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've recently been appointed executors to a distant relative (unmarried, no children, no other relatives) - we live a considerable distance away so it was difficult to completely clear the house (she went into hospital for a minor procedure and never came out ).

It is heartbreaking to have to sort out someone's personal posessions (we didn't even know her that well really) and because of the logistics involved it just wasn't possible to clear out everything before the house went on the market - eventually (after everything has to be listed for probate) we were able to employ house clearers and then have the place professionally cleaned - but you can understand why this happens if there are no close (both 'family' and 'geographically) relatives to sort out a property after someone dies.

@walkalongjosie

I half expect my grandma to peep out of the window as I pass so I always say hi blush silly I know

That's lovely.

As per post above I have just been through the task of clearing a house for two elderly relatives who have gone into a care home and have to sell the house to pay fees . The whole system is awful . I have boxes in my garage of things we thought they might want . And the rest had to go through house clearance , we tried charities and they could not help . It cost a lot of money to clear. The council have been awful and I hate seeing them in a home and losing everything they worked for . Something has to change .

We bought a house and moved in. A couple of weeks later an old man told me someone had hung themselves in the house years ago. I went home in a right state and had to stop DH going round and having a go....

'such a shame that people scrimp and save all their lives for things they desire and yet at the end they can't even be given away sad'

To enjoy them whilst they're still alive and/or able to enjoy them. They've been enjoyed, and now the person is not here to care anymore. If you desire it, save up for it, enjoy it in what time you are given. Job done.

'We bought a house and moved in. A couple of weeks later an old man told me someone had hung themselves in the house years ago. I went home in a right state and had to stop DH going round and having a go....'

Excepting very new builds, a lot of homes have had someone die in them. You can do your own research on a home, too, via public records if it bothers you so much, but if it's a dealbreaker you're best off going for a new build where you have researched the history of the land under it to ensure no one's died there.

I am a viewing agent for an estate agents, the worst houses are repression, as they seem to be fall of people stuff that they have just walked away from toys and lots of personal stuff!! always makes me sad that they just could not pay the mortgage so left before being thrown out by the bailiffs. Sometimes I just want to cry especially if loads of kids things left!! I really worry about the mortgage rate going up as I fear lots of people will loss there homes!!

My cousin looked at a house where the owner had been murdered by her son, he was training to be a police officer at the time. When he went for training at the SOCO, his fellow trainees, knowing he was buying the place, organised that the SOCO trainer happened to show them the evidence/ photos from the murder scene!

The worst house viewing I had was a divorcing couple. Husband was showing us around while wife sat in kitchen and silently seethed. (Agent later told us she didn't want to move, no shit). 12 yr old son upstairs doing homework and clearly hating it all. Really awful.

I also saw a few houses where the previous (elderly) owner had died, but the divorce house was much sadder.

The house with the worst vibe I've felt was one that was being sold due to a nasty divorce. 21 years ago, the tenant in this flat hanged himself from the light pendant in the stairwell. But well, even if the place was hell house, we'd be pretty stuck because it's an HA flat with a secure tenancy, the fuck we're going back to private renting. I've lived in two other flats where someone ended his/her own life that I know of.

x-post, mini!

I split up with my ex and met someone else. My ex had moved out, and, for various reasons, I spent most of my time at my new partner’s. It’s ridiculous, but I always felt so sorry for my house that it was empty most of the time. Sold now, but I still love that house...

Looking at it in a different way I bought a house that two old lady’s had lived in for years, the house was a complete mess no heating very run down, but the garden was just beautiful!! The man next door said they were very sweet and that the garden was there pride and joy!! One had died a year before the other and the other old lady just was not the same without her sisters/best friend as they callled each other. Any way I bought the house and completely renavated it!! I often think about the lady’s that lived in the house and think they would be happy that I love there house and there garden, thow maybe they would be a bit annoyed at the big extension and the decking, but I did try and keep all there lovely trees and bushes!! And when people say what a stunning house and garden I have I always say the house is my doing the garden the two lady’s that lives in the house before me!!

When we were buying in Italy, we went to one and it looked like a scene from a horror film, someone had written 'kill them' over and over and over on one wall upstairs, there were about 50 broken mirrors in the main living area, pentagram drawn all over the kitchen units and doll parts, from several hundred dolls all over the garden. Horrific. And it was a really creepy, nasty house, made me feel scared.
We visited another one where there were hundreds of needles and spoons and foil, that was nasty.

I am so glad it's not just me that gets so sad at these things. We completed on our two properties this year. Both bought after occupants went into care. It sounds crazy I never even met the lady who had been living in the flat (she had been moved out about a year by time I completed). I received some mail the other day to the executors of ... ... and I feel so sad that someone I need even met has died 🙁

My dad lived in his house for 54 years, he had to go in a nursing home after a stroke and we dont know if he'll recover or not, but its doubtful. So we are in limbo, trying to sort the house out bit by bit, and I hate seeing the life go out of the house. There is so much stuff, and it is so sad. And exhausting. And emotional. But if/when we do end up selling, luckily I'll be able to empty and dress it first. It making me want to live more minimalist tho.

The worst I ever saw when viewing houses was a where a large square of carpet had been cut away leaving the underlay underneath in the lounge. The house had been cleared of personal things but you could tell by the decor and the few remaining bits of furniture that an elderly person had lived and died there judging by the carpet. Why couldn't the rest of the carpet have been taken up too!

The house that got to me the most was the one with his and hers mobility scooters parked next to each other. Just something that really got me. They had adapted the house so well for getting older, but it wasn't enough and they had gone into care. I hope together, we never found out. We didn't buy it.

The house we did buy is over 200 years old. It has a very chequered history, and I'm certain people must have died here over the years, but it feels like a very happy house. If only walls could talk!

We had to clear my in-laws’ house out this year. My dh and his brother spent hours and hours and hours sorting through stuff. My Fil kept just about every wage slip and receipt he’d ever had. There were boxes of paperwork going back decades. Utterly useless stuff that took so many weekends to sift through. Not to mention the entire contents of their house. I don’t know how many car loads of stuff I took down the charity shops and we still managed to fill a skip. My dh found it really hard, it was his childhood home.

Happily it went to a family friend who has invited us to go and visit whenever we like. I don’t know if I can face it, I have such happy memories of taking my children there to see their gp’s. I don’t know how my dh will feel.

So heartbreaking to have to go through all their things. You just can’t keep everything. We have enough junk of our own. Really hard taking apart a loved one’s life and throwing some of it away. Really got to me, more so than I thought it would.

Our house was a little like this. Teddy bear on a chair. Photos of the grandchildren. Drawers and cupboards full of glasses and cutlery. The man had been dead a year! I felt sad that no one had come to empty his house. I don't know why.

I'm welling up at this thread. My parents decided to downsize a couple of years ago. The amount of stuff we threw away. But there was so much we couldn't. They are in their late 70s so we will have to at some point in the not distance future. My dsis said at least we won't be clearing out our childhood home.

I still miss my grandparents home & they've been gone for a long time.

2 memorable houses for me but for totally different reasons...
The first house seemed pretty average in the new area we were looking in, but the price was a lot lower. Couldn't really work out why as there was nothing glaringly wrong with it to make it so much cheaper than the others we were going to see. Walked into the garden and saw that the large shed had multiple locks on it and thought 'Oh maybe there's a lot of theft/dodgy area??' The estate agent then opens the door to the shed and as I poke my head in, notice that the walls have got lots of care bear stickers all over them, there were children's drawings scattered about and a few toys on the floor. The estate agent then says that 'you are probably aware from local news, but this is the home of a recently convicted paedophile and it's priced for a quick sale..!!!'
I still get chills to this day when I think of that place.
The second one (same area, same day) was a repossession. It had been done so beautifully and was obviously their pride and joy, it was completely heart breaking. We decided to look in a different area.

I am off topic, but i often wonder about my life's end. All the junk that I've collected? Like the old lady and beautiful garden, no trace? I do wonder what is the point sometimes. When i was young, i didn't think like this, but life seems to just fill in after us like a hole at the seashore.

I do know what you mean but if it makes you happy, then carry on collecting the 'junk' Abby

We are only here for a short time and life can be hard - may as well enjoy ourselves while we can.

This thread reminds me a bit of a couple of articles I read on being the child of a hoarder (I was recently over the worst of clinical depression , and getting to grips with my lifelong difficulty in letting stuff go being likely a manifestation of this).

The kids would suffer growing up through never being able to have friends round etc , then have a few years of relative happiness as they moved out and left their parents to it except for visits. Then back to worry, anger, sadness etc as parents got frail in their midden and/or DGC couldn’t safely be taken round. And finally a traumatic job made worse by sheer unnecessary scale when the parents finally died and the house had to be cleared. One adult DC described their silent rage when their hoarding parent said jollity, “All this will be for you to sort out one day!”

It slightly worries me as DP is a worse hoarder than I am and quite a lot older.

Ironically, one element of his cluttering is the sad thing mentioned a few times on this thread: the poor abandoned photo album. DP can never bear to see them in charity shops, next destination the skip, so he takes them home reckoning he’s going to track down an unknown complete stranger’s relatives...

Local libraries would probably be the least worst place for photograph albums. I can't see the idea catching on though.