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.

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

@Halloumimuffin, that wasn't a flat in Willesden Green by any chance, was it?

There was one I went to look at, which we knew needed modernising but it was dirty cheap. The estate agent declined to come in with us, which I thought was odd but thought ok no pressure etc. It was cold in atmosphere when we went it but figured it was just because it hadn't been lived in for a while. Until we went in one sitting room.

It was like being doused in ice cold water and there was a definite feeling of being unwelcome. I couldn't get out of there fast enough! The estate agent saw our faces and apologised for not warning us. Apparently everyone who went to see it felt the same presence.

One place we looked at had huge soft focus topless photos of the owner
One must have been more than 3 feet diameter, her straddling a motorbike.

Went to one and the teenager was in bed. They refused to let us see the groom and when the agent asked for feedback I explained we liked the house but obviously couldn’t see one if the rooms so wouldn’t be going any further- he tried to convince me to put an offer in without seeing it!

Late 90's looking to buy 1st house, EA convinced us one Sat morning to view a house in need of 'some' repair with 'bags' of potential! The sitting room was dimly lit as curtains were half closed with a stench of alcohol and weed, then to greet us was a young couple sleeping in a drunken stupor on cushions on the floor with him snoring and farting every 2 seconds and her clutching an empty bottle of something or other. It was a shared house and we kept tripping over empty cans and pizza boxes. The house was filthy with years of dirt and grime everywhere, the stairs had wood worm and looked on brink of collapse, the boiler was so old fashioned that it had to be lit with a match, mice running all over the kitchen units and then the piece de resistance was an old crashed rusty car which was upside down in the back garden though EA pointed out the advantage of there being direct access to the large garden and room for parking too! Oh, and it needed the little purchase of a new roof too! Needless to say we declined making an offer on that one!

”One with a huge six-foot cross above the bed. Crosses were a bit of a thing as another friend bought a house with literally hundreds of metal decorative crosses on the walls all over the house. She was finding them for weeks as they were even hung inside cupboards.”

It wasn’t on a Hellmouth, was it, @SnapCrackleFarted? Severe vampire infestation?

In Plymouth in 1991 I viewed a property that was up for rent. It had wallpaper peeling off the walls in great strips and was in a filthy and unkempt state.

Fair enough to sell a property like that - but to even try and rent it out? What were the owners and, more importantly, what were the letting agents even thinking?

The mention of ceilings reminds me of my ex selling his late DM's place - an old semi with a cellar accessed from a door in the kitchen. Even when I used to go the entire cellar ceiling was cracked, so obviously the developer who bought the place would fix it

Out of nosiness he went for a look when it was marketed and found a desperately cheap but on trend refurb. And sure enough the cellar had changed too ... the entire ceiling had fallen in and been left like that

I can only assume the EA dissuaded viewers from opening that particular door

One untouched since possibly the 30s, incl whole kitchen. Garden was an unbroken expanse of 7ft high brambles.

One stank so badly of cat wee it made my eyes water. Was otherwise quite nice, tidy etc.

One was a gorgeous house on the second-poshest street in town, lived in by a chap who looked for all intents and purposes like a street drinker. House was full of beer tins. There was a story I've mostly forgotten, I think he was the brother of the owner, who was in prison in Spain. Our offer (a good offer, more than we paid for our comparable house around the corner) was declined. House bounced on and off the market (apparently it had been offered for sale by someone who turned out not to be the owner), and eventually sold at auction for less than we'd offered, with many of the lovely period features (incl the wonderful original front door with stained glass) removed.

Omg this reminded me of one of mine and now dhs house viewing experiences many years back .

We were on a bit of a right time schedule as our buyer wanted to complete asap so we spent several desperate weekends house viewing. One house we were warned by the EA that the owners were moving out that weekend and did we mind? We said no as long as the owners didnt. So the viewing went ahead.

Turned up and there was a camera crew there filming. Did we mind being filmed viewing the house? Would do the well known tv company and family a favour. Dh virtually ran back to the car but i said i didn't but had to sign a consent form which seemed to take ages. I then viewed the house whilst being filmed (which was tougher than i expected!!) and then had to tour it again with dh who energed from the car once the camera was safely away, all the time the family were moving out.

Didnt really think anymore of it - nice house but wasnt really for us and we ended up buying a house on the other side of town . I did ask what the programme was going to be called but the producer was noncommittal. Forgot all about it.

Then many many months later we were in bed just about to settle down and this programme about people falling on hard times and being repossessed comes on featuring a family from our local area so randomly i kept it on because the lady featured seemed familiar although i couldn't quite place her ...... and then it showed the house and them moving out and suddenly there was my bum heading up the stairs!!!

I have never felt so awful - partly because i hadnt realised they werent selling because they wanted to, more that they had to and partly because it looked like someone had made a ridiculous low cheeky offer they had to turn down but the editing implied subtly that that was us!!!!!

Even more surprising was the number of people i know texting me who recognised me from the very brief back of my head and mainly my bum heading up the stairs on a random programme at 1030 on a monday night

All good tips to put people off the house next door !
Today’s lot parked literally on my front garden and have 2 very noisy excitable boys who sounded like elephants up and down the stairs

Somone got stabbed on a newish estate we had a viewing on pretty grim really

We were the tenants, landlord had decided to sell. Dutifully made sure that the place was kept clean and tidy for viewings, EA on one occasion gave the spare key to the viewers to look around the house while we were out and forgot to tell us about the viewing, we arrived home to find random strangers wandering around our bedrooms. I put my foot down and insisted all future viewings after that be accompanied either by us or by EA.
The twenty mins notice that we had a viewing happened several times. Also the couple that insisted on opening every single cupboard and drawer and complaining that there was stuff in them, (well yes, because the house currently still had tenants living in it, us!), but I drew the line when the man started opening my chest of drawers in the bedroom, as it didn't come with the house, we were taking it, and I informed him that all non-fitted furnishings were ours and would be gone. Fair enough, they wanted to see inside the fitted wardrobes and cupboards to see the size and layout, but rummaging through my underwear drawer in a freestanding chest of drawers is a step too far.

The final straw was the couple who came with two kids in tow, little girl aged about five or six and a little boy toddler perhaps about three. Kids raced upstairs without waiting for the parents who wanted to look downstairs first, straight into my kids bedrooms. Start opening cupboards in my nine year old's bedroom and pulling her stuff out, little boy manages to break an ornament of hers by knocking it down. We catch up with the kids upstairs and the little girl starts pleading with her mum to let her have one of my daughter's toys. Mum tells her to ask me nicely (!) I politely decline with an excuse that it is a favourite of my daughters, little girl goes into full on screaming tantrum. Little boy then runs into my eldest DD's bedroom (teenager), she is sat on her bed listening to music, he starts touching her belongings / picking her stuff up. She tells him (nicely) not to touch her stuff and he starts crying too. The CF couple then leave in a huff because we upset their kids!

After that I told landlord no more viewings until after we moved out.

I wonder how much the owners of these two houses would get with the "power station" in your back yard?, theres 275,000 volts just outside your windows;!

And I bet it hisses and crackles like McBeths witches caludron on a damp night!

goo.gl/maps/xjpmn3ooXcnR84MS6

Fun for the next occupants.

We sub-rented a couple of rooms in a duplex/flat in legoland in Harphurhey.

The main tenant was a slightly deranged French girl who decided to paint the living room like and English cottage. Ie black and white.

The room had pillars which could have looked like the black painted wood on a traditional cottage.

Except that she muddled the black and white up and so we sat in darkness. Black panels and white pillars.

Must have taken ages to sort out properly.

Years later we bought a house, an old people’s house that was closing. We initially viewed it as a going concern. Fine When we’d sold ours we put an offer in. Took ages, months to sort. It had closed and some of the rooms let individually others closed up.

When we moved in it stank a bit of wee. Not strong but omnipresent.

I removed carpets, underlay etc it still stank.

Only sanding and then bleaching the floorboards did the trick.

One we went too was selling as they had split up. It was quite obvious one party didn't want to sell and that a party had gone off the night before. Living room full of empty bottle and cans, kitchen an absolute tip and the bedroom had loads of opened and half eaten tins of cat food in it and bathrooms none were flushed it was on market for 350k!
Another one was a beautiful old house with a middle aged couple packing away boxes while the EA showed us round. Went into the main bedroom and it was just a hospital type bed in middle and all kind of machines around the bed.....the bed still had sheets on and I just felt desperately sad they were showing people round so soon.
I once showed my house to a family that turned up an hour early, I was BF my dd and H not back to show them and the wife proceeded to go through my bookcase selecting books and looking at them, they then offered me asking price in kitchen i said could they speak to EA in morning as they were weirding me out and we never heard from them again! EA didn't either! Weird people!

Way back when I was single and buying a house I found one I loved. The lady selling said she’d be happy to leave me various bits of furniture (very helpful for my situation) so I visited my solicitor and informed my mortgage advisor.

Turned out it wasn’t hers to sell and I was left feeling heartbroken. It was her fathers house that she had been living in. So back to square one of looking at filthy paintwork.

got my foot tangled in a pair of really dirty knickers and fell over
I hope you weren't hurt, but this has me weeping... and shuddering.

My most recent foray into property viewing (for rent)

• houses not ready to be rented imo (like the EA or the Land Lord cares, they won't be paying the rent.)

• the Land Lord who asked me to remove my shoes, it's a cream carpet - on entering his house. Absolutely his right, however, tenants are unlikely to live up to his high standards. I remarked on this to the EA on my feedback survey. Also, by the way, who would be feeding the fish in the fish pond in the back garden ? Are they moving out too ? This got passed on to the Land Lord who sacked the EA. The Landlord seemed to want house sitters who would pay his rent whilst he was, 'away.' It wasn't clear when he was going to vacate. I imagine he wanted to know when the tenants were moving in. I could see a, 'chicken and egg' situation occurring.

• The house viewing had been booked but the stupid LA didn't have the right key and airily remarked, 'you'll have to come back when the tenants are in.' Needless to say, I didn't. The previous house in the same street on with the same LA was empty but there was cardboard over the front of the flame effect gas fire. I remarked on it to the LA. She just started pulling at the cardboard whilst muttering excuses about the previous tenant. (It looked like that in the photos too.)

• Houses that came with their excuses already in-situ. For example: the dilapidated shed that the contractors were coming to collect next week. The garden gate that was broken, but the contractors were coming next week. The house where the bathroom was downstairs in a three bedroom house but there was a tiny toilet ensuite style in one of the bedrooms.

The house that stank of stale cooking oil. It made me wonder if they ate home cooked deep fried food every single day then painted the walls and carpet with old cooking oil. Every.single.day.

The piece de resistance ? A house that was very nice but stank of raw sewage. It stank so badly of raw sewage I started to feel sick. I asked the EA about the smell just for him to respond non-commitally , 'I'll ask the Land Lord.' Did the EA really not notice the smell ? Even if that was sorted, it indicates a problem with the drains IMO. Obviously the EA's attitude was, 'I don't care, I don't live here/won't be living here.'

I went to view a lovely 4 bed newish build with a friend. The lady of the house was lovely and brought us juice, her son did the viewing as his mum spoke little english. I couldn’t put my finger in it but there was an odd oppressive atmosphere inside.

Weeks later the house was in the news the father of the family had attempted to murder the mother and the son had intervened and saved her.

So so sad.

Short version,beautiful photos of a barn conversion to be shown around by the owner.
It looked ok from the outside and downstairs bedrooms were nothing special.Upstairs was a long open room with the kitchen at the far end.The room was a mess but what caught our eye was the blackened mess that used to be a cooker with burn and soot up the wall behind it and the ceiling,some of which had fallen in.The woman explained that her son had small accident last week.
We then went to the adjacent barn,this was large and spacious and used as a toilet by her dogs,she locked them in there when she went away for a few days.I don't think the stench could ever be washed out.
The estate agent seemed surprised we didn't buy but our description explained why other buyers never got back to him.

I hope none of you have used the toilet in any of these houses.
It’s the rudest thing you can do. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3597719-To-request-people-don-t-use-my-toilet-at-house-viewings?pg=1&order=

I looked at one that I didnt really want to after pulling up outside. Front yard full of bits of rusty car and motorbikes etc. Knocked on the door and was let in by a very harried, downtrodden woman. She was not clean and smelled bad. The sitting room was filthy, dirtiest carpet Ive ever seen. There were 2 very dirty toddlers in nothing but very full smelly diapers ( it was January ). They were happy and chatting and following us around while the mother retreated to the kitchen. The bedrooms were full of dirty clothes and broken toys. The realtor tried to show us the basement and a voice screeched from the kitchen, dont go down there its full of fckin water. It was literally 2 foot deep throughout the whole basement.
Another one I saw had such bad subsidence in the dining room the dog, who had obviously been shut in there, couldnt walk up the slope in the wooden floor. That was a great house but top of our price range without the repair bill.
Another had water literally running down the inside of the front wall, like one of those water features. The roof had gone. It didnt have a kitchen either.
Another had a stream, a real honest to goodness stream that ran through the basement. House had actually been built over it. Fish and wildlife, the whole nine yards.
I gave up and stayed put.

Completely blocked out forgot the house where the bloke had moved away and left his cats behind (there was a catflap), and the EA was meant to fill their bowls with dry food whenever there was a viewing. We went for a second viewing and judging from the mess they had recently brought in a live bird and killed and eaten it in the house.