S/O: House Hunting Horrors!

[whiterose]

When I was shopping for a condo, the second location the realtor and I looked at was really creepy. It was a short sale. The house had broken doors and holes in the wall. Things were less than functional. Not well painted. Creepiest part was when the owner showed us a poster of Frank Sinatra's mug shot- and said it was for "seduction". The realtor and I must have ran out of the house!

[jaxsue]

After almost 30 years remembering this house still makes me feel repulsed. 

The house was owned by an animal loving family.  There were dogs, cats and little puppies.  The front room had piles of fur against the skirting boards and piles of droppings on the carpet and yes the smell was terrible.

Husband and I decided, after only a few steps into the front room, that this place, no matter how much we cleaned, what we replaced, would never feel clean enough for us and our two toddlers.

Sounds more like an animal hoarding family to me. I've always had pets and never lived like that. I feel sorry for that family's pets. 

[HenrysMom]

I have one:

When I first moved out on my own, my mother took me to see a friend of hers that ran a rental agency.  I wanted to be in El Cerrito, closer to my job.  However, Friend took us to two apartments in Richmond:  a tenement on 3rd Street that had used needles all over the lawn and stairs, and an sub-let in Atchinson Village that someone had lived (and smoked heavily) in for years.  My mother was so insulted and told the friend on the spot to take us back to the office and never contact her again.

Another one:

When I was looking for our first house, our realtor took us to a house in our price range that had a pool.  Before walking into the place, I was thinking Hey!  It has a pool!  Once inside, it turned out that the pool covered the entire backyard space, so you literally stepped out the back door and found yourself in the pool.  Their living area was swallowed up by a huge sectional and a T.V.  The rest of the house was not dirty, but messy and bare bones (no bedroom furniture, clothes stacked on the floor). But the deal breaker was the kitchen - burnt orange everything (island, appliances, cupboards).  My realtor was very angry and tight-lipped as we left.  She said, "I know exactly what happened there" and nothing more.

[Giggity]

What happened there?

[nowhere]

Two houses in particular had creepy basements:

One was a stone cottage that used to be a hunting lodge for a larger estate nearby. Behind an unassuming door was a wrought iron spiral staircase leading down to what I can only describe as a maze of dungeon-like rooms. The only light access we could find was the one hanging above the stairs, so as my husband and I walked further into the basement the darker it got. We used our cell phones as flashlights and every now and then I took flash pictures with my camera to be able to see the actual rooms better. The laundry room had a newer washer and dryer, but I just couldn't see myself doing laundry down there.

Another home had a gigantic finished basement also made up of many rooms. One used to be the catering kitchen of the seller's ex-wife. The equipment seemed to be professional grade and all high end but everything was in disarray. What made my imagination run wild was the very large stain on the floor that, to my untrained eye, looked like dried blood. My husband thought the same and was very freaked out by the room.

[HenrysMom]

What happened there?

I asked, but my realtor refused to say.  It puzzled me why she was so angry about this one house.  It wasn't as if it was the only one in our town and she'd lose a sale.  It seemed that she was personally offended by whatever "happened there."

Anyone want to take a guess?

[blue2000]

What happened there?

I asked, but my realtor refused to say.  It puzzled me why she was so angry about this one house.  It wasn't as if it was the only one in our town and she'd lose a sale.  It seemed that she was personally offended by whatever "happened there."

Anyone want to take a guess?

Judging from the lack of furniture and the mess, it is possible that they have already moved out most of their things and left a teenage son or young relative to house-sit. Sounds like she was embarrassed about showing such an unkempt house.

[mbbored]

I went house hunting about 18 months after the housing market tanked and most of the places in my budget range were foreclosed or short sale.

There was the house that we drove up to that had all the windows covered with plywood and was spray painted with gang tags. We didn't even stop the car there; we just kept driving.

My favorite was the house where we walked in and the kitchen was gone. Every counter, every appliance, every cabinet was ripped out, with holes and dangling wires left behind. The coat closet door was locked and had a strange smell coming out from it. The downstairs half bath had a toilet and a shower. The upstairs full bath had two sinks and no toilet. One bedroom door frame showed evidence of clearly being kicked in. We opened the door to peer in and saw a raccoon inside! We slammed that door and ran down the stairs. The real estate agent couldn't find the words to apologize and my friend and I were laughing so hard we couldn't stand up right.

[Amava]

What happened there?

I asked, but my realtor refused to say.  It puzzled me why she was so angry about this one house.  It wasn't as if it was the only one in our town and she'd lose a sale.  It seemed that she was personally offended by whatever "happened there."

Anyone want to take a guess?

Wild guess: maybe house owners who had strange priorities, maybe trying to live above their means a bit?
I'm thinking along those lines because of:
- wanting a pool but not actually having enough space for it, still going through with it, resulting in a pool that takes up all of the garden with hardly room to walk around it;
- a huge sectional and tv that might have cost a lot, leaving no money for other furniture; or maybe the owners just weren't interested in other furniture;
- and I don't know about the kitchen:  I have a stupid question, is "burnt orange" a name of a colour in which the whole kitchen was done, or do you mean that stuff had been burned?

All in all it sounds like the owners were people with a rather alternative lifestyle and different priorities than most people, which is totally their right and more power to them etc, but which can also make a house very hard to sell.

Maybe a colleague of the realtor had shoved the task of selling it onto her, without telling her what state the house was in?

Just wild guesses like you prompted for. 

[magicdomino]

What happened there?

I asked, but my realtor refused to say.  It puzzled me why she was so angry about this one house.  It wasn't as if it was the only one in our town and she'd lose a sale.  It seemed that she was personally offended by whatever "happened there."

Anyone want to take a guess?

I started to say bachelor pad, because the living room and pool had priority over the rest of the house, then it occurred to me that the living room might have used for filming pron.  Maybe the agent recognized the room from a DVD.    

Amava, burnt orange is a brownish orange that was popular in the 1970's.  It's called "burnt" because the orange looks like it is smoked or scorched.

[Elfmama]

Dear gods, how did I forget the Flea House?!? 

The house was empty, but when the realtor and I entered, the first thing that hit us was the smell of DOG.  Not urine, or feces, just DOG, like that strong doggy odor you smell from a wet dog.

It was summer, so we were wearing sandals.  We took two or three steps into the living room and all of the starving fleas in the carpet rose up and attacked us.  Our ankles were BLACK with fleas!  We ran out of the house and brushed off as many as we could see, then walked around and looked through the windows in the rest of the downstairs, and brushed off a few more fleas.  That was the end of houselooking for that day.  The realtor said she was going to have her car fleabombed just to make sure that she didn't have any unexpected passengers. UGH! 

I'm pretty sure that she recommended to the selling agent that they have the house professionally treated for fleas.  Otherwise it was nothing special, so we didn't go back and look at it again.

[Amava]

Amava, burnt orange is a brownish orange that was popular in the 1970's.  It's called "burnt" because the orange looks like it is smoked or scorched.

Aha! Thanks!
I /thought/ so, but I wasn't sure.

In that case, I own a few cast iron burnt orange pots and pans!
I love the way they look - but a whole kitchen in that same colour would indeed be a bit much. 

[Kimblee]

What happened there?

I asked, but my realtor refused to say.  It puzzled me why she was so angry about this one house.  It wasn't as if it was the only one in our town and she'd lose a sale.  It seemed that she was personally offended by whatever "happened there."

Anyone want to take a guess?

I started to say bachelor pad, because the living room and pool had priority over the rest of the house, then it occurred to me that the living room might have used for filming pron.  Maybe the agent recognized the room from a DVD.    

Amava, burnt orange is a brownish orange that was popular in the 1970's.  It's called "burnt" because the orange looks like it is smoked or scorched.

I'm ashamed to admit I kinda thought the same as your second guess.

[jedikaiti]

Thirty years ago, when we were looking for a place, there were many office buildings and factories that had been converted to apartments.  Some of the developers were, shall we say, imaginative in the use of space. 

The Mushroom Farm.
This was in a converted warehouse.  The rooms were big.  The kitchen and bathrooms were nicely done.  The neighborhood was good and the price was in our range.  Unfortunately, it was in a basement and most of the windows were glass brick.  As a result, it was DARK. 

The Submarine Pen.
This was in a converted office building.  It was on an upper floor and had huge windows. The views of lower Manhattan were gorgeous.  Again, the rooms were big and the fixtures good but it was extremely narrow.  It was almost set up like a shotgun house.

The Ink Factory
This one had a lot going for it.  It had a nice layout, plenty of room and the novelty of a window over the bathtub with a nice view of the East River.  However, it had been, after all, an ink factory and the hard wood floors were liberally stained with black and blue splotches.  This was described as 'historical character'. 

The Elevator Shaft.
  It was in a converted factory.  The neighborhood was good and the imaginative feature here was that the living room had obviously once been part of a freight elevator shaft.  Despite this, we seriously considered it until the developer decided to go rental rather than Co-op.

Ok, some of these sound really neat to me, especially the Ink Factory. The Mushroom Farm, not so much.

[jpcher]

I haven't read the thread yet, but I just had to post.

Another house had a very lovely bathroom, if you didn't mind pepto bismol pink fixtures.  And I mean ALL the fixtures, including the oversized jacuzzi tub, toilet, sink and floor tiles.

In one house the bathroom had all of the above, except pink tiles on the floor. HOWEVER! It did have right red shag carpeting on the floor and on the walls and even on the ceiling!

Add to that! The main hallway in the house had brown with gold shag carpet on the floors, walls and ceiling.

Oh, did I mention the owner was a carpet layer?

There were christmas lights (large bulbs) permanently strung around the outside of the house . . . permanent because there were at least 10 staples between each bulb.

I figured the guy must have received a staple gun for christmas or something because yes, folks, that's how the carpet was put up on the walls and ceiling . . . with a staple gun. Lots of staples. TONS of staples! Or maybe he would staple out his frustrations in the hallway?

How do I know this?

I bought the house.