I noticed that there are several unoccupied and boarded up houses in Goodsprings. Many residents seem to be in a communal living situation and share homes. (Trudy lives with Sunny Smiles.... Easy Pete has random settlers that will sleep at his house)

Why aren't the other homes being used? They don't appear to have any more damage than the other buildings in town. Do you think that someone like Chet or Trudy own the other houses and keep them locked up until someone can find a hefty sum of caps to buy them?

I guess it's because devs in both games felt it was pointless/time wasting to design interiors for all buildings.

I think the interiors may have had nasty damage done to them. Maybe geckos/mantis' made homes inside, tore the place up and the house were simply unusable. Even after the nest would have been cleared out.

I though that too, but all of the houses are pretty torn up inside..... There are very few toilets in the entire game that are not smashed into pieces. I would think that the only real things that you would need for a house to be worth living in would be a solid roof and steady load-bearing walls. Most houses are littered with what looks like broken tiles and debris.

Maybe the walls are not stable anymore? Maybe they think those houses are about to collapse like the couple of buildings with nothing left except the foundation and a few boards from one wall?

All the boarded up buildings are cursed!! This place is cursed, that one is cursed. I am really not happy unless there is a good curse!! I wish there were more places to go into, even if they were mostly junked, still would add alof more housing options to say the last:/