To ask for your worst experiences viewing houses?

[DSHathawayGivesMeFannyGallops]

Please cheer me up! I had the viewing from hell last night; the place was filthy and you could tell the Estate Agent was mortified. Due to other issues, I declined to put in an offer and have other viewings lined up, but I've started to exhaust my area for now and I'm feeling a little jaded.

Please tell me I'm not alone in backing away in horror and tell me all about the worst viewings you've had!

Oh- and I'm not a journo. The Daily Mail can piss off and write their own shitty copy.

One house had pet rats. About 50 in floor to ceiling cages. They stank.
Another asked us to remove our shoes and had photos of them with Guinnea pigs everywhere - like family photos. Giant canvases.

When I was looking to rent somewhere with friends whilst at university we found a beautiful place and were delighted.

It was only at the end of the viewing that the landlord announced that he would need to "occasionally sleep on the sofa"

A huge dog poo in the middle of the floor and everything everything had been taken, lights ripped off the walls, carpet ripped up, the only thing left in the room was the massive smelly dog poo.

EA too was mortified and sheepishly asked if I wanted to look at the upstairs.... wasn't surprised when I said I would decline!

I have looked at some ‘complete renovation required’ houses which were interesting but you knew that was what you were going to see (collapsed floors, old coppers in the bathroom, previous owner lived in one room, etc). But was annoyed to look at one house where according to the schedule the work had already been done only to arrive and find the house still in the ‘bare brickwork’ stage and the owner had run out of money.

At the other extreme was a house with a brand new white(!!) carpet throughout the downstairs (which were firmly instructed to take shoes off) and very tidy; minimalist furnishing/no clutter. However we weren’t allowed to look in storage cupboards and she refused to show us the garage.

One where they were growing weed in one of the bedrooms was funny.
Another one which we eventually ended up buying was so messy, I was walking in a bedroom and got my foot tangled in a pair of really dirty knickers and fell over.

Went to view one place and the EA forgot the key (after much 'pretending' that he had it somewhere). He told us to look through the letterbox

Recently went to one where the EA was just plain rude. Rushed me round the place and then told me I'd wasted her time at the end as I didn't have a buyer for my flat yet (they knew this info before I booked the appt). She also didn't know the answer to any of my questions because 'it's bot my house!' Annoyingly the house was gorgeous but I am stubborn so didn't put in an offer!

This is a fab thread.

Saw a 4 bed house advertised and we were a little confused as to how they had achieved this given the layout was almost identical to our current home.
Got to the viewing and the EA described it as '3 beds and a cot room'. What they had actually done was knocked out the airing cupboard and the built in wardrobes in one room to form a corridor the width of a cot with no window and no lighting. It was essentially a small prison. I felt desperately sorry for the child living in it.

Broken glass bottles cemented in to the top of a 5ft wall. The estate agent rang to ask why we didn't keep our appointment. Erm - we did, we were there and just decided not to proceed further.

Years ago we looked at a house and when we got the shed the estate agent opened it up and there were rats running across the floor.

The shed was right beside the house.

The house itself was a stinky dump of a house..... we didn't do a second viewing

I viewed about 3 houses where the female half of a partnership had left many years ago and the male left in the home had literally done nothing since. They were filthy but one of them bizarelly had a walk in wardrobe of his ex clothes from 25 years ago all dusty and visible from his room. I thought perhaps she had died and he just couldnt bear to part but he said something about she will have to collect them from me if i buy the place as they dont talk.

After people saying about bolts on the door we have bolts on the outside of the dc bedroom door. Not to keep them in May of been tempted but to keep the cats out.
I dread the next people who move in thinking I've locked my dc in their bedrooms.

Pangalactic 😁😁😁😁😁

When we were first time buyers, we went to view a flat one Saturday morning. Woman answered the door to us and agent and left us to it. We entered the bedroom to find an half dressed man sat on side of the bed with a used condom in the middle of the floor

Oh god I've seen many awful places when house hunting. It always blows my mind the lack of effort some people make when putting their houses on the market. So aside from over cluttered, dirty places of which I've seen many a few stand out.

One place where there were stinking black sacks of rubbish piled by the front door and a cellar covered in rat traps.

One beautiful Victorian house covered in swirly pub style carpet, crowned with cat shit from freshly laid to various stages of decomposition and mould. Also had vicious barking dogs in the back garden that scared the vejesus out of my toddler.

One where the wife had walked out several years previously and the husband and teenage son lived there with two Alsatians. House filthy - could be dealt with. Stench of dog, I had to leave before I heaved all over the floor. Estate agent asked why I walked out without looking upstairs and when I mentioned the overpowering smell he said he didn't notice!

Viewed a 2 bed link house, only to find next door had been gutted by fire which had also caused a lot of exterior damage to the rear of the one for sale

Curiously, the owner chattered about how it "won't cost much" to fix (it would actually have been thousands). I thought I'd misunderstood, but no - she really did expect the buyers to sort out the repairs once they'd bought it

We viewed a house with fitted wardrobes in every bedroom, except they were home made and rickety beyond belief. Crooked, leaning, doors hanging off... just awful. And there was a bathroom suite lying in the master bedroom. The EA explained that the vendor enjoyed DIY but had decided against fitting the new bathroom because he wanted to concentrate his efforts on his new house. But they were going to leave the bathroom for the buyers. How generous

We also viewed a flat on a Saturday morning. EA knocked... no answer. Let us in only to find the place dark and the owner’s teenage/adult son asleep in bed. He’d obviously been on one the night before because there were beer cans strewn over the place and Doritos crunched into the carpet.

Turned a bend and a huge, ugly abomination of a water tower loomed into view.

Wasnt this one at all?

goo.gl/maps/jWN73narRn2UmPhG8

Wow, and I who was upset at the EA showing us several 3 bedroom houses, where you could hardly even ram a cot into the so-called third bedroom. Another house had neither lounge nor dining room. "You can just use one of the bedrooms". But then there would only be two bedrooms.

My parents were moving to the other end of the country and didn’t know the area well. They had booked viewings at various houses. One of the houses looked fab from the details they were sent in the post but when they turned up to view it, the house was next to an enormous water tower which the agent hadn’t mentioned!

Mentioned this before on here, but the house with the full size clowns in it was, er, memorable.

Two lifesize clowns 'sitting' at the dining table, places set for them and everything. Another two lying on the bed in the spare room. One sitting in front of a mirror.

I swear to god I thought we were going to be killed and stuffed into clown suits.

We didn’t have too many bad ones really but the worst was an elderly couple with Doberman’s that insitsted on following us around (the couple and the dog). I’m not a dog person but growling Doberman’s scared me because of their size. The estate agent could tell we wanted to cut short the visit but the couple kept asking whether we liked it and liked their lovely dogs etc. It was really awkward and the estate agent apologised and said he’d been encouraging them to leave (with the dogs) for viewings but they had refused. I often wonder if they managed to sell.

We went to an open day to view a house, so the owners knew lots of people would be looking around that day......

The house stank of cat piss, but the house itself was promising. There were massive 80s soft focus portrait photos of the (straight) middle aged couple who owned it everywhere. Much was made of one of the bedrooms having a sea view from the window, so when we got to the bedroom we of course went to look out..... stacked on top of the dresser, at exactly eye level of anyone looking out of the window, was a lovely display of hardcore gay porn DVDs. The two that spring to mind were “Anal Pain”, and “Boarding School Rugger Buggered”. We didn’t by the house due to the cat piss smell, but we bought one very nearby and 4 years later, still giggle like loons every time we walk past....

I went to look round a 3 bed bungalow and the owner was doing the viewing, not the agent. I knocked on the door and a very harassed woman answered the door. She said she was busy so could I have a look round on my own? I started to do so and there was an extremely large elderly lady in bed in the main bedroom. The room stank and was filthy, with a full commode by the bed. This poor woman, who I presume had dementia, started shouting when she saw me, quite understandable really, as an unaccompanied stranger had just walked into her room. I backed out, but the other woman (daughter?) just ignored this poor lady ("who's that? What's she doing in my house? Help, we're being burgled!). I felt so uncomfortable and wondered if it was being sold to pay for care. The whole place was in a terrible state. I left sharpish.
Not bad viewings, but I have abandoned a few where the agent has no further information other than what's available on the details. Unable to tell you where the boundary is on an unfenced and overgrown garden for example. Some of them do very little to earn their commission, and don't seem embarrassed by their poor selling skills.

Years ago we were looking to buy a Post Office/General store type business. We viewed one in a beautiful village which had the PO and a sandwich shop. Shop was lovely and well fitted. Accommodation had dog shit everywhere, on the stairs, in the kitchen - took me years before I bought a sandwich anywhere.

I often wonder if they sold it. Or if they still sell sandwiches.