A "house" is essentially a container -- for a person, a family, several families or even a large group with shared interests (think of the term "houses of worship.") In the Bible, a "house" is also a container, but for spiritual things rather than natural things. In various uses a "house" can represent part of the mind, the whole mind, a whole person or even a church. The other nuance to the word "house" is that it is generally used in regards to our affections and desires rather than our thoughts and principles. This makes sense; we tend to engage our thoughts and rationality when we are out in the world doing our work, but when we are inside our houses we are driven most by love for our families and the desire to be good to those we love. So "house" tends to represent the things we want and care about -- which are ultimately the things that define us.

3218. When angels are stirred by affections and at the same time are discussing these, such things manifest themselves among spirits in the lower sphere as representative types of animals. When the discussion concerns good affections, beautiful, gentle, and useful animals emerge such as those used in sacrifices in the Divine representative worship within the Jewish Church - such as lambs, sheep, kids, she-goats, rams, he-goats, calves, young bulls, and oxen. And whatever is seen at any time on the animal represents some mental image in the angels' thought, which upright spirits are also allowed to perceive. From this one may see what was meant by the animals in the religious observances of the Jewish Church, and what by the same animals when mentioned in the Word, namely affections, 1823, 2179, 2180. But when angels' discussion is about evil affections it is represented by offensive, vicious creatures serving no use, such as tigers, bears, wolves, scorpions, serpents, rats, and so on, even as such affections are also meant by these in the Word.