I can't believe the crazy stuff I see house shopping

[Angi]

It just keeps getting crazier. The last house I looked at was a bit out of my price range, but it seemed like a great deal, big house, huge yard, a pool and in a great area so I looked at it anyway. I can't believe people lived in that house and I am a lousey house keeper. It was trashed and smelled like wet dog, not dog, but wet dirty dog. My dog would not have went in this house. It needed to be completly gutted and redone inside. And this house was listed for $629K CRAZY. Last weekend I went to an open house. Now an open house is set up, not a suprise. There was dog poop on the floor and the kitchen trash had not been emptied. The agent should have done that even if the home owner didn't. About a month ago I was in a house and found a dead rat . Is that insane? I am getting frustrated with this search.

What is the worse thing YOU have seen while house hunting?

 

[clare n]

We just picked our keys up yesterday to our new house, but all the years ive been looking in between moves I've seen some odd stuff ... Dirty undies on the floor, durex wrappers, vibrators openly displayed... You'd think people would hide these belongings lol!
The oddest by far was looking out of the top back room bedroom to see an elderly couple in their garden, sat reading books on their loungers. Stark b*****k naked haha.

I didn't move to that one....

 

[wellington]

I haven't had any. However, a lot of the bad you are seeing could be the cause of bankruptcy. People do terrible things to their house when they lose them, steal and ruin anything they can. The banks, because they are already losing money on said house, won't put much into it, not more then they have to, and so no one really cares about putting in time and effort for the staging process of selling a house. Good luck on your search, there is one out there with your name on it. Just remember to look past the dirt and paint. A little elbow grease and paint can make almost any house beautiful again. Pay more attention to the big stuff, roof, foundation, plumbing, etc. andy you'll find the right one.

 

[Angi]

I forgot something I found that was really wierd but cool. We were looking at a really nice house (it didn't work for us because the ceilings were too low on the bottom story)anyway I noticed that the wood paneling was just a tiny bit different in one spot so I pushed on it and knocked on it nothing happend, but my mom was there and pushed in and moved it up. The panel popped out and there was a tiny room, with a desk in it, some old mail on the desk a wierd little bottle and a few other things. What was really strange was that there was no dust. It looked like the room had been forgotten for 20 years, but if that were the cast there would have been dust I would think. The story was that two doctors owned the house and let the bank forclose on it after a divorce.

Yes Wellington I am seeing a lot of forclosures, flips and short sales. The one with the poop on the carpet wasn't though. I think it had renters in it, but the agent still should have picked up the poop, taken out the trash and lit some candles. We would have been more interested in that house if it were a little closer to the freeway and farther west. My husband and kids are tired of being so far away from EVERYTHING, I am not

 

[Momof4]

We have bought so many homes in the last 16 yrs and haven't seen anything to weird.
One gross house did have a really weird lay out and a cold, dark & dingy basement that they built for storing the canning. It freaked me out. I pictured strange things going on down there. The Dad and his son built the house 30+ years ago. It was run down but in the high $800's. I should drive by and see if it sold.

Come to Poway! We have great schools!

 

[clare n]

That is very true, look at the big picture, a little dis repair is easily sorted in time...
Our last one fell thru, it was beautiful, really good for the money. In our head we had moved in it was perfect. then it fell thru as the survey came back as a steel built frame, nobody will mortgage a steel frame house in the uk moving in at this second to our new one, I have spent today cleaning it and haven't found anything suspect yet but I'll b sure to let u know if I do

 

[Neal]

I saw similar things when we tried doing some foreclosure house shopping a couple years ago. I was shocked too, there is (or was) an endless supply of dog raped houses. Excuse the term, but we saw house after house of dog destroyed houses. Carpet ripped up, bedroom doors with gaping holes from dogs scratching through....crazy.

 

[Laurie]

When we were house searching, there was one house that the owner had been renting out. We met the owner at the house. When the tenants let us in, I couldn't believe the state of the house. It was filthy! The bathrooms were disgusting. If I was the owner, I would've been furious.

My friend bought a foreclosure years ago. When the people moved out, they took all the doorknobs and lightbulbs. They also ripped out all the shrubery that was in the front of the house!

 

[Melly-n-shorty]

My parents were house hunting in Utah when I was younger. The looked at a really nice house that was on a nice chunk of land with a long drive way. It even had a hidden room. I remember being excited till we walked in. The owner kept a LOT of birds and must of let them fly all over the house. The was bird poo all over! The moldings, tops of cabinets ceilings lights, bannisters, everything was caked. My mom found out then she was allergic to birds. She was covered in hives by the time we got home. Even if you scraped it off... It was soaked into the wood.

 

[dmarcus]

I hope when I start looking to buy that I don't walk into any horrible houses. Scary when people are trying to sell their house but they choose to not have the house ready for people to walk through..

 

[Laura]

My sister lives in a mobile home park.. we all just inherited some $ after our parents passed... so they are selling thier mobile and moving to a house... an offer they made on a house was accepted.. its a short sale.. those are weird.. they just sold thier Mobile.. and same day learned that the banks for the Short Sale were not communicating.. and the short sale house went to Auction!! sold... wtf?!?! so now they have to move into an Apt, pay rent and cont the search.. and they have a huge trip planned right in the middle... stress!!

when we moved into our old place.. on top of the bathroom cabinet was a stuffed sock... not sure if it was part of a mans costume or what... but weird.. and they left all sorts of crap in the closet and a storage shed outside.. knee deep.. thanks!

 

[Lisa Anne]

When we moved into our house 25 years ago the weirdest thing I found was a tortoise! We took the house in the winter and the following Spring I found what I now think was a CDT wandering in the back yard. I knew nothing and let him wander and he disappered. I think the former owner could not find him when he was brumating. Odd as it seems, I like to think she came sneaking into the yard and found it rather then it wandered off and died somewhere. Now, I keep torts. What goes around comes around. Wish I knew more 25 years ago and kept that ahold of that one.

 

[Kerryann]

The house we live in was a foreclosure and we had to basically gut the house down to the studs almost. The kitchen floor and sub floor were wavy because the old owners kept using a dishwasher with the bottom rotted out. When you first walked in the door there was a big moldy hole in the ceiling. Upstairs one of the bathrooms had a crack in the tile and it was leaking. there were other bathrooms so if they couldnt afford to fix it they could have just used another bathroom?? Their solution to the moldy hole was to keep taping over it with masking tape and painting the masking tape white. When they left they threw pots of curry everywhere. If you don't know this, curry eats drywall. They also threw curry all over the carpets. This is all in addition to the fact that they loved disgusting color combinations like electric blue walls with pastel purple ceilings. They painted all of the beautiful wood in the house a dirty teal color.. I have never seen the teal color they chose before.. it was disgusting.
We looked at over 100 houses before we selected this one. We saw a lot of crazy stuff like water damage, missing kitchens, one person filled the basement with leaves, one house had a missing furnace and hot water heater. I understand that you are losing your home but why destroy it? I would think destroying the house would make the bank more likely to sue you.
I will tell you when we came in this house. I walked right back out and cried from the moldy scariness and the smell. Imagine a combination of water damage, mold, and curry.. My husband drew the house up in some program and showed me what it would look like after the remodel and I was sold. It was a good deal. We have completely remodeled the house except the master bath and the basement. We updated the master bath but didnt tile yet. the basement is lime green, with dark purple trim, and random things painted the dirty teal.

 

[Jacqui]

I can't believe these stories. Luckily, I have only moved a couple of times in my life and only sold two homes. In each case we cleaned, we painted, we replaced, ect.., to th point I was like, "Why are we selling this place?". Both places of course then set on the market for a year, so in the long run I am not so sure we did ourselves any favors. However, I for one, would never allow visitors to see my home in less then the best possible shape.

My daughter about two years back moved out of the home she had rented for the school year. She was taught, like I was from my mother, to clean the house before you moved. We washed walls, scrubbed cabinets/frig/bathroom, took out trash left from who knows how many previous tenants from the yard, garage and basement. She said we were wasting our time, since this landlord never gave back deposits. Ended up she moved out on a Friday and on Saturday the new folks moved in. She also got her full deposit back. More important besides the money was the lesson and the pride she felt with doing the job the right way.

 

[Angi]

Well I hope I get a renter like your daughter Jacqui when I rent my house out. BTW anyone looking to rent a tortoises friendly house in Ramona Calif? 2,300 square feet 4 bedrooms 2.5 baths, 3 car garage, 3/4 of an acre, basketball court. RV parking, quiet nieghborhood, 360 view, no swimming pool .
Schools are good but the H/S baseball and Basketball program SUCKS!
We are making an offer today so hopfully the crazyness will end. Luckily this house is not a shory sell. I do not want to deal with the bank crap involved with short sells, but would for the right house.

I am suprised you didn't see any crazy stuff Cathy buying that many houses, although in your area people probably don't want to ruin their houses. I would love to buy in Poway but my husband is working in La Mesa and we want to be closer to his work even though the main reason we are moving is for a better sports program at the high school. Poway High is pretty good. We played there this year. I love your nieghborhood I drive through it all the time. Have you ever ran in to Tony Gwynn?

 

[clare n]

We looked at one, it was on an estate (there's nothing wrong with that and 99% don't deserve the reputation they have over here) but this was bad. We pulled up to the house where about 7 teenagers were sat on the wall, and instantly went deadly quiet and stared us out til the agent got there. Even if i had owned it i wouldnt have even politely asked them to move, you know you would end up with one less window.The house was a repo, now I love colour... But the lounge walls were green with a blue carpet, the kitchen such a yellow it must have glowed in the dark.... One bedroom was pink with brown carpet, the other was yellow with purple carpet and the bathroom was orange! But yes they had also trashed it, and the garden, the fences were gone etc. I don't understand why people do it either really. Just a big two fingers up to the world, if I can't have anything nice neither will the next person I guess. But as we peered into gardens further down they were the same lol. and they were still living in theirs