Edith Macefield drew national media coverage when she refused in 2006 a $1 million offer for her 1,000-square-foot house from an investment company that eventually developed a 131,000-square-foot retail and office center around the home.

She died in 2008 and willed her house to a construction superintendent she had befriended. He sold the house in 2009.

The company that now owns the boarded-up house owes nearly $186,000 and, unless the debt is paid off, the property will be auctioned on March 13, newspaper website Seattlepi.com reported, citing a foreclosure notice.

Publicists in 2009 tied a cluster of balloons to the little two-story bungalow in Seattle in a marketing stunt for Up, about a curmudgeonly old man who refuses to sell his home and flies off in the house tied to balloons.

The display fell flat, however, as many of the balloons popped after being driven into surrounding walls by winds and it never achieved its intended aesthetic, Seattlepi.com reported.

The movie, by Disney-Pixar, made more than $700 million at worldwide box offices and won an Oscar for the best animated movie in 2010.

Newspaper photos from earlier this week show the home wrapped in a graffiti-streaked fence wedged between the soaring modern building.