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.

I attended a repossession and they’d absolutely trashed it. EVERYTHING gone, including copper piping under floors, radiators, light switches, skirting boards. Shit smeared on the walls and overflowing bathroom bin with used sanpro, plus a fridge which was absolutely crawling with mould and maggots . The one and only time I’ve been sick at work

When I was a student I viewed a student "house" that was a (barely) converted grocery shop. One of the bedrooms basically had a glass wall that consisted of the shop front window. It had a net curtain for privacy, but the bed could only fit in the room if it was up against that "wall", which was just a sheet of glass, with a busy street pavement just the other side.

The middle bit of the shop had been turned into a kitchen with a microwave and oven fitted, but other than that it still resembled an empty grocery store with shop fridges and freezers lining the walls, shop shelving, etc (all of which was pretty grubby). It was hideous and at one point I wondered if we'd leave the building alive.

Ground floor flat right by the front door to the whole block. That put me off because it couldn't be changed.

The rest of the flat The kitchen was covered in mouldy grease with 60s style cupboards. The flat stank of neglect and hoarding. Vile vile vile.

Brilliant location and if another in that block had come up I would have snapped it up but (not envy)

I am not overly houseproud but some people do live in a mess.
During one viewing I walked in to one bedroom and stood on the sellers dirty knickers by the door.
In another the seller had a neighbour round in her dressing gown and they were all sat around the table smoking.

The house we viewed which was quite overpriced. Turns out it was overpriced because the owner had taken the EA valuation and then gone round and totted up what she'd spent over the years on decor etc., and added that amount on top. I know this because she followed us round from room to room armed with a notepad, where she'd itemised everything that she had done and how much it had cost. As in "that staircase cost 10 grand"!

The house that we saw which was a probate sale. The EA was chirpily trying to hand us a 'make an offer' form to fill out. When asked why I'd declined, I explained that there structural crack on the load-bearing wall in one of the bedrooms that was big enough to fit my fist into. Her response was "But it's just been re-wired!".

The couple whose - perfectly nice - house we offered FAP on. Only to be told by their rather embarrassed EA that they wanted a further payment of 5 grand to move out of the house that we were buying from them. Needless to say that one went nowhere.

The house which looked lovely from photos and was almost derelict when we saw it in person. God only knows when the photos were taken - or even if they were of that property. It was properly uninhabitable - no toilet, wiring was horrendous, damp everywhere. I did seriously toy with it as it would have been great once done and I love the location, but I didn't fancy living in a caravan on the driveway for 18 months.

The house that we went to see which had a gorgeous and huge garden. Got there to find that the garden had been sold off and other houses built on it - the photos of the outside were a decade old. The EA wasn't even apologetic about it!

The house where the current owner was still decorating when we came to view. He'd bought it to renovate and flip, but was shit at DIY. Paint splashed everywhere, door hinges and windows painted shut, wonky worktops with exposed edges. Very aggressive when I asked if I could open a cupboard and upon doing so, when loads of gooey half dry paint started oozing out of the hinge.

The house where the owner had renovated it and put an en-suite in the master bedroom. The pindrop moment when we pointed out to the EA that it was now too small for a double bed.

House backed onto a pub garden. I told the estate agent that I hadn’t realised just how close it was (pre google maps and paper details didn’t mention it). I said I wasn’t interested in living next to a pub but the agent was sarcastic telling me it was an “award winning destination restaurant and bar” and so I looked around suitably chastised.

Whilst in the bedrooms on the side of the house that bordered the pub, a fight broke out and there was much f’ing and c’ing. It was LOUD and accompanied by chants of “fight fight fight”. I told the agent that it wasn’t my type of award winning restaurant and left. On the way out we heard glass being smashed and a woman screaming.

We didn’t get an apology from the agent!

My landlord was selling my rented flat and arranged a viewing at 3pm on Saturday. I was out shopping, came home assuming they’d been and gone, and started to get ready for a night out. I was buck naked when the landlord let himself in with a couple to view the flat. Apparently they’d asked to move the viewing to 5pm and it hadn’t occurred to the landlord to inform me.

At the time I was a slim sexy 23yo with perky breasts. The male half of the viewing couple looked like all his birthdays had come at once. The female was briefly mortified then extremely angry at her partner’s open mouthed expression of joy. The landlord looked shocked and said “You said you’d be out?” And I, with the confidence of a hot 23yo, just stood there brazenly naked and berated him for not sticking to the appointed time

A good few years ago went to view a terrace, all good until we went upstairs. The seller lived next door and had put in a door at the top of the stairs into his own house. It was also a half glass one ! The EA confirmed the owner would put up a curtain on his side
Funnily we didn't feel the need to see any more of the house.

I viewed a flat with less bedrooms than advertised. When I questioned this, the agent said I could put a sofa and TV in the kitchen, freeing up the lounge to use as a bedroom.

@Blackcedar

Dread to think what the gf liked if room to room bondage was boring.

I stood in the front garden. The front door opened directly into the living room, which had been knocked into the dining room, which had been knocked into the kitchen, beyond which was the downstairs loo.
The bathroom door was open.
Did not need to cross the threshold to know that this was not the house for me

We viewed a house a few years ago full of motorbikes and cars. I mean FULL - there was a bike in every single room. There were two cars in the dining room (he’d driven them in through the french windows) and both the house and garden were overflowing with parts. There was oil everywhere, the floorboards were soaked!

Came out with a bad headache.

My dad replaced all the floors when we bought it!

I viewed a house once which was beyond filthy, including used tissue and toilet paper everywhere. The owners had moved abroad, and were renting to tenants who didn't want to move out.

Other than that, doggy smelling houses and smokers places.

I went to see a house once, years ago. It was being sold as the couple who owned it were divorcing and the woman who was still living there really seemed like she didn't want to sell it. It was filthy and she was so surly with the estate agent and me. I wonder what happened to that house actually.

Looking with my daughter and partner for a chin uresnable house to buy. One that needed decorating but not rebuilding.

House 1. Quite nice but the bullet hole in the window was a little off putting.

House 2. A bit run down externally but okish. Ex-rental house. Went inside..... lots of heavy duty shackles(for padlocks) on every internal door - seemed a bit odd. External patio door had been bent open at one point then bent shut. Then looked up - huge holes in the ceilings in upstairs rooms. Open to the loft. The estate agent quiet/couldn’t explain. Ex cannabis farm. We made our excuses. We were a bit concerned about ‘friends’ of the former occupants returning etc.

House 3 another cannabis farm. There seem to be quite a few in N Manchester.

House 4 looked really nice, put offer in, accepted. Then the survey...... aspestos, garage collapsing along with banking. Left that one.

After 30 years as an estate agent and having done thousands and thousands of valuations and viewings in all different types of areas I can say categorically that the majority of houses are dirty. Some are absolutely filthy and the rest are just dirty. Often the downstairs is OKish but once upstairs away from the public rooms they are disgusting.

On repossessions, I was valuing a house for a building society that had been completely stripped e.g. kitchen cupboards, radiators etc. I walked over a small rug on the kitchen floor and fell through the floorboards to the cellar. They had deliberately cut a hole in them and set a trap with the rug.

On another occasion I turned up to do a repossession valuation with a very abusive man still in occupation. He had a fire burning on the dining room floor and was axing everything in sight. The house I could see had once been lovely. He told me he had put a lot of work into the house but his wife had left him for another man. He was determined to reduce the house to the value of the mortgage so she would get nothing.

I viewed a room to rent quite a few years ago. The guy who owned the house was really creepy. He showed me round, told me about his other lodger then sat me down in “his office” (his bedroom) and told me that the police would need to speak to me before I could move in as he had previously been mentally ill and had committed a crime, and was therefore not allowed to live with a woman without disclosing what he had done.

I couldn’t get out of there quick enough. Changed my number and rented my own flat instead of sharing.

My worst was the Bird House. The elderly lady who had lived in had recently passed away, and her children were selling the house. The estate agent didn't do the viewing, but told us one of the vendors would show us around.

The first thing to hit was the smell. Pungeant? I couldn't tell what it was, until I saw the birds... There were several large parrots of some kind, who turned out to be very very loud, and very very smelly. Whoever was looking after them and their cages was not doing a great job, I assume. The smell was so strong, and there was bird poo all over the main living room.

It turned out the person showing us around was actually living in the house, but in secret from their siblings. He only seemed to be using the "bird room", where he had a sleeping bag set up on the sofa. He seemed very bitter that his siblings were pushing for a sale, rather than just giving him the house. We got the whole sorry tale while awkwardly trying to look around.

The whole place was so depressing. They had clearly not really tidied and emptied after the death of their mother. All her stuff and furniture were still there, but very dusty, like none of it had been touched in ages. I was getting asthma symptoms, and it was all so awkward, we left pretty fast. I felt like the smell clung to my clothes afterwards, until I washed everything.

As a house it was actually pretty nice. Someone must have bought it, because we moved near it, and it now looks perfectly well kept.

The house that had a literal sewage works at the end of the garden.

The house where DH had a proper argument with the estate agent over whether a tiny bedroom could fit a double bed or not. DH said no, estate agent said you could if you decided whether you wanted the door open or closed before you put the bed up. I just stood there with my mouth open.

The last time we were looking we found a five bedroom semi that seemed realistically priced for the area. Two of the bedrooms didn't have ceilings or plastered walls, and they had tried to squeeze two bedrooms into the loft space. One of these bedrooms could fit a single bed and nothing else. They had put in a velux window rather than a dormer window so the pitch of the roof meant that the only head room was a foot wide strip above the bed. The occupant had filled the remaining floor space with laundry including piles of dirty pants and used sanitary towels. It took months for them to sell in the end and it was for £100k less than they wanted when we viewed it.

One house we viewed came with a longhaired, incontinent and blind cat. The owners didn't want to take it with them because he knew the area around the house very well, there was very little traffic etc. Cat was nice enough but you could smell that he was incontinent from the moment you walked through the front door.

My favourite was the one that was lovely inside, almost perfect. Then we went into the garden. The first bit was lovely, decking and paving, but the rest of the garden was a large grassy slope that was so steep that the moment I put my foot on the wet grass I slid ungracefully on my arse all the way to the bottom. The washing line was at the bottom and I had no idea how the owner managed it without mountaineering equipment. All the other houses in the row had their gardens nicely stepped, but this house couldn't because of a huge tree half way down the garden.

This thread is hilarious and traumatizing in equal measure!

One garden had all light blocked out by massive trees st the back. EA cheerily said “At least you won’t get sunburn haha!

Another house (opposite the one we ended up buying) had a massive water mark on the kitchen ceiling, no cooker or appliances in the kitchen, concrete back garden, and we couldn’t view 2 of the 4 bedrooms or the bathroom because there were people in them. To be fair, by that point we just wanted to get out as quickly as we could...

I lived in a rental flat and was moving shortly, EA had a habit of giving little to no notice of viewings for potential new tenants as their premises was just across the road. One day they called after I’d finished work, could they bring someone round to view I 10 minutes? I said yes but not to expect me to vacate the flat.

So there I was, an 8 and a half month pregnant blob in my pyjamas on the sofa watching Judge Judy while this poor couple were shown round. Glad I was there though as the EA was cheerfully telling them all the furniture was included, cue me shouting “No it bloody isn’t that my furniture!” from my pit.

I gave birth less than a week later, I had The Arse something chronic...

My experience pales into insignificance compared to some on here!

We visited a lovely house a few years back, but they'd clearly had lots of fish for dinner immediately before we came. The whole house stank, and we couldn't wait to get out of there! And yes, the time had been booked in advance.

I turned up ten mins early for a viewing once. As I knocked on the door the owner flew out shouting abuse at me for being late! Turns out the previous person who should have been there 30 mins earlier was a dna.

Then as I walked in the cat did the smelliest shit ever in a litter tray in the middle of the dining room. Stank the downstairs out and i was trying not to retch for the whole viewing.

I took my mum with me to view a bungalow to exchange my council house for, every room was piled floor to ceiling with stuff & the woman had loads of cats, there were litter trays full of cat shit in every room. We couldn't get out fast enough.