Buying a house where a tragedy happened

[Canistayinbed]

Would you?

House near me is up for sale, in the 60’s a father murdered 5 members of his family then killed himself. I couldn’t even bring myself to view the house let alone buy it.

Houses that have had fatal fires, been renovated and ready for occupancy again. Nope.

Id be awake at night ruminating over things and never get any sleep, I know it seems stupid. Anyone else the same? Or do you live in such a place and aren’t bothered by it?

How would anyone know whats gone on before? Its not something estate agents put in the listing.

My DB bought a house that had had a tragedy happen there. He got fed-up by people asking him about it, or standing outside and looking at his house.

I come from a village where there has been so many murder/suicides we nicknamed it "Midsummer (insert name of village). When we moved there, many years ago, a man had just decapitated his poor wife after finding out she'd had an affair. The villagers actually petitioned for the Judge to go easy on him as she'd treated him terribly! My parents did NOT sign the petition. The house was a bloodbath according to local decorators, who'd been sent in by the landlord to quickly get it rented out again. They never had any trouble getting tenants. Then a few years later, the much loved Landlady of the local pub was murdered on the premises by a young man who'd tried to rob her one afternoon after closing time. Then not long after, at a house just around the corner, a teenage boy shot his father dead as he arrived home from work. I don't know what happened to the son but the house sold soon after. A friend of mine viewed it and said the lad's bedroom was painted completely black. There were also a couple of suicides. Most tragically a teenage lad shot himself on the driveway of a house on my street, in front of the teenage girl who lived there, who had, apparently, recently broken up with him. Since then, that house has sold a few times without any problems. I don't know if subsequent owners were aware of the history and I would never have enlightened them but I always felt terribly sad at the waste of a young life, every time I walked past it. Then, finally, we made international headlines when the handless corpse of a drug dealer was found by divers at the local beauty spot. They actually made a film of it, starring a guy out of of neighbours. I now live in a busy town that has far less trouble!

Hmmm, difficult one. A few miles from my house there is a chalet where a family was murdered by their nephew (parents, two very young kids). They rented so the owner of the house only found out when he visited because he hadn´t got the rent payment. He found the bodies in the lounge wrapped up in bin liners. Well, this must have been 2017... They have not been able to rent it out, no one will buy it. It´s been renovated from top to bottom, but no one will touch it. The last thing I heard they were thinking of demolishing it and selling the land for a new build...The house is a nightmare for the owners. So no, I would not buy it because of the problems of selling it. I´m in Spain, not Britain and the situation is also difficult for these buildings, most people don´t want to know.

I think we’d buy if we liked the house enough. Not the same but we lived in a converted church with gravestones surrounding us and underneath us in the basement laundry room. Didn’t bother us at all.

Kids in my primary school lived in a house where there had been a murder-suicide. They were teased terribly about living in "the murder house" and people were always sharing / making up gruesome details. The kids were only maybe 8 or 9 years old and one of them in particular used to get really upset.
It was a council house and eventually they were moved elsewhere but no-one else with young kids wanted to swap with them.
So if it was a well known story in a smallish community and I had kids i wouldn't buy it.

If it was just me and dh I might.

This made me think and I realized I sleep in the room where the last owner died - natural causes at the end of a long and full life but still, where he was found. Never bothered me that he had died here. Unless it was a recent thing it would not bother me. Unless you have a new build, it is likely something bad has happened in your house in the past, and that someone died there.

Would imagine most houses have had a death at some point.

I’d decline to live there if I was paid to, never mind buy it. I’d be thinking about the theory in The Shining, the places have memory, and that rage and fear might somehow permeate the atmosphere in a building. I’d be haunted by what the victim’s final moments must have felt like, and I’m particularly disturbed by the fact it was a parent perpetrator. Obviously the Shining is fiction and I know a lot of appalling stuff happens all the time and we’ll never know about it. But since I would know, I wouldn’t be able to not know, and I’d be waiting to feel something off. I’d also worry about how it would affect my own mental health. My mother would say get the house blessed but I don’t know if that would make me feel better. Ignorance is bliss 🤔

Some people don't have a choice. If its a council house and they are offered it they only get so many they can turn down

I'm not sure I would.
My in-laws bought a house 50 years ago. Before they moved in,a young girl was playing outside and got hit by a car. She was brought into in-laws living room where she passed away. It didn't put them off.

Was that the house fire that Mick Philpot started and his children died? :(

But murder or suicide is a bit different to someone dying in the property of old age,for example.

Next door to my childhood home there was a
fatal stabbing and fire in attempt to cover it up. The place was renovated and the workmen were convinced it was haunted.

Of course the neighbourhood gossips told the new owners what had happened.

Fast forward 30 years. I met someone who lived there. The gossips had died or moved on. I didn’t mention the fire and neither did she. I told her I used to live next door and she said how much she loved it there.

Moral if you don’t know it won’t bother you.

I hope you get someone to check your reckonings on your mortgage !

Graphic info .

About 10 years in a village near near me a man drove to his brothers house and shot him , then to a solicitors and killed him before driving about 2 local towns shooting & killing random people before going to a wood and committing suicide.
He lived alone but when the house went on the market the inside had been stripped bare , all plastering , woodwork , and electrics were taken down to the bricks , I'm assuming to rid the house of all dna.
The house was renovated and people live there now.

Wouldn't bother me one bit. Even if it had been recently.
I would be hopeful of a good discount!

Generally, how would you know? And what is your Statute of Limitations? Until very recently, most people died at home - if your house is over 100 years old it's practically a guarantee that someone died there. Yes, they may have been elderly, but given the rates of child mortality it's likely that a child or children of the family died there. And death isn't the only kind of tragedy - as someone else said what about DV or extreme poor mental health? Or stillbirth? Babies were born at home too...

I can understand a very very recent killing putting people off, but after a year or so - it's just another house.

@Atethehalloweenchocs the podcast you mention sounds interesting - do you remember the name of it?

Irrational though it might be, there are some circumstances like the one in the OP that would prevent me buying a house.

A (not particularly close) friend of mine took her own life in her house a couple of hundred yards away from me. That was 25 years ago, but I still can't look at that house comfortably, never mind buy it.

But I'd find it a bit pathetic if someone didn't buy my house because they discovered that my DH died peacefully in his 'hospital bed' in what was our dining room a decade ago. Because most houses of any age will have had a peaceful death in them.

Sorry @YouOKHun - its called Murder Homes and I think it is on I Heart Radio - I access podcasts through my phone while I am walking the dogs although I need to lay off the crime so much as I freak myself out!).

A murder or suicide, yes.

We live in an old house. It was built in 1880 so the odds are that people have definitely been born and died in here. Over time, someone will have died pretty much everywhere in built up areas. Mind you, I work in a hospital so I am used to dead people. Bad people do bad things. Depressed people do sad things. The house is incidental in that.

A house that had had a fire or carbon monoxide or whatever, no as I would be fearful of it harbouring more issues.

@PickledPurplePickle the 60s is 60
years ago not 80.

The exception would be for one of those massive public interest cases where the property generated ongoing media or public attention - I don't want murder tourists trying to take photos while I watch strictly in my pjs!

The thing is - a multiple murder/suicide is awful and is something that is publically known and perhaps 'newsworthy' enough that you hear about it.

But there are also awful things that happen all the time, secrets in families, that you would never get to know about.

For example: the house I live in right now could have seen all kinds of terrible things inflicted on the people living there; just the kinds of things they keep secret and never make the news. But things that are really bloody awful to those experiencing them.

All houses have dark histories, I think.