When someone thinks they have been “touched” by G-d and now have the spiritual malady of tzaraas, then go to the priest, and they tell him so.
At least, that is how it works for tzaraas of the body or of the clothing. These, presumably, reflect on a person’s personal behavior, and/or how they choose to act toward others.
But if a person thinks there is tzaraas on the walls of their house, the Torah uses different language:
The owner of the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, “Something like a plague has appeared upon my house.”
Why the indefinite and gentle language? Why be subtle — even obfuscatory?
I think the answer is simple: There are others living in a house. And those people are the most important relationships that a person can have: their spouse, and perhaps also parents and children.
Relationships are always hard to build and preserve and nurture. So an accusation that someone else has behaved badly in some way is not going to make friends. The idea of having tzaraas under a shared roof suggests that there might be something very wrong with the culture or behavior of the family, as well as those within it. And so you have to be very, very careful before making that kind of accusation. Words may be intangible, but they create their own reality in a person’s mind.
This explains why the person who reports to the cohen does so in an indefinite and subtle way. He seeks to minimize (as much as is possible) the damage that comes from making that kind of accusation about the most important people in his life.
It is very important – even helpful – to be up front about our own weaknesses, failures, and limitations. It is quite another to make those kinds of accusations about others.
Creativejudaism.org