't allow any other entities to sneak in at night.
Barring the Door originates from centuries ago, when new communities and settlements were being established, and fear of the unknown prodded the settlers to develop defensive mechanisms against their imagination. The tradition rarely involves just the family moving into a new house. Usually there are a lot of people who helped along the way, and they are all invited for a feast. The feast itself takes place inside the house, to signal to the home which pepole are welcome. As the evening progresses, the guests leave, so that at sundown the patriarch or matriarch of the family can bar the front door from the inside. Nobody is allowed to enter or leave the house until the sun rises the next day. Often, a friend or a neighbor is tasked to be the first one to knock on the door in the morning and ask to unbar them.
As the development of the civilization progressed, more and more people moved into old houses, which forced the tradition to evolve. While many choose to ignore Barring the Door as superstition, there is currently a wide range of regional rites that adapted to all kinds of situations. For example, if moving into house which was previously occupied, the night before the move nobody can sleep in it so it can forget the old inhabitants. What follows, if a whole family leaves a house for a night, they may need to perform the rite again, usually in a symbolic way. Similarily the nights after childbirths are often celebrated as a new person is added to the household. On the other side of the spectrum, when someone in the house passes away, the head of the family often keeps a vigil by unlocked front door, so that the spirit can safely leave.