Sinsull, can I have created this ancient housewarming tradition from an old movie? I guess stranger things have happened. Yet, when I used it at my friend's housewarming someone there remembered the other items (ashes and broom) so I think the movie makers were drawing on an old tradition.

Morticia, is the bread and salt on the hearth a nightly thing or is it a housewarming thing. In other words would you place the bread and salt there only when you move in or is it a continual thing like placing a saucer of milk out every night to stay on the good side of the faerie folk?