"I'm never shopping THERE again!" Share your story!

[ica171]

Our house was listed as a 4 bedroom, but when we got in we realized it was just a 3 bedroom and I'm still not quite sure what they were counting as the fourth bedroom.   It wasn't our agent who had listed it so I don't really blame him for it at all, and he seemed just as puzzled by it being listed as a 4 bedroom. 

Ironically, now it is a 4 bedroom because we built a room in the basement for our eldest when we found out we were having a 3rd child.

The house I grew up in was listed as a 4bd, however the 4th bedroom was a whopping 7'x11'.  My twin bed took up a third of it.

I once visited a house that was listed as 4 bedrooms. There were two tiny bedrooms on the main level, and in the unfinished basement there was a curtain separating it into two halves. Each half had a metal garment rack for a closet. Recently my ex best friend's ex husband listed their old house for sale, and the agent boasted "four huge bedrooms." No. Two were OK, one was small, and one was tiny. I'm glad I have a good agent already, but even if I didn't I would refuse to deal with agents who think words don't have meaning.

[Jocelyn]

I really don't get why realtors would do this. Do they think people won't notice there's a bedroom missing? Or that the 'huge' bedroom will not accommodate a bed larger than a crib? But then, you have to wonder why some houses are even built, with those impossibly small bedrooms, or bathrooms in inconvenient locations. I once looked at a house that I really liked...until I realized the shower was in the basement. It was a showerhead with a circular shower curtain rod around it, right in the middle of the basement! I had no intention of putting up with a 'bathroom' like that!

[violinp]

Is it possible that they're counting the den as an extra bedroom? It's certainly irritating, especially if it has no closet, but that's happened before.

[Harriet Jones]

When we were looking for a house, we visited *several* that only had 3 BR when the listing said there were 4.  And it wasn't as though there was a "almost" bedroom somewhere in these houses.  Unfinished basements don't count.

[Iris]

I may have told this story before, but after living in a country town for several years we moved back to HomeCity and were looking to purchase a house. We didn't tell the real estates that we dealt with that we were originally from HomeCity, on purpose. The amount shady dealers that that one omission revealed was astounding!

"Why don't you look at RedLight/DrugAddictDistrict? It's a lovely area for families."
"You need to be within medium suburb distance from CBD? What about this lovely house in WayWayOutSuburb?"
"You have children you say? SchoolForCriminals is very highly thought of. Why don't you buy a house near there?"

How about no. The sad thing is that the first and third lies really would have a chance to succeed with out of towners - RedLightDistrict looks lovely during the day, while the criminal element sleeps...

[Minmom3]

clipped* * * *
As to the earwax thing, my doctor once told me that kids produce earwax faster when they're sick, so there might be some truth to that. I've also heard that ear infections can spring up that fast--fine one day, raging the next.

Sorry - messed up the quote line trying to clip it.

I've had an ear infection in DD#1 crop up faster than that. I took her to her Dr Saturday mid-morning.  Good Doctor, love her, trusted her.  Nope, no infections, "but she's probably working on one.  Bring her in to the ped ER if she gets worse after office hours."

Oh YEAH.  9 hours later.  JUST after the ped ER closed, she's SCREAMING, and pulling on both ears, not just one.  I take her in to the main ER, and joy and rapture, we wait and we wait, and w e  w a i t......  I need to go pee, so I go tell the nurse at the desk that I'm going to the bathroom, I'm NOT LEAVING, I'll be back, but I have GOT to answer the Call of Nature.  Except, DD will not let go.  And will not stand next to me either. (Shriek, scream, howl) So, I carefully lower my pants while holding my 18 month old howler monkey, and I pee.  And then I do my darndest to tidy up and blot before pulling up said pants.  Reeeeely difficult.  Poor girl screamed herself to sleep, slept for about 20 minutes, and then screamed again for a while.  She repeated that cycle for several hours that night...  We waited for 3 or 4 hours before we got in.  Two infected ears.  "Oh, you saw Dr S this morning?!  Uh huh.  Not infected THEN"  (rage face)... Haul kid to the pharmacy, get the amoxicillin (which worked for ears in those days) and went home.

Not a fun trip.  Never had one quite like it since, since if/when we showed up and there wasn't an infection, I assumed that one was coming, and demanded a scrip for meds.  I always promised I wouldn't use it if the infection never happened, but I did NOT want to spend another Saturday evening in the ER with a baby in pain and bitterly unhappy.

It wasn't even  that bad when her sisters both got scarlet fever...

[Slartibartfast]

I really don't get why realtors would do this. Do they think people won't notice there's a bedroom missing? Or that the 'huge' bedroom will not accommodate a bed larger than a crib? But then, you have to wonder why some houses are even built, with those impossibly small bedrooms, or bathrooms in inconvenient locations. I once looked at a house that I really liked...until I realized the shower was in the basement. It was a showerhead with a circular shower curtain rod around it, right in the middle of the basement! I had no intention of putting up with a 'bathroom' like that!

My guess is they're hoping to catch the people who really only *need* three bedrooms, but are looking for four anyway.  Most automated searches let you set a minimum but not a maximum number of bedrooms - "2+, 3+, 4+," etc.  So saying a three-bedroom house has four bedrooms means the people looking for four bedrooms see it, and the people looking for three bedrooms see it too.  Then maybe once they've seen the house they realize they didn't need that extra bedroom-to-make-into-a-study after all . . .  Of course, I suspect this probably works better with houses where you can at least kinda sorta call something a "bedroom", rather than the ones with no extra room at all!

[Mediancat]

I'm reminded of a local Nissan dealership my Dad and I went to the last time I needed a car. (Note: I'm an adult, but my dad is a salesperson and knows a lot of the tricks of the trade, so he happily helps me or my sister if we need it when we're making a major purchase.) There was a car in my price range at this dealership -- according to their website -- so we asked to see it.

The salesperson said, immediately, "Oh, we don't have that any more, why not come over here and check out [these cars that are above my price range?]"

"No, we need something in my price range. What else do you have around that price?"

His attitude changed. "I'm not sure. I can go check," said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. "But these cars over here --"

"Never mind," Dad said. "Let's go."

And we left, and bought later from a dealership that's literally on the opposite side of the county, but has a lot of cars in my price range. Dad thought, and I agree, that the salesman was lying when he said, "Oh we don't have that any more," from the way he snapped it off; he wasn't interested in selling that car at all, it was just bait to draw us in.

Rob

[wolfie]

But then, you have to wonder why some houses are even built, with those impossibly small bedrooms, or bathrooms in inconvenient locations. I once looked at a house that I really liked...until I realized the shower was in the basement. It was a showerhead with a circular shower curtain rod around it, right in the middle of the basement! I had no intention of putting up with a 'bathroom' like that!

That might depend on how old the house is. Older houses would not have been built with indoor plumbing so when the shower was added it was probably added in the spot that was easiest to add it to - not the best spot in the house. The small bedrooms could also be a sign of the times - older houses tend to have smaller rooms - especially if you are in an area with colder winters - smaller rooms are cheaper/easier to heat.

That is just a reason for them being built - I wouldn't buy a house whose shower is in the basement either.

[magicdomino]

Also, up until the 1960's, large or multiple bathrooms just weren't considered important.  My family of five lived in a house with three bedrooms and one small bath.  You did what you had to do, and got out.  My friend came from a family of seven, and also had one bathroom.  A half-bath was added later, but even that was after a couple of the oldest kids had moved out.  (It may be significant that she and all of her siblings now live in homes where there is a minimum of one toilet per person.  Come to think of it, so do my siblings and I.     )

Likewise, bedrooms just weren't places to hang out.  Extra telephones and their jacks were expensive, only rich kids had TVs in their bedrooms, and that only after TVs had shrunk to less than major pieces of furniture.  Heck, 1950's and earlier houses don't even have a lot of electrical outlets.  There wasn't much to plug in.

[Diane AKA Traska]

Also, up until the 1960's, large or multiple bathrooms just weren't considered important.  My family of five lived in a house with three bedrooms and one small bath.  You did what you had to do, and got out.  My friend came from a family of seven, and also had one bathroom.  A half-bath was added later, but even that was after a couple of the oldest kids had moved out.  (It may be significant that she and all of her siblings now live in homes where there is a minimum of one toilet per person.  Come to think of it, so do my siblings and I.     )

Likewise, bedrooms just weren't places to hang out.  Extra telephones and their jacks were expensive, only rich kids had TVs in their bedrooms, and that only after TVs had shrunk to less than major pieces of furniture.  Heck, 1950's and earlier houses don't even have a lot of electrical outlets.  There wasn't much to plug in.

Our house was built in 1920.  It has the *worst* electrical capacity.  One of the reasons we're moving.  (Well, #213 on the list, anyway.)

[ica171]

Also, up until the 1960's, large or multiple bathrooms just weren't considered important.  My family of five lived in a house with three bedrooms and one small bath.  You did what you had to do, and got out.  My friend came from a family of seven, and also had one bathroom.  A half-bath was added later, but even that was after a couple of the oldest kids had moved out.  (It may be significant that she and all of her siblings now live in homes where there is a minimum of one toilet per person.  Come to think of it, so do my siblings and I.     )

Likewise, bedrooms just weren't places to hang out.  Extra telephones and their jacks were expensive, only rich kids had TVs in their bedrooms, and that only after TVs had shrunk to less than major pieces of furniture.  Heck, 1950's and earlier houses don't even have a lot of electrical outlets.  There wasn't much to plug in.

I don't object to small bedrooms, and that certainly fits with what I've seen in old houses so it's not unexpected. But agents, don't try and convince me that a bedroom narrow enough to fit the length of a crib and nothing else on a wall is "huge." It is not. Words mean things. I'm familiar with "dollhouse" to mean "small house," "charming" to mean "the previous owners did some weird things with paint," etc. Those are clearly euphemisms. "Huge" has a fairly clear meaning, and a 5x8 foot bedroom has not ever, nor would it ever, be considered huge. To me that's dishonesty on the agent's part, and if I were misled by an agent like that, he/she would no longer be my agent.

[mmswm]

I'm lucky that the last time I was house hunting I had a wonderful buyer's agent.  I did run into quite a number of less than honest sellers agents.  I'll be happy if I never have to go through that again, though I will have to at some point.  *sigh*

[Morrigan]

The Sprint Store in Houghton Lake, MI.

Went in there with DH, my Grandmother & DD (who's 2.)  Walked in, associate is helping a family.  She doesn't look at us, acknowledge us in any way.  So we look around, pick out a phone for Grandma, watch DD run around (not destroy anything, just the energy that toddlers have).

We were going to purchase a basic phone for Grandma and add it to our plan.

We wait over 20 minutes without the associate (and the only person we could see) acknowledging us.  We get fed up, and leave, telling Grandma that we'll just order her phone through Amazon wireless.

On our way out, the associate finally looks at us as w're going out the door.  She smiles and says "If you have just a quick question - "

I give her a slight glare and say "We were going to get a phone," emphasising the were.

She gets a panicked look in her face and blurts out "sorry, I'm here by myself, please come back!"

We don't, and we won't be back to that store.  If she'd acknowledged us in any way, even saying "sorry, this is going to take awhile" etc, we would have come back, but we're not.  Not when they're apparently not taught to acknowledge a customer.

As a reference  librarian, I usually get a line of patrons (after school or weekends, usually).  If there's a line, I smile and say, "It'll be  a minute". If it's a long question, I'll even go a step further and ask if it's just a quick question.  I never ignore a patron, and I would never treat a customer like the associate treated my family.

[Piratelvr1121]

Our house is a 1920's bungalow, last decorated in the 70's.  DH's uncle insists it was a duplex, divided down the middle of the house, but I expressed doubt at this, because the first and second floor bathrooms are on the same side of the house which means the right side of the house would have had no bathrooms.  It was suggested that perhaps the upstairs and right side of the first floor was one side, the left side and the basement another.

But then one unit would have no shower or bath. 

Really there's just no good way for it to have been divided but he was sure it was a duplex.