S/O: House Hunting Horrors!

[katycoo]

The norm in Australia is oven/stove (often built into kitchen) and potentially dishwasher.  That's it.

[RingTailedLemur]

DH & I saw a few houses before we bought our current one.  Most were fixer-uppers, which annoyed us because we thought we had been quite clear that we wanted a house suitable for living in immediately (so the place with big holes in the walls and floors was right out).  However, the worst one has really stuck in our minds.

It was really dark and oppressive in the house, with wallpaper hanging off and drooping fixtures.  It had evidently been uninhabited for a while, as the utilities had been disconnected and there was one of those "anyone needing access to call this number" signs in the window.  The front room carpet had a large and suspicious stain that looked a lot like what happens when someone dies and isn't found for a few weeks or months.  I pointed out the state of the place and the agent replied, "I've seen worse".

The window in the back room had been daubed with red paint from the outside, saying "whoever enters will die".  I asked the estate agent about the neighbourhood, any problems etc (he denied there were any) before pointing out the  threatening words.  The agent responded, "It doesn't say that".  I was stunned and insistent that I could read it, even though it was backwards.  He said he was "sure it doesn't say that" and then wandered off.

We looked at the rest of the house out of politeness.

My flabber was ghasted and I wish we had complained about that guy (and I haven't even mentioned the rap music in his car which blasted us with the f-bomb in the lyrics).

[vinyl]

I once looked at a flat with a friend that seemed large and airy but felt terribly *wrong*. No idea why, but the feeling was enhanced by the bedroom roof which was covered by tiny dirty children's handprints. Hundreds of them all over the room.
My favorite house of horrors was a little non-detached 19th century house in a really prime area. athe current tennant and his (cute) foxhound " insisted on showing us the house (would not leave and the agent was clearly embarressed. Features included:
- one internal door. NOT a bathroom door.
- Metal grecian pillars instead of walls to make the from two rooms into one -  said pillars were in the middle of each used-to-be-wall.
- A wall in the middle of the hall, albeit with lovely stained glass. Could not walk down the hall.
- No lights (or wiring) in the front rooms or the bedroom, but one of those "bulbs around mirrors" things in the bathroom.
- meat locker where the fridge should be, fox skins in every room.
- Several headstones (for graves) in the breezeway.

The whole place was sort of gently rotting in the dark, and clearly all renovations were illegal. The floor and roof were both stuffed and I loudly proclaimed to my mother (who was looking with me) that while I liked character I would never ever ever live there.
So of course I bought it and lived there for 3 years before we renovated it. In a house with no bathroom door.
And now I plan  on living here forever. Houses of horror can sometimes be worth it if you can see their potential.

[Kariachi]

The window in the back room had been daubed with red paint from the outside, saying "whoever enters will die".  I asked the estate agent about the neighbourhood, any problems etc (he denied there were any) before pointing out the  threatening words.  The agent responded, "It doesn't say that".  I was stunned and insistent that I could read it, even though it was backwards.  He said he was "sure it doesn't say that" and then wandered off.

We looked at the rest of the house out of politeness.

To eHell with politeness, I'd have been gone. Wouldn't have even bothered telling the agent, it would have just been an immediate "and, we're leaving now". If he felt so safe, he could stand around the Death House, I'm not gonna be a horror flick statistic.

[BabyMama]

Appliances are standard here. Usually if an appliance isn't being sold with the house, the buyer asks for the valued amount to be knocked off the purchase price, since they'll have to buy one when they move in.

I still wonder if the people who sold us their house feel sad about that. The fridge and stove were brand new when we moved in (the handle hadn't even been screwed onto the fridge) and had clearly been wedding presents.

[jedikaiti]

I wonder why it's standard to leave appliances in place in the US, whereas other places it's not.

[exitzero]

Some friends of mine, when they were selling their house, discovered that the previous owner had installed the back bathroom using taped-together coffee cans as pipes for the toilet.

My eyes just popped out of my head.  I had to read that three times and still have trouble believing someone would be that crazy.

Friends of mine rented a house and one time during a party a guest leaned against a wall and fell right through. Someone had patched a giant hole in the wall with newspaper and painted over it so it blended.

[Shalamar]

When my parent's neighbour moved into a senior's complex, she sold her house with its entire contents because she couldn't be bothered to try to sell everything individually.  The folks who bought it turned around and sold everything themselves and made a tidy profit - she had some antiques and other nice things.

Back to horrors - when I bought my previous house, the owners left a truly hideous owl statue in the basement.  I promptly sold it at my next garage sale, but now that I've read Bag of Bones by Stephen King, I'm wondering if I made a mistake ...

[gingerzing]

Needed to share mine before I got through page 3.

As first time home-buyers, DH and I went to a seminar put on by one of the relators in our town.  Very informative stuff.  About 8 months later, we decided to make an appointment with the gal.  I had a fairly detailed list of what I must have in a home, what would be nice to have, and what would have been "icing on the cake" (not mandatory, but good).  DH and I had carefully budgeted and figured what range we were looking at and could get a loan for.  When we talked with the woman, she never asked anything about what we were looking for.  About 15 minutes into the conversation, she asked our price range that we were thinking while pulling up pages of large McMansion-style homes in $$$ neighborhoods.  We told her. "Oh NO.  You can't get anything for that range.  With your incomes you could get <double what we were planning> as a loan." And then in the most condesending voice I have ever had used on me, "I don't think you understand WHAT you would get for THAT low of an amount."
Before DH could inhale to say something, I raised an eyebrow.  "Well, since you finally asked what we are looking for in a home, perhaps this will help. I was thinking of (the rest said in bullet points and quickly) a RANCH house, less than 1000 square foot, older home not newly built, 2-3 bedrooms, a full basement that doesn't have to be finished, at least a one car garage and something that is in town, not in <name of suburb that is $$>. Do you think that THAT house might be in our range?" 

She (or her assistant) called for about 5 months trying to interest us into houses that we still WAY over our budget and not at all what we were looking for.  I finally had to be blunt and tell her to remove us from your list now. 
 
I will put of our actual houses that we ended up looking at with our new relator* later.


*Our new relator actually started the first conversation with "How much are you looking to spend and what are you looking to get." She loved my list.

[pierrotlunaire0]

Some friends of mine, when they were selling their house, discovered that the previous owner had installed the back bathroom using taped-together coffee cans as pipes for the toilet.

My eyes just popped out of my head.  I had to read that three times and still have trouble believing someone would be that crazy.

Friends of mine rented a house and one time during a party a guest leaned against a wall and fell right through. Someone had patched a giant hole in the wall with newspaper and painted over it so it blended.

Isn't that how John Christie hid one of his victim's bodies?

My personal example is extremely mild compared to these.  Three years ago, my sister and I were looking at house listings in this neighborhood near us.  The houses were older (many built in the 1920's), and for years and years, this was the neighborhood of choice for doctors at the 3 local hospitals.  My sister made a list of the the 4 cutest houses listed, and we took a drive.

Imagine, late September in Michigan: clear blue skies, maples ablaze with red, orange and gold, children playing quietly while parents raked leaves.  Norman Rockwell land.

For the 4th house on the list, my sister read the address: 123 Chippewa (the neighborhood is known as Indian Village, hence all the Native American names).  Well, from the front, it was nothing much.  Solid brick, but a little dark.  We drive along the side street, and I can see a sun room along the back.  The glass is dingy, and maybe it was the broken tricycle I could see, but the place just looked sad.  I glance at my sister: this was the place she wanted to check out?  She is puzzled, looking from her list to the blah house: why did she want THIS place?  Along the back, we get a good look at the garage: roof almost completely rotted away, door hanging on one side.  "Are you stoned?  What made you so interested in this place?"

"I don't know," she muttered.  Then suddenly, she says, "Go to 123 Cherokee!" (2 streets over).  Ah, much better.  Absolutely adorable cottage with landscaping to die for.  That was the one she wanted to see.

As it turns out, we didn't buy the cottage, but another house between the two.  The dark place was torn down.  We often say that the house we got is haunted with happy ghosts, because we feel the love and happiness whenever we walk in (even the cat, who hates change, loved it immediately), and the cottage went to another happy family.

[magicdomino]

The window in the back room had been daubed with red paint from the outside, saying "whoever enters will die".  I asked the estate agent about the neighbourhood, any problems etc (he denied there were any) before pointing out the  threatening words.  The agent responded, "It doesn't say that".  I was stunned and insistent that I could read it, even though it was backwards.  He said he was "sure it doesn't say that" and then wandered off.

We looked at the rest of the house out of politeness.

To eHell with politeness, I'd have been gone. Wouldn't have even bothered telling the agent, it would have just been an immediate "and, we're leaving now". If he felt so safe, he could stand around the Death House, I'm not gonna be a horror flick statistic.

Twisted me, on the other hand, would have written beneath it, "Too late" in shaky letters.     I still wouldn't buy the house though. 

[Slartibartfast]

Some friends of mine, when they were selling their house, discovered that the previous owner had installed the back bathroom using taped-together coffee cans as pipes for the toilet.

My eyes just popped out of my head.  I had to read that three times and still have trouble believing someone would be that crazy.

Friends of mine rented a house and one time during a party a guest leaned against a wall and fell right through. Someone had patched a giant hole in the wall with newspaper and painted over it so it blended.

This is hilarious - it's also similar to to the start of the fantastic book Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer.  The heroine is surprised by an intruder in her house, she hits him with a frying pan, and he falls through a surprise hole in the wall and dies in the basement.  So now she has a dead guy in her house, clients coming over for dinner soon, and she doesn't know why on earth someone would send a hit man after her.  You can read the first few pages on Amazon - it's absolutely worth the read!

[exitzero]

Some friends of mine, when they were selling their house, discovered that the previous owner had installed the back bathroom using taped-together coffee cans as pipes for the toilet.

My eyes just popped out of my head.  I had to read that three times and still have trouble believing someone would be that crazy.

Friends of mine rented a house and one time during a party a guest leaned against a wall and fell right through. Someone had patched a giant hole in the wall with newspaper and painted over it so it blended.

This is hilarious - it's also similar to to the start of the fantastic book Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer.  The heroine is surprised by an intruder in her house, she hits him with a frying pan, and he falls through a surprise hole in the wall and dies in the basement.  So now she has a dead guy in her house, clients coming over for dinner soon, and she doesn't know why on earth someone would send a hit man after her.  You can read the first few pages on Amazon - it's absolutely worth the read!

I wish I had know about that story when they lived there. It would have been hilarious. They had many stories about that house. One bonus was that the house came with a free pig. These were city guys renting this house and were baffled by the pig, but they did the best they could. Until shortly after they moved in and the pig gave birth. It never occured to them that the piglets were small enough to fit between the slats of the fence, and they spend hours chasing piglets around the neighborhood.

[gingerzing]

When we were first looking at houses, DH was still working second shift so I went to a couple on my own.   

First open house I went to (no relator, I just saw it listed) was a 1 1/2 story.  The house itself was fine, but the kitchen had a doorway to the basement stairs.  Next to the doorway was the only spot open for the refrigerator.  Which meant that as you came in from the basement or the garage you walked right past the back of the fridge's coils.  Added bonus, with the limited space, the homeowners had bungeed the medium size trash can to the fridge (in between the coils).  Swell.

Next open house was one that the agent had found.  It was in a cute well known neighborhood (most the homes were cute brickhouses that were either bugalows or 1 1/2 stories)  The house we went to was having an open house/neighborhood/family gathering party.  Loads of people.  The washer and dryer were set up in a small hallway off the kitchen and the washer had leaked something fierce on the lovely hardwood floors. 

Another day we stopped at three houses, all three were challanging. 
*First one was a Smoker House.  You could see on the living room ceiling where the owner had their recliner since there was a plume of yellow-brown ick on the ceiling.  House reeked of cigerette. And while the floorplan was really nice and I did love the kitchen, the house sat oddly on the smallish lot.  Like they fitted it in sideways to fit the lot.  (There was also an actual smokehouse in the backyard.)   Plus it was about a block away from a rather seedy part of the town.
*The 1950's house.  No, the house was not built in the 50's, the basement had white and black tiles on the floor and was set up like a 1950's soda shoppe.  (But they were taking the bar and fountain with them.)  Was one of the other places that the owners were there while we looked. The owner's wife gave an odd commentary everytime I looked at something like a kitchen cupboard.  (could not really look at closets)   The upstairs was really crowded with furniture, so it gave a cramped feel.
*The split level.  To my relator's credit, she KNEW we weren't looking for a split level, but it was in our price range and a few blocks for 1950's house.  YIKES.  The "bedrooms" in the basement were dark and scary.  The whole house was semi-empty but in shambles.  Apparently a divorce thing was going on so it wasn't really presentable.

We had another house that was actually in a nearby neighborhood where we are now.  VERY small house - around 700 sq foot small. The backyard was all paved (he had been an auto mechanic) but there wasn't a garage.  The living room had wallpaper that was cream with dark olive green velvet pattern.  And in one room was a world map that took up the whole wall.  The rooms were quite small and probably would barely hold a twin size bed.

[MommyPenguin]

I just ram into a house with a nice backyard... accessed only through the garage.  Isn't that a little odd?