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.

Booked viewing, but was informed the owner did the viewings with no estate agent. Knocked on the door 3 times, then a woman opened the window and shouted at us, asking who we were. Told her we were there for a viewing, she said we were too early. Eventually she let us in and showed us around. The house was so ostentatious! Yes, it could have been toned down but would have taken a lot of money to do it. We didn't buy it.

The house looked like the people living in it had just popped out....nothing was tidied away and we felt like we were intruding. Turns out his wife had left him and he was selling very reluctantly!!

Middle of the day viewing, all curtains shut, each bedroom had people asleep in. Cooker had been pulled away from the wall for some reason and the wall behind it was thick with grease. The occupants cooked strong smelling food and the place absolutely stank to the point that our clothes reeked until we got home and chucked them in the wash.

Estate agent after a viewing: What did you think of the house?
Us: There was an enormous patch of damp on the bedroom ceiling.
Estate agent, disappointedly: Oh, you noticed that?

Those agents got fed up when they didn't have what we wanted, & suggested we buy a semi instead of the detached house we needed, because we could just move again when we found the right detached house. Err...

They also said, "What do you want a detached house FOR?" A friend suggested we should've replied, "About £50 grand." (It was a long time ago!)

I’ve been musing about moving house- this thread has put me off that idea completely

BiscuitsWithEverythingPlease wins. A dead body laid out in the bedroom

Shower that was in the hallway - as in, you opened the transparent glass door in the hallway to step directly into the shower.

We finally found a place we liked & via the agent we put in an offer of a few thou below the asking price. Agent said the little old lady selling the house had refused our offer & said she wanted the full asking price. Fair enough, so we offered the full asking price & she turned us down again & said she wanted more.

At that point we reluctantly backed out, not on financial grounds but because we had to assume she was off her rocker. Even the agent was embarrassed by his vendor.

AudacityofHope I am so glad you posted...I always think of the life size clowns anytime someone mentions house viewings! 😂

Agent showed us round a newbuild that was being finished off. We all walked into the bathroom to find the brand new toilet full of unflushed urine.

Until the landlord lifted up one of the Formica countertops to reveal the bath

I've heard of these!

Great thread btw

Haha @sweetbabycheezits we are actually just about to start looking again, and if any clowns appear I'll poop my pants!

We viewed a house described as having an en suite . There was a toilet plumbed in by one wall and a kitchen sink unit next to it. There were no screens or walls just what I have described in the main bedroom. There was also a cat flap in the door to the bedroom but that didn’t matter so much.

When we were house hunting to buy, we viewed a house that was shown to us by a lady who, half way through, explained that it had recently had a bedroom, the staircase and the kitchen redecorated, along with the bedroom and staircase carpet being replaced, because her sister who had owned the house had been beaten and stabbed to death by her husband in the bedroom, who had then dragged the body down the stairs, through the kitchen and into the cellar, where she was discovered a couple of weeks later..
She went on to joke that there might be a chalk outline of her body on the floorboards underneath the carpet!! That was um....interesting.

Later we viewed another house that was effectively upside down. It was a terraced house with an attic conversion.
The attic became the kitchen, the bedrooms on the floor beneath became the lounge and dining room, the lounge and kitchen on the ground floor became 3 bedrooms and the cellar became a bathroom.
Which is fine till you're in the kitchen and you have to go down 3 flights of stairs to get to the loo or 2 flights if you're in the lounge or dining room. Very strange.

Third one we viewed was an elderly couple whose middle aged son lived with them. Nice enough people, offered a cup of tea etc, but......they were showing us around and in each room the lady would point out it's failings, such as..The boiler is in this cupboard, but its knackered now and needs replacing. This is the bathroom but it needs ripping out and starting again, all this kind of stuff.
We could barely contain our giggles. Particularly at the end when her husband said. 'So do you want it then? When do you want to move in? We can move out as soon as you're ready, just say the word'. Needless to say, the word was NO.

I’m an Estate Agent a nice one I promise don’t flame me 15 years on the job, ye gads, the sights I’ve seen

An empty house which had a properly creepy feel to it. Two of the younger members of staff had refused to go again so I volunteered for the viewing to take place at 6pm, just as dusk was falling. The electrics were off (we knew and viewers knew) so we were keen to get round before full dark and started upstairs. I swung open the master bedroom door, torch in hand, to reveal a large collection of false legs. Like 50 odd. Just strewn about. Turns out my colleagues hadn’t actually had to show anyone upstairs before as previous viewers had got a bad feeling when they walked through the door.

I have too many stories about the disgusting way some people live. I’ve done viewings where I’ve stood outside offering antibacterial handgel and wipes for shoes. One house had orange gunge an inch thick over everything from previous occupant sitting smoking in the same chair for about 50 years. I’ve been through my fair share of rotten floors and I don’t think the stench of the house of 40 cats will ever leave me, nor will the sight of some bizarre satanic ritual type thing just casually laid out in the spare room of an otherwise normal semi on a modern estate.

I’ve disturbed people in the shower, people having sex, a student house with about 15 comatose bodies lying about; I’ve been chased down a drive with a knife (divorce), nearly eaten by a Dalmatian and a revolting slimy tosser put his hand on my knee in a very isolated, old gloomy house and I was absolutely petrified I wouldn’t get out.

When I was valuing I also saw a lot of unusual people and places. Lots and lots of breakups where one party (usually the one still living there) didn’t want to sell so was actively trying to sabotage sale with filthy house etc. I’ve had to tactfully phrase a lot of things like “a bit of a tidy up, perhaps, prior to marketing?” What I actually mean - get the napalm out.

Nowt as strange - or as utterly fascinating - as other people’s houses!!

I've viewed a lot of "interesting" places but the worst one was very memorable. Big house in a nice (slightly bohemian) area, reasonably priced as needed a bit of work, which is on paper what we were after.

Stench of cat piss hits you as you go in, absolutely stank. Estate agent was about 17 and was clearly not relishing having this viewing. Owner was an older lady who followed us round, there were about 50 cats, no exaggeration ,as she did a lot of cat shows apparently. Lots in cages all around the house.
House mostly in really bad state of repair, room with ceiling fallen in, she comments enthusiastically 'just needs a lick of paint!'

Lots of stuff belonging to further partner who the woman said wasn't with us any more (we later find out he's gone to prison for paedophilia).

Could probably have been a nice house with a lot of work but honestly i was still smelling cat piss hours later like it was stuck in my nose.

@CookieBlue I need to hear more about this living room pond! How, what, why?!

I’m loving this thread.

And to answer an earlier poster, this is exactly the kind of the the Fail like to lift and print.

‘Mothers reveal the shocking things they have seen when house hunting’.

@SecretEstateAgent oooh wonder if the house of 40 cats was this one? crusty bohemian area?

I think bereavements were the worst because quite often I felt the bereaved spouse or family member just wasn’t ready to sell and was only doing so because of family pressure. Usually elderly folk whose children wanted them to move somewhere more practical but in some cases we’d have adult children arranging valuations just a week or so after someone had died. Not for probate, often just because they wanted it sold ASAP and mum or dad moved to where they were told to go. I used to make everyone apart from the elderly lady or gent leave the room and then I’d try to find out if they actually wanted to move and if not, try and give a bit of support if I could so they could have that conversation with the family. Just broke my heart watching people crumple at the thought of leaving a much-loved home with all the memories it held. Not something I ever wanted to be involved in, some people are disgustingly entitled and feel that because one of their parents has died the other ought to up sticks and share out the money from the house sale.

(Sorry. Rant alert )

We viewed a house that looked liked someone had just popped out. Tights hung up to dry in the bathroom
Kitchen table set for a meal
House was very dated and cluttered. EA would only tell us that the person who lived there had 'gone now' It had a seriously weird feeling to it.
We viewed a flat for rental purposes. EA opened the fridge door to show a frying pan half full of food. There was thick skids up the toilet pan and shit on the carpet. He opened the bathroom cabinet to reveal a great clump of black hair sitting on the shelf. There was a pop-on turban on the bed post and manky underpants hanging on door handles.

Ha lunchable quite possibly!! I’ve also sold a house with a pond in the floor so perhaps it’s more common than we think?!

Come on, own up, which of you has 50 cats and a living room pond so they can help themselves to a nice fishy snack?

There's was one memorable one where the beds weren't made, tissues all over the floor and the toilet was filthy, owner came in and was very rude to us and the estate agent. A couple of hours later got a call apologising from the estate agent with an explanation, it was a court ordered sale for a divorcing couple and the wife was trying to put buyers off!

We had the budget to buy a 3-bed terrace in an "up and coming" area of SW London. While driving us around to a few viewings, the EA informed us there was a 5-bed semi in our search area going for the same price and insisted he show us around.

When we got to the house, it became clear why it had been listed at a bargain price. Not only was the house in a terrible state of disrepair (and we definitely did not have a spare £200k to correct it), but it was almost impossible to view...

According to the EA, the house belonged to a 60-something couple, with four grown-up sons, who were looking to downsize. The father was clearly conscious of the electricity bill and followed us around so as to switch the lights on and off as we moved from room to room. None of the sons (who all still lived at home) would open their bedroom doors to either the EA or their own dad when knocked upon, so we couldn't look at four out of the five bedrooms. The mother, a very sweet lady, had been taking a nap in the final, master bedroom, but insisted we come in to take a look and would not hear no. So we both tried to find nice things to say about her room as she watched us from under the covers.

Definitely one to remember!

We viewed a house that stunk of cat wee. When the owner opened the garage the cat was in there and it escaped into the house. He caught it and carried it back, and it was pissing as he carried it. He didn’t seem to notice the trail of urine. I’ve often thought back and hoped the cat wasn’t afraid or kept in there all the time.

The house we eventually bought was worse though. Thousands of flies breeding in puddles of water, dead mice, graffiti everywhere, and DH fell through the rotten floorboards. We got it dirt cheap because of the state it was in.