worse house viewing

[charlieinthehaystack]

probably mild to some but worse I saw was the bedroom had all porno posters on the bedroom walls. it was the teen lads room so page 3 type thankfully but I was amazed the mum didn't ask him to take them down or cover them up!
what was the worst thing you found on house viewings?

I viewed a flat to buy. The estate agent showed me around and there was a half smoked joint in the living room. Estate agent apologised and said the owner had fallen on hard times and could no longer afford the service charge so was moving. Didn’t exactly sell it to me.

In one flat there was an Unmade bed that had a duvet on it, surely you just chuck the duvet over the bed if you're in a hurry. Their PJ' we're on the floor liked they'd stepped out of them and left them where they fell, a full cats litter tray that was absolutely rank and 2 dirty nappies left with the poonarmi fully open .

@SaintHonoria, my carpenter grandad, did that for my grandma. Lowered her kitchen worktop to make cooking easier for her because she was short 🥰

I wish! Absolutely no kink shaming here but I think you’d at least pop your toys away in case you offended someone ?

Over twenty years ago now, but viewing a house where parents had died and the house was now jointly owned by a brother and sister (brother early 30s by my guess).

Sister wanted to sell, brother wanted to live there for free, so I suppose he was deliberately sabotaging viewings and living in a pigsty as a consequence. Living-room had a blackened corner where there had been a fire - long enough ago for there to be zero smell of smoke - just blackened walls and ceiling. About two years of junk mail on the stairs from the front hall all the way up. Catshit on the bed (I kid you not). He appeared to be living in the kitchen - was perched on a stool in there watching TV, ignoring us and the estate agent doing the viewing.

Surreal.

Nothing to some of these, but we once viewed a house which an elderly couple were selling so they could retire to the coast. They'd been there a very long time. The wife had already moved to the new home so the husband showed us round (this was over 20 years ago). It was in a terrible state. Every single room would have needed extensive work. Plaster hacked off, dampproofing, new floors and windows, replastering, probably new roof, kitchen and bathroom totally re-fitted, total redecoration, you get the idea.

Additionally, every single room and passage was stacked with ancient decaying paperback books. There were hundreds stacked against the back wall outside in the garden. The damp and the rain had ruined these books and I don't imagine they were in a good state to begin with. The deluded owner explained that he was a secondhand bookseller and these were his stock. Nobody in their right mind would have paid him any money for any of them.

We knew within two minutes that we weren't going to buy the house, so got out as soon as we could. On our way out, we thanked the owner for his time and got stuck making a bit of small talk about how much interest there had been. 'Oh, quite a bit,' he said, 'but no offers yet. And you won't believe this - we had a couple here last week who said they'd need to spend £100,000 on building work! Can you credit that? What would you spend it on, ha ha ha...'

We smiled and nodded, but once safely away both agreed that £100k wouldn't even have touched the sides of what needed doing there. I see somebody did eventually take it on. Brave.

A few years ago after separating from exh I was house hunting and went to view an unmodernised 1930s semi. The Estate agent wouldn't even enter and at the open day viewers were literally looking around the hall and walking back out again. The issue was the nostril burn smell of fags, shit and urine that permeated the place. There was faeces up the walls and floor and the kitchen was thick with fat and grease up the walls. I was the only person to make an offer and gutted that house - it had all its original 1930s features with an enormous garden and huge rooms. When I sold it a few years later I had a bidding war on it!

That’s precious. Such a lovely man.

(Presumably) A teenage boy's room in a worse state than a squat and stinking of weed.

no of course not.
I apologised profusely and offered to clean it up, she said don't worry and we left.

Teenage daughter did the tour. Got to the master bedroom - he dad was passed out drunk and naked on the bed🫣. She said very politely- and this is the master bedroom, don’t worry about dad he’s fast asleep

I looked round a house with an ex which would have been ideal size wise & was in a good location but absolutely stank of cigarette smoke & the walls & ceilings were yellowy brown. We weren’t allowed in one of the bedrooms as there was an old chap in bed with a chest infection ( probably all the fags!). The bloke showing us round kept telling us things to put us off buying, which was very odd! He told us how awful the neighbours were, how difficult it was to park etc etc. We had a good laugh about it afterwards.

Cat shit on the floor of a very cat centric house.

Viewed the odd messy house but nothing horrendous, but had a lot of rude ppl viewing our houses.

The most annoying man to view our last house that we were selling sneered and said 'there's not really anything (name of town) its just somewhere you go through to get somewhere else'.

We were actually moving within the town, and I thought why the fuck are you wasting my time to do a viewing- the only thing you know for sure is the location. Not that I said anything, gotta be polite to the twats.

Viewed one house where they kept their dogs in the kitchen with a stair gate keeping them in, they told us to just look from the doorway and not go in as they hadn't had a chance to clear up and there was dog shit all over the floor
I've lost track of the amount of viewings where I couldn't see a bedroom as someone was asleep in there and vendors seemed to think this was perfectly normal, as though I'd buy a house without seeing one of the bedrooms!

That was brave! I hope you had specialist cleaners in, that would be an awful job. 🤢🤮

I find it so strange that some of you met the owners/tenants when viewing a property.

In Ireland the estate agent lets you know when they have scheduled viewings and you're expected to be out, although online estate agents are a thing now and the vendor does the viewing.

I'd find it really awkward as a vendor or potential buyer, and it's really weird that some of you encountered people in bed or couldn't view the bedrooms! I haven't had any awful experiences, I just enjoy the opportunity to see how other people decorate and use the space, but a smelly house would be a huge mental block if I ever viewed one.

Unexpected WC with death stairs straight into the cellar. He opened the under stairs door, and in front was a loo against a wall, on the party wall side a sink, a bit of flooring, then I guess a ten foot or so drop via stairs straight into your usual brick and concrete cellar. As a bonus, you could count paint tins and tools on the cellar shelves and marvel at the beauty of the swinging, bare lightbulb whilst relieving yourself.

Beats an outhouse? I’m not so sure.

One house that had never been vacuumed and they had dogs. It stunk, I stupidly took my shoes off before I went inside and when I got home I washed my feet. It was absolutely disgusting, that was over 10 years ago and I still shudder

We saw a house that had obviously been repossessed. Everything had been stripped, door handles off, no lightbulbs, kitchen gutted. In every room there was graffiti on the walls saying anyone who bought it was scum and profiting from their misery. It was exactly what we were looking for in a great location but I just couldn’t bring myself to buy it.

🤣

Quite a few messy houses and this was ones to rent or buy.

One that still makes me laugh now was a terraced house. Looked nice from the outside. Shown round by the owner, a man with long white hair. The lounge had a massive model train set up. It took up the whole front room. Cats everywhere. This man was an electrician but the wiring was awful. Walked through more cats to get outside to the garden. It was like a mini zoo. Bird cages and ponds. Then came back through the kitchen my boyfriend (now husband) I thought was going to throw up. The kitchen was full of all the litter trays for the cats. The smell was awful but I'd got the giggles cos my boyfriend kept gagging. We quickly got out of there and laughed and laughed. Funnily enough we didn't put an offer in. We went past a week later and said owner was dressed in ladies clothes attending the garden outside.

I did a few rental viewings as an agent where we walked in to find people fast asleep, and often naked. It never gets less awkward

My late partners daughter and her bf were being shown round a flat. She decided to open the build in wardrobe to see how much room there was in there and saw a baseball bat and a handgun in there!!
They didn't rent the flat!!

Two that stand out where clearly not everyone wanted to move. One, the teenager son had decided now was the perfect time to start painting his bedroom black. Another, being sold as part of a divorce, the husband had no answer to how he planned to remove the two floor-to-ceiling, wider than the door, safes from the front room. Apparently they'd been put in when the windows were done.

However, the most unsettling one was an empty house that clearly hadn't had anything done since the 1970s. This was fine, however what wasn't fine was the copious amount of post-it notes with everyday messages like 'hot water' or 'dont touch'. Clearly in place for someone with dementia but for some reason not removed when relatives cleared the house. It felt so sad, as you could see the history of mental decline. But, to make the whole thing creepy, a radio was playing in the empty house (presumably on a timer). It was the first time our estate agent had seen the inside, and she went off to have words with her colleagues about how it was presented.