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Original poster

Do you feel sad when you look at a house you used to live in on Rightmove?

31 replies

YodaEars1 · 05/10/2019 19:06

Just looked at a house I lived in from the age of 11-18. So formative teenage years.

I’m now early 40s, so quite a long time ago!

I guess it doesn’t help that the owners have completely ripped the interior out.

But - I look at it and think - there’s the bathroom I discovered I got my period in. There’s the room I phoned a boy for the first time. Etc etc. Just feels a bit sad that I’ll never be able to step inside the house ever again!

OP posts:

Rachelover60 · 05/10/2019 19:20

Not at all. I much prefer where I moved in 1984 and still live there.

TimeforanotherChange · 05/10/2019 19:23

My parents still live in the house we all grew up in - they have been there for 60 years now.

I can't bear to think of a time when strangers will live there and we can't drop in anymore, so I get where you are coming from OP!

onthebusoctopus · 05/10/2019 19:27

Yeah definitely. Especially when I can see the new owners have treated it like crap.

KipperTheFrog · 05/10/2019 19:31

I get sad every time I drive past my childhood home. The people who bought it after we moved out ripped out the old blackberry bushes and put an ugly fence up. And a god awful extension on the side. Dead to think what they did inside. I'd hate to see it on rightmove and get a peak inside, much prefer to think of it how it was.

GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman · 05/10/2019 19:33

I looked on Google satellite for a house I'd lived for three years as a kid and found a demolished smudge. It made me feel very sad: it was a lovely house.

TheresWaldo · 05/10/2019 19:39

I found one I lived in with an ex 20 years ago and what made me sad is that it is worth 5 x what we paid for it

He still lives there with his wife and kids, and as we have mutual FB friends I have seen the odd pic - this weirds me out. It was MY kitchen as I built the units, designed the layout etc and it's super freaky seeing another woman living there.

51Pegasusb · 05/10/2019 20:00

Not a house I've lived in but my very much missed GP's house. My Grandfather died 10 years ago my Grandmother 4, they lived in that house since I was 1 year old. It was the house we had family get togethers, celebrated Christmas and stayed for the holidays. I knew all the best hiding places in the garden, even drawings we had made as small kids were still up in the larder after they died.
They had a part of the wall in the living room that was full of photos of all of the grandchildren at various ages, school , uni graduation and marriages and then Great grandchildren, my Grandma called it rouges gallery
Most importantly it was for me and my brother the most stable place to be during some turbulent times with our parents divorce.
I got to say goodbye to the house in my own way, I also helped my Father and Uncle clear up.
I haven't been back since summer 2015. The address and telephone number are forever ingrained in my brain.
I miss them both still very much.

notso · 05/10/2019 20:05

Not my previous homes but I know I couldn't handle seeing my Grandparents houses changed. So many lovely memories.

Nat6999 · 05/10/2019 20:09

My house that I owned was up for sale on Right Move last year, it broke my heart because when I sold it, I was in the middle of getting divorced, my parents put a lot of pressure on me to sell it & I didn't want to. I really loved that house.

SoyDora · 05/10/2019 20:09

My old house (lived there from 8-18) was coincidentally for sale when we were looking to buy in the same area a couple of years ago. I felt sad when looking at the pictures... my brother died in his 20’s so it’s the house I have the most memories of him from. We actually bought a very similar house nearby for the same price it was up for. Lots of people asked why we didn’t buy it (actually would have been perfect for us!) but it just felt far too weird.

SoyDora · 05/10/2019 20:10

Oh and randomly my 4 year old has become close friends with a child who lives in my grandmothers old house, where I spent a lot of my childhood, so I’ve recently been back in it. She died in the house. To be honest I was just happy to see a family living there and enjoying it.

EagleRay · 05/10/2019 20:11

I recently made contact with a previous owner of my house (she lived here about 25-30 years ago, at the same stage of life I'm at now) - she's on a local fb group that I'm on and I recognised her name from the deeds.

The house has changed a lot since she was here but we laughed at how our waters had gone at exactly the same spot in the same bedroom. Our children shared the master bedroom at the front of the house because the second bedroom had the nicer view.

She hated the fact that the only bathroom was in the basement 2 floors down and longed for the box room to be made into a bathroom - that's the first thing I did when I moved in!

lastqueenofscotland · 05/10/2019 20:54

I saw my ex who I adored flat on right move the other day and honestly just wanted to cry
It had a gorgeous open plan living room and kitchen and many happy memories on Friday nights dancing to crap music drinking cheap wine in there.

WhiteWineAndMagnums · 05/10/2019 21:00

I think about this a lot. The house I grew up in has not come on the market in the 25 years or so since the current owners bought it from us but I can imagine it might fairly soon as the owners will be in their 70s soon and it's a large house, so imagine they'll want to downsize.

I have dreams about that house a lot, in various guises, so it was obviously very important to me emotionally.

pierpressure · 05/10/2019 21:01

My first house is the one on the Halifax advert with the slinky going down the stairs. So weird to seeing it pop up on tv, it looks quite different, but enough remains the same so I can recognise it.

raspberryk · 05/10/2019 21:01

Yup, gutted the woman who bought my house flipped it after making a small alteration to the bathroom and landscaping the garden. I loved my house.

Original poster

YodaEars1 · 05/10/2019 22:06

So glad to hear I’m not the only one!

It’s strange how walls can carry so many memories. Or maybe not so strange.

I can also empathise with the poster who said seeing her ex’s flat on Rightmove made her want to cry. I think I’m just very sentimental!

OP posts:

ForalltheSaints · 05/10/2019 22:07

I've looked, didn't feel sad just curious as to how it looks now.

Original poster

YodaEars1 · 05/10/2019 22:07

TheresWaldo yes I can imagine seeing the price being 5 times what it was could also be painful!

OP posts:

Original poster

YodaEars1 · 05/10/2019 22:10

Foral yes - nosiness is also definitely a factor. Strange how pre-internet people could never see inside their old homes ever again. There’s quite a few that I used to live in that have never changed hands since the 90s, so I’m kind of waiting for the time when they do. Just so I can peek inside!

OP posts:

MulticolourMophead · 05/10/2019 22:25

I'm currently renting a house that I stopped over in as a child, as it was my mum's friend's house then, and DB and I stopped over when we were babysat.

I can see my childhood house from my front window across the street, and it went up for rent shortly after we moved into this house. I saw the cleaners in there one evening and went over to ask if I could have a quick look around and why. They let me look and it looked good. Close to what I remembered, and it looked like some alterations my dad had considered had been made. I'm not sad, though, I don't really get attached to houses, but I do have many good memories.

Sowingbees · 05/10/2019 22:32

Listen to the House that built me Miranda Lambert!

AlexaAmbidextra · 05/10/2019 22:32

Yes. I found my childhood home. Both my parents are gone now and I found myself looking at all the rooms and remembering us being there together and the happy and sad times that were played out within those walls.

MightyAtlantic · 05/10/2019 22:35

A bit like PPs, I can't even go along the street that my grandparents lived on now, as it would break my heart to see their house looking different (my mum, who is completely unsentimental, tells me the new owners have completely gutted it). I can still visualise every little detail of that house. I don't know if I could even bring myself to look at it on Rightmove in the future when it goes up for sale again!

Soontobe60 · 05/10/2019 22:43

This has just prompted me to look at my old house. We moved 3 years ago to downsize, into a slightly cheaper area too. I'm delighted to see that my old house has increased in value by 18% whereas our new house has increased by 26%!
The house I grew up in was a council house so no idea about its value, as it's never been bought. Driving through the estate now is depressing, it was brand new when we moved in!

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