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RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

Mrs.Hill — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:22:33 GMT

BUMP!

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

lovemrk — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:59:58 GMT

[quote][b]amanda2007 (8/9/2008)[/b][hr]When I bought my firat house 5 years ago, it was horrid! I knew the area would be up and coming, Keele & Dundas in Toronto, we paid $152k. The whole house was painted road line yellow, the guy worked for the city and got the paint free! Along with a horrible green accent everywhere, windows had so much pain on them that we couldn't get them open, turns out they hadn't been opened in like 18 years! They tore down an archway, which left holes in the strip hardwood floors, they covered them with plywood! Then they put down carpet & underpad, then built a room on top of it! Anyway it needed a lot of work! We invested about $75k, and we sold it in May, it closed 2 weeks ago. The GREAT side? We WALKED away with OVER $300k in profit, in 6 years! So we just bought a new house, paid cash! I'm 27 and mortgage free! Look for the "diamond in the rough", I did, and it paid off big time![/quote]

That is awesome amanda!! Congratulations!

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

Zim — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:40:21 GMT

I was looking at a New Zealand real estate website tonight, and came across this.

I think it's a photo of a student flat...

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

kruk — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 13:59:00 GMT

omg, good for you!

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

amanda2007 — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 13:47:49 GMT

When I bought my firat house 5 years ago, it was horrid! I knew the area would be up and coming, Keele & Dundas in Toronto, we paid $152k. The whole house was painted road line yellow, the guy worked for the city and got the paint free! Along with a horrible green accent everywhere, windows had so much pain on them that we couldn't get them open, turns out they hadn't been opened in like 18 years! They tore down an archway, which left holes in the strip hardwood floors, they covered them with plywood! Then they put down carpet & underpad, then built a room on top of it! Anyway it needed a lot of work! We invested about $75k, and we sold it in May, it closed 2 weeks ago. The GREAT side? We WALKED away with OVER $300k in profit, in 6 years! So we just bought a new house, paid cash! I'm 27 and mortgage free! Look for the "diamond in the rough", I did, and it paid off big time!

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

faith87 — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:07:52 GMT

I'll add one

When we took the house we live in now, an old married couple had bee living i it for 35 years! they were sooo hesitant to let it go but anyway DH looked at it first then asked me to come look. we knew it was an old house so we were looking for a good price and we wanted to renovate everything. So anyway I walk into the house everything in it is old but thats normal i expected that. but i walked into the kitchen...

everything was PINK like bright barbie pink! Im talking pink walls, pink counter top, pink cupboards! I swear it was like barbies dream house. the funniest thing was that the countertop was so low it came up to my waist (and im short!) i found that sooo strange how did they use that counter without crazy back pain!? anyway the first day we took the house we took sledgehammers and broke the whole thing apart and installed a cool chocolate brown kitchen instead!

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

faith87 — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:05:30 GMT

[quote][b]jen39 (8/6/2008)[/b][hr]I haven't had the "pleasure" of house-hunting yet, I was lucky enough that FH bought the house in a fab neighborhood, a great little bungalow....but we found out quickly that the house wasn't so "fab"...

The first owner was a single woman who worked as a pharamsist. the house was built in 2001 (spring I believe) and inthe fall of 01, she hung herself in the basement...and it took 3 days for someone to find her. :sick:

THe next owners destroyed the place. One was in a wheelchair and would wheel all over their carpets upstairs with mucky wheels. Downstairs was unfinished...which was perfect for them, since they could run their grow op out of the basement!! LOL!! FH completely gutted and re-did the house before he moved in, thank god!

Since FH bought the house in late 02 (maybe 03, can't remember) and I moved in April 06, I've had a guy basically try and force his way into the house b/c the drug dealer owed him money, and a little old lady stop by to drop brownies off to the original owner. I felt awful telling the lady she had "passed away".[/quote]

omg you've got to be kidding! on top of all that a drug dealer still comes for his money!!??! this is the craziest one ive heard!!!

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

Jenn2008 — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:59:09 GMT

I think the strangest/creepiest thing we saw when looking at houses (while this house was my grandparents old house and we wanted to see what it looked like now.) Anyways, there were locks on the OUTSIDE of all the bedroom doors! Strange! They were definitely not there when my grandparents lived in the house.

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

lovemrk — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 08:30:26 GMT

OMG...these stories are too funny! Please keep them coming!

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

jen39 — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:11:53 GMT

I haven't had the "pleasure" of house-hunting yet, I was lucky enough that FH bought the house in a fab neighborhood, a great little bungalow....but we found out quickly that the house wasn't so "fab"...

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

smurf993 — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 02:21:38 GMT

[quote][b]satin (8/3/2008)[/b][hr]we looked at a house on Friday(we are looking for a bigger one) that had a bathroom upstairs that had a toilet and sink and no tub or shower BUT there was a room downstairs that just had a tub in it-nothing else.[/quote]

we saw the same kinda thing here in Digby when we were looking at houses. We still laugh at it. Plus the tub, sink and toliet were BLUE!!! CRAZY!

we also saw a place that had a toliet closet, but then the sink and the shower were across hall, and through the kitchen... you had to walk though the kitchen with your dirty hands from the bathroom.... YUCK!

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

satin — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:12:19 GMT

we looked at a house on Friday(we are looking for a bigger one) that had a bathroom upstairs that had a toilet and sink and no tub or shower BUT there was a room downstairs that just had a tub in it-nothing else.

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

nsanterre — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:22:15 GMT

heehee...these stories are so funny.

While condo searching in North York we saw many dirty condos that were rental units that our agent kept saying oh with some elbow grease we can get you a good deal...not thank you.

The best we saw...we walk in and there is about 5 adults standing around. Mattresses on the living room floor, clothes all over the place, the kitchen looked like it hadn't been cleaned in a decade, the bathroom was disgusting. And the piece do resistance...the bedroom, two more people were in the so called bed, and it was FILLED with stuffed animals.

SO GROSS!!

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

LadyErica — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:10:03 GMT

[quote][b]Zim (7/20/2008)[/b][hr][quote][b]SpringRoad (6/25/2008)[/b][hr]Another house had this pig theme happening. There was pig "art" and pig themed stuff everywhere. My hubby and I were laughing cause we thought they could have de-pigged the house a little before showing it. Then we went to the garage and saw the stacks of boxes labelled "pigs".

It turned out they had already [b]de-pigged[/b] the house...[/quote]

Ahahaha, awesome!!! :D[/quote]

Ooo...a pig house!!! We walked through a house like that once! But it was cows... lots and lots of cows!!!! LOL. They even had cow wallpaper on the kitchen walls... like large black and white spots all over the walls!

Oh more recently we checked out a new duplex unit! In the kitchen they had a smaller door... I asked the real estate agent " Oh, is this the pantry?"... and he said ' oh, no... its the bathroom". FH & I looked at each other and smiled! can you imagine eating dinner at your kitchen table or preparing dinner and you smell what your dinner guest is cooking in the bathroom? Oh BTW we went to see this one earlier in the day on a weekday... the Husband, Wife and Toddler were still home! Made for an uncomfortable 'tour'.

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

lovemrk — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 04:47:26 GMT

I'm gagging here with that poop in the middle of the house!!!

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

LadyErica — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:27:36 GMT

Well we saw poop in many locations throughout one house. We understand that someone may have pets... I mean we have a zoo full ourselves but we try our very best to keep a clean house! This house had a chinchilla (tons of poop everywhere and embedded in the yucky brown 1970's carpet that had never been cleaned), and in a few other areas we saw what looked to be possibly cat and dog poop very centrally located in high traffic areas!! I'll never forget that experience and the fact that their real estate agent never even mentioned anything about it like it wasn't there very plainly for everyone to see and possibly step in! (He btw stepped over it very nonchalantly! LOL) Might as well have been a pink elephant for all he could have cared! eww

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

silvarazz — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 11:12:25 GMT

[quote][b]32flavors (7/20/2008)[/b][hr]we walked through one house that stunk of mold and the realtor tried to tell us the smell was just because the random guy living in the basement had a cat.[/quote]

ewwwwwwwwwwww!!!

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

32flavors — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 11:04:19 GMT

we walked through one house that stunk of mold and the realtor tried to tell us the smell was just because the random guy living in the basement had a cat.

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

Zim — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 02:26:30 GMT

[quote][b]SpringRoad (6/25/2008)[/b][hr]Another house had this pig theme happening. There was pig "art" and pig themed stuff everywhere. My hubby and I were laughing cause we thought they could have de-pigged the house a little before showing it. Then we went to the garage and saw the stacks of boxes labelled "pigs".

It turned out they had already [b]de-pigged[/b] the house...[/quote]

Ahahaha, awesome!!! :D

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

TheHbride — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:02:01 GMT

OMG great post! We saw crazy things while house hunting we still talk about it to this day! :crazy:

We saw like a 30lb CAT! just lying in the middle of someones kitchen...too funny and alot of houses had like ALOT of secret entrances and rooms and I always wonder what for :blink:

OH! and we walked through a deserted farm house that was a drug den and there was recipes on the wall for how make it...and LOTS of other stuff that they left behind. It could have been a nice house but I just couldnt sleep knowing all the drug lords that know where the house is :ermm:

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

prairiebrd — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:02:40 GMT

We smelled some pretty bad grossness when looking at houses.

We looked at one where they'd blocked the front door with a couch. I get that as a way to create more space when you're living somewhere, but when you're showing the house, move the damn couch so that the room doesn't scream 'too small for a couch'.

The house we bought has an interesting story....

When we looked at it, the owner was there. She was watching soaps & smoking while we walked through. Then she started following us around. She got mad at our agent for turning on the lights in each room. It was really annoying, we couldn't talk openly.

But, in the end, the owner being there was actually a blessing. She got really stressed by seeing another couple interested in buying her house (where she'd lived for 30+ years) that she wanted to pull the house off the market. Meanwhile, she had our offer, so she had to decide whether to sell to us or unlist. In the end, she talked to her kids and was reminded why she wanted/needed to sell in the first place and she decided to stop showing, but consider her offer. So in a highly competative buyer's market, we got the house at list with no other offers.

However, she remains attached to the house and friends with the neighbours. She comes by every couple of months. At first she would totally tresspass. But now she mostly stays on the neighbours side and looks over at our house. It makes me unconfortable (and glad we changed the locks).

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

lovemrk — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:13:34 GMT

[quote][b]sbru (7/7/2008)[/b][hr]I just wanted to add that I'm getting such a laugh reading these! LOL[/quote]

ME TOO!!! PLEASE KEEP THEM COMING!

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

sbru — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:44:44 GMT

I just wanted to add that I'm getting such a laugh reading these! LOL

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

Nik82 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:30:01 GMT

Oh, I have a good one!!! Sorry for the thread jacking.

We've had our house for over a year now, but when we were looking we pulled up to a house on a main street (already started loosing points) The front door to the house seemed to be open, and when we walked up we realized that the house had been divided into 2 or 3 appartments (not what was advertised). So we knocked on the first floor door and this skinny trashy looking guy come out into the hallway. He's got a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth, wearing ripped jeans, a dirty white wife beater and he's holding a tiny chihuahua. The kicker was that he had a tattoo on his arm of a heart with "mom" written in it!

Needless to say we didn't bother to look at the house, and barely managed to get out of there without laughing at the guy.

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

LaurieK — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 23:20:06 GMT

the worst i seen was one house we went into had tons of cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, dirty dishes left on the foot stool and coffee tables in living room, boxes of junk all over the place.. apparently they weren't too interested in selling ?

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

aaronleebr — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 20:18:14 GMT

This isn't about a house...but when we were looking at apartments in T.O., there was this one, where the master bedroom was right off the kitchen (that was the only entrance into it), and there was a closet (basically) with bi-fold doors and the shower stall was inside, and on the other side of the shower wall was the toilet/sink. We were glad other guys were looking at it at the same time, 'cos we didn't have to many too many excuses to rush out!

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

silvarazz — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 12:16:43 GMT

[quote][b]TaraN (6/28/2008)[/b][hr]I saw cards painted on the bathroom wall above the toilet in the royal flush (poker hand):laugh:[/quote]

bwaaahahahaha! RANDOM!

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

TaraN — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 08:04:24 GMT

I saw cards painted on the bathroom wall above the toilet in the royal flush (poker hand):laugh:

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

chulie — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:07:18 GMT

Oh i have another funny one.....a person i know who is an agent told us this one...and its about the people SEEING the house..this guy he was showing a house to came to their appointment with a plastic bag which..he thought was strange...but..whatever....so they go through the house and they get to the bathroom and the guy tells the agent he wants to take a shower in their bathroom and proceeds to take out a towel and soap..the agents like..im sorry..you CANT do that..the guy was like...well.if im gonna buy the house i want to know what the shower is like..the agents like..stick your arm in the water running..you are NOT taking a shower here!!!!hahaha

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

chantsy — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:44:47 GMT

Wow... these were fun to read!!! So this story isn't about me but about my BIL and SIL and it's just too priceless not to share.

So they were moving out of their apt and so of course the landlord was busy showing it from time to time. Well my SIL came home after work and the landlord was there with a couple and he bursted out "we didn't go into the bedroom" and then they left in a hurry. Well my SIL figured out what was going on when she walked into the bedroom to find her husband sleeping butt naked bum side up on the bed. My BIL was in school full time and catching a nap before going to his full time job working graveyard. Naturally he forgot about the showing. :D

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

MrsSixer — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:45:57 GMT

Let me tell ya... there are some bizzare sights out there!! When I was house hunting a few years ago there were some pretty funky places! Now, as a REALTOR(R), I have been inside some extraordinarily weird places. I'm not even sure where I could begin!! LOL

Some people live in crazy conditions!!

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

MamboGirl — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:52:12 GMT

the weirdest thing we saw was this one time, we went to visit a house and the owner was home (first mistake!). This guy loved to trinket with everything, you could tell! He had a compressed air connection coming out of the walls, one in every room of the house (including bathroom, laundry, bedrooms, etc!!). And he always carried around his hose with him! :P

he also had this contraption that allowed the tv to come down from the ceiling on top of the bed in the master bedroom, but it was obviously a "prototype"!! hah and he had car seats screwed into the floors all over his attic art studio, to use as office chairs. He had the gas pedals hooked up to his electrical, which turned on and off the lamps and the radio! haha

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

missdish — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 07:39:41 GMT

[quote][b]AngMcQ (6/24/2008)[/b][hr]Crawl space (basically) for a basement(I am 5'6" and I needed to slouch down to fit) with a huge poll directly in front of a Flat screen TV hung on the wall.....tell me that wasn't the only place they could hang it!!

Another one we went to look at had a grow operation in the basement....my agent wasn't very happy when we saw this.......my DH and I laughed and joked that he was a cop and he would have to remember this place.....the owners were home....and they heard us!! lol[/quote]

LMAO

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

The RealFishy — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:05:53 GMT

One house we were going to see my realtor (who is a friend of mine) called and told me she spoke to the selling agent to make the appointment and the selling agent warned her not to let us touch anything because their child has a highly contagious skin disease. needless to say we passed on viewing that house.

Another house had this pig theme happening. There was pig "art" and pig themed stuff everywhere. My hubby and I were laughing cause we thought they could have de-pigged the house a little before showing it. Then we went to the garage and saw the stacks of boxes labelled "pigs".

It turned out they had already de-pigged the house...

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

WesteeMama — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:49:39 GMT

[quote][b]missdish (6/24/2008)[/b][hr][quote][b]WesteeMama (6/24/2008)[/b][hr]In one house, two teens were still asleep in their rooms (we had made an appt). Our agent discovered them. In a few other houses, the floors were so dirty that we kept our shoes on. It's amazing that people don't clean up when trying to sell!

The oddest and kind of disturbing thing was going to see a house and having a girl of no more than 10 show us around and then slowly realising that her parents weren't home :ermm: Would you leave your child alone to show a house to strangers??[/quote]

Bad parenting 101. Was there an agent there?[/quote]

Just us and our agent. At first we thought the parents were in the basement or outside, but nope, there just weren't there.

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

AngMcQ — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:46:38 GMT

Crawl space (basically) for a basement(I am 5'6" and I needed to slouch down to fit) with a huge poll directly in front of a Flat screen TV hung on the wall.....tell me that wasn't the only place they could hang it!!

Another one we went to look at had a grow operation in the basement....my agent wasn't very happy when we saw this.......my DH and I laughed and joked that he was a cop and he would have to remember this place.....the owners were home....and they heard us!! lol

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

novalt — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:44:56 GMT

Westeemama and Chulie - agree with you here, the very first house we went to, the house was totally spotless, the wife met us only to say hello before she went on a jog, and to help ourselves to the sweets in the kitchen, b/c she had just made some brownies and cookies! hmmmm, they were delicious.. I almost felt bad when we didn't go for that house (it was our number 2 choice)

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

missdish — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:12:35 GMT

[quote][b]nogu5380 (6/24/2008)[/b][hr]We went to one house, and from the outside it was a really nice old house. The description said it had all been renovated inside. And it had been... to being completely pine wood, pine floors, walls, tables, kitchen counters,.... nothing but pine in the house.

We had a good laugh about that one once we left!
[/quote]

yuck. we saw a bathroom that was like that.

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

ABCTamara — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:06:15 GMT

we saw one like that.

It was awefull.

RE: Odd things seen while house shopping

nogu5380 — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:45:24 GMT

We went to one house, and from the outside it was a really nice old house. The description said it had all been renovated inside. And it had been... to being completely pine wood, pine floors, walls, tables, kitchen counters,.... nothing but pine in the house.

We had a good laugh about that one once we left!