to expect people to be polite enough to call and cancel/explain if they can't make it?

[RoLoh]

Someone didn't show for a viewing at our house this morning and didn't call to tell the agent or to cancel. This is the fourth time it's happened! It's bad enough during the week but on a Saturday it's particularly disrespectful and annoying as I could have done other things like not getting up early to clean!.
Is it so unreasonable to expect people to show a little consideration and politeness in these situations?

I also woke my sleeping baby in anticipation of their arrival! Don't know why I bothered

You would hope wouldn't you. We sold our house 4 years ago and only one viewer (who bought it, thankfully) actually turned up. A large propertion didn't even bother telling the agent they weren't coming. It's unbelievabley rude IMO. At the time I had two children under three so tidying, and then keeping the house tidy, was a nightmare.

Sometimes it's the fault of the agent too - not passing messages on, or even not turning up themselves

It is incredibly rude

WoTmania - just 1!? Now I don't feel so hard done by

Yes it is rude but sometimes I wonder whether they drive up, look at the house and know it's not suitable.

We had a specification when looking for our house that it had to have a downstairs loo because my MIL, could not climb stairs (she could not visit our old house for this reason as it only had a loo upstairs).

We were sent to look at one house (had not got picture) and arrived to find it had about six massive steep steps up to the front door. But it had a downstairs loo! We looked at it anyway out of politeness, but I did wonder if we had raised the guy's hopes because we knew there was no way we would be buying it.

Another one we were sent to view turned out to have no out front parking, you could only park at the back of the house and walk down a set of stepping stones through the back garden. Never mind MIL - I had a toddler who wasn't walking and was heavily pregnant. Again, we knew before we went in that we wouldn't buy it because the house we were in you couldn't park outside sometimes and it was an absolute pain in the ringpiece, and this was 10 times worse.

Both were lovely houses, but just not practical for us.

But as I say, it might have been kinder to drive away and not view - but it would have been rude.

"toddler who wasn't walking" - there's an oxymoron for you! What do you call a 14 month old who isn't walking yet. Apart from lazy?

I understand that sometimes you just know when a house isn't right but I would rather they just knocked on the door and explained that than just leave. I'm not precious about the house and I know that it's location isn't for everyone.

Like I say, when it happens during the week I can laugh it off but people who do it on a Saturday are just wrong

YANBU - people can be so rude and complete ignore the fact people have gone out of their way to accommodate them. I've recently sold my fish tank but two previous buyers failed to turn up when I'd come home from work early to meet them.
Also, when I was looking for a lodger, a woman came and liked the place, agreed to rent it and I took the ad down. Then she went completely off the radar and I never heard from her again. Really irritates me.

yep, just the one. Apparently happened a lot. And a couple of times they did tell the estate agent and the estate agent forgot to tell us. Luckily the person who viewed, and bought, viewed within weeks of it going on the market so it was a fairly quick process

I bet these mysterious no-show people are quite normal and probably don't think they've done anything wrong.
I've just got to stop expecting reasonable behaviour from people I suppose :-) then I won't be disappointed

We were viewing houses a few months back.

Agents were useless. We turned up to some houses to be told that the agents had cancelled, got sent to the wrong addresses, the agent adjusted times with us but not the vendor so we were hours late, and they never passed on messages or cancellations.

I thought we'd had something of a comedy experience but it seems pretty normal.

We used to do the drive bys BEFORE we made an appointment - YANBU OP but I wouldn't have woken the baby, just wait till they're there next time

RobotLover I know I should have waited but I had to take down the black out blinds and try to get rid of the poo smell from the room! I'm sure my attitude will revert to 'let them smell poo' if this goes on much longer though

Yeah I'd go with let them smell the poo haha

I've been the viewer who hasn't turned up
Was viewing houses with arsehole DH & we arrived 15 mins early to check out the street. He decided it didn't meet his high standards (looked perfectly nice to me) & refused point blank to view the house despite my protestations.

As he was driving I had no choice but did try to ring the agent from H's mobile to apologise. I spoke to his colleague but he had already left to do the viewing and had no mobile

I still feel guilty about letting him & the vendor down (even though it was years ago). Just one of many reasons why DH is now ex.

Never mind Fuzzy at least it wasn't your fault!

When we had booked to see a house as soon as we drove up (half an hour early) we knew it wasn't for us so we rang the agent straight away so he could let the sellers know. Maybe EA should take better photos if they don't want that to happen, including the area around too.

YANBU OP but next time don't bother waking your baby but do tell the EA if this happens again you will be looking to go with someone who is proactive at getting people actually to turn up and/or letting you know immediately if they cancel.