To feel sad feeling after this house viewing?

[RainbowsAndCrystals]

Empty for years and still had the items in from the previous owner .. shoes, teddy bears, scrapbooks full of newspaper cuttings. Even an old highchair.

I just got a sad feeling about the place, like something bad happened there.

Aibu? Or has anyone else had a sad/error feeling about a place?

We viewed a house like this. The nightdress folded at the end of bed upset me. She got up one morning, apparently healthy enough to leave everything neat and then never went back. I couldn’t understand why her DC hadn’t done a sweep of personal items.

We bought the house and at the first Christmas we received 3 or 4 Christmas cards addressed to her. So sad.

Our elderly neighbours were moved into a home a couple of years ago, one has since died. The grandsons are selling the house, they just skipped everything and strimmed the garden. My neighbours were very house proud, the garden was beautifully kept and their family have just chucked t all in a skip. It has made me so sad.

After my Mum died, we emptied everything. Obviously it was the house of an d person who had just died but we cleared, shared, recycled everything. Heartbreaking for us to do but it made it easier to sell.
I’d look pass the nicknacks and see the house if I were you, op. If it’s a great house, consider it.

It was very sad when we cleared out my partner's mum and dad's house. His dad died in 2015, and the house and garden was too big for DP's mother on her own, so last year she downsized.
All of the stuff he'd collected over the years, it means nothing in the end, really. We saved a lot of stuff, and will eventually re-purpose it or get rid.

My ndn is very elderly. Just lately there's been a lot more in the way of family input- I've a feeling she's very poorly (always a chest infection, very frail) but the other day there was a skip. Her family were emptying her loft and other areas- beautiful photo albums, dress makers doll, fabric, lamps, these lovely things were just tossed in.
This thread reminded me of that. It was like she'd passed away- but she hasn't. I can't go knock and see how she's doing, her family while nice, are not the kind who want involvement from neighbours. So when I do see her, I stop for a chat- within a couple of minutes she goes back in though, her hacking cough gets the better of her.

I'm actually afraid of the day she passes away. She's so lovely, made me so welcome when I moved in. We always do Christmas cards. I just hope her clearly loving and involved family don't throw out all of her stuff like it never mattered when she does pass on.

@secretsmellies I wonder if you could find them via the internet, maybe share a photo of the desk and that you need to contact the previous owner?

Not quite the same, but this has stuck with me since I read it.
It was an article by the husband of a lovely, young and vibrant women who had died while running in a marathon. No known previous medical issues, but had a heart attack and passsd away immediately. He said he went home and the chicken they had got out of the freezer to defrost that morning was sitting on the side and it upset me so much to think of him looking at that chicken they were going to have for dinner, together. It made me think that life can change so quickly and is really so very short and precious.

ellen chucking her personal items into a skip under her nose while she’s still alive?! How heartbreaking for her

We viewed two like this. Both were occupied and completely different scenarios.

The first is owned by an elderly couple and they only lived in two rooms. He had dementia and she was very spritely, but couldn't cope with the maintenance. House was very big and although clean and tidy, a 50k renovation job wouldn't have touched the sides. It was also priced too high, as in their mind it was perfect and 'had all the mod cons'! (Back in the 70's)
Even the estate agent agreed it was over priced, but couldn't get them to reduce!
I'm not sure they sold, as it was pulled from the market.
It was very sad as they seemed trapped by this house, and the price they (or the family) wanted for it.

Second one was owned by an a woman in her 50's. Divorced and had severely disabled kids. Decorated very ornately, but obvious structural issues. The was a quiet sadness which resonated round the house. It made me very sad.

We bought our first house last year, which had only ever had one owner before us. The couple had bought it in the 50's when they got married and raised their family there. The wife had died years ago and then he'd died not long before we viewed.

The furniture was still there, but not really personal effects, except for the bedroom. When we went in there were two suits hanging on the door of the fitted wardrobe and all his ties laid out on the bed. They'd obviously had his things out to choose what he would be buried/cremated in and forgotten to put them away. It was heartbreaking.

His son, who had grown up there, ended up doing our second viewing, and he said how lovely it was growing up there, and how pleased his parents would have been that the house had a young family again. There was just such a feeling that it had been a happy home; and we've certainly been happy here so far!

I viewed a beautiful old house in France 10 years ago.
As I passed over the threshold I felt clammy, sick and like I needed to get out nobody shared my feeling of gloom.

I did some research and found out some awful things happened during the WWII in that property.

Still gives me goosies to this day

What a beautiful, very human thread. I started reading it at 3:30am! Went back to sleep. So glad it's still active!

We went to visit cousin's friend's castle. Everyone buys a castle, don't they?
This was several years ago in Ireland. Anyway, run-down, beautiful castle, full of faded opulence, melancholy, and William Morris wallpaper with the grandest of staircases leading up to massive, sun soaked rooms full of dust particles dancing in the slices of light. Wonderful. Until we went into the secluded family wing to visit the study which was icy cold and had a dreadful feeling to it. Mum, cousin, and I were compelled to leave the room which was just off the hallway where a little girl had fallen from the private staircase to her death on her 8th birthday. I didn't know any of this going into the castle. Cousin's friend explained it to us in response to the horrible feelings we experienced in that family wing. Awful.

I once viewed a probate sale . The kitchen was left as if the lady had just popped out, the china ready for tea and ancient tins in the pantry. Beds still made up but ruffled. Clothes lying around.

The owner of my house died in my bedroom, I am realistic about life and death so it doesn't bother me.

When I put my dm's house up for sale, I made sure it was clean and pleasant for those viewing. It always shocks me when I see houses on rightmove that have the previous occupants personal belongings strewn around. I find it disrespectful.

What I could not move, I had a clearance company come in for me, such a sad time. They were kind, business like an inexpensive.

A colleague once viewed an empty house of an elderly lady with an unmade bed with messy sheets etc on which upset and angered her. It took a long time to sell and I knew the buyers who eventually bought it. Harsh words were exchanged with the executors.

Last year I went to a vintage fair locally. It had lots of old lady clothes for sale, many of which had a musty smell and loads of stuff that reminded me of my dm. There was war time music playing, it felt sad and was clearly not the place for me. Perhaps I simply don't get it.

I just hope her clearly loving and involved family don't throw out all of her stuff like it never mattered when she does pass on.

I hope our neighbours didn't think that we threw away MILs belongings as if they never mattered

Sadly the truth is that they mattered to her, it mattered to us but we already have a full home of stuff of our own, but it didn't matter to anyone else.

After exhausting sales/charity shops etc there was nothing more we could do with the stuff - she had beautiful things that we couldn't even give away.

It was heartbreaking but had to be done.

We viewed a lovely house, which was exactly as others have described. There was a dressing gown hanging on the back of the bathroom door, and toothbrush and flannel on the sink. There were slippers in the hall. The whole house felt like someone had just popped out. It made me really sad.

DH was completely unbothered by it and told me I was being silly

Dd and I pass a huge house every day on our way home from nursery.

The lady who lived there always made a bee line for Dd and invited us in to see her chicken coop and she would let us collect conkers from her drive in the Winter. She would walk into town with us sometimes and she was so lovely.

The house was beautiful and well looked after and the garden even more so. She really took pride in it.

We didn't see her for a few weeks and then one day the chicken houses and coop were demolished, the flowers and plants ripped up and there was a skip full of all her belongings. The garden was full of piles of wood and smashed up furniture.

I always feel really sad when I walk past it now.

My house (pre ww2) had one previous owner, a couple who never had children. The husband died around the turn of century I think, the widow went into care home and I bought the house cheap as it needed a lot of modernization (original kitchen and bathroom etc).

It was mostly cleared when I got the place, but the kitchen still had her calendar on the wall. I leafed through it, at first glance it was fairly innocuous but on closer inspection each month had one day highlighted as the day where she was "allowed" out.

Then there was the day not long before the house came on the market labeled "today I fell down and broke my shoulder".

On the deeds from when she and her husband bought the house, his occupation was a tailor's assistant and she was a spinster, clearly a lot of sewing had gone on in the house. There was an ancient sewing machine left, a dressmaking table or something, and buttons in all the nooks and crannies.

Sad, but it's now a home to my boys and I, and I like to think that they'd be pleased that a family is making use of it.

About 2 years after I moved in I heard that that old lady had passed away. I was genuinely sad to hear it.

'They’ve been someone’s treasures and people are overlooking them when they are priced up at £1. I could weep for the owners. I regularly see things like my grandma had as wedding presents, so been in houses since the 40s or 50s. It just strikes me as a terrible cull.'

Or maybe the owner him/herself decided to buy a place in the sun, gave all their stuff to a charity shop, packed up and is now living with a shockingly younger lover and is tanned to a crisp.

Maybe the owner is one of those Kondo fanatics who decided to get rid of everything and live with only a Billy bookcase from IKEA and a futon.

Maybe the owner is one of those people on MN who whinge about not being given money as a gift and when given something like this takes it straight to a charity shop.

I went to see my dad's former home in Poland (German Silesia at the time of his childhood). They'd been through so much tragedy and his dad had died, family members were taken to the camps, killed in air raids, a tragic time. Dad was in a camp (liberated), mum, his sister escaped. They all ended up as refugees in the States. They never saw their home again.

But I went 4 years ago and saw the house, the dormer windows from their bedrooms looking out onto the jam factory, the canal where they bathed and washed their clothes, and the garden my Oma had nurtured with love and tenderness. I imagine it was her sanctuary where she found solitude. The arguments and the fear of being caught and the daily sadness was almost certainly softened by moments of joy and laughter because it was home. They had loved where they were from despite the political times they'd been hurled into.
Life at its best and worst happens in our homes. It's why people from bombed out shells of cities still love home.

Dad's home was all sparkling and fresh, so loved. It was so tidy when I visited. The homeowners were so proud, it was evident. It started raining and I wondered if those were all the tears my dad had never cried in life. I would like to think that a circle closed. How elated he would have been if he'd known his beloved home and its environs knew the love and splendour of peacetime. My dad had died with pictures of his childhood home by the bedside. He had kept them there and when he was gone the enormity of the loss he'd experienced in his youth hit me hard.

I think, for a moment, I truly loved the current occupants of dad's home... every occupant on that road, in fact!

I flew to Canada recently to say goodbye to dad's sister who is elderly and dying. I wrote down her old address and written that I had been to see her former home. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and grabbed my hand repeating, "Yes" in German, in a whisper.

It broke me.

Thevanguardsix ah fuck sake, that's me finished, your post and the chicken coop lady are making me leak.

I think too, it's because I'm most definitely going to be the subject of these posts on another half century or so, I absolutely love home, am passionately attached to the houses I live in and take great pleasure in making them nice. I can see my future old lady self here

Years ago I viewed a house. I was a bit shocked at the state of it, I remember the unmade bed had clothes left out on it and it was generally untidy.
As I was viewing the garden, which was surprisingly nice, the next door neighbour came out and told me the owner had hung herself in the bedroom.
I left.
I then viewed a different house on the same street and took my mum with me.
I didn't know until we got there that it had been a repossession. In the kitchen was a full tin of baby milk, my mum started to cry. I didn't buy that house either and decided to look in a different area.