Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Would you buy a house that somebody had been murdered in?

363 replies

lucy889 · 10/03/2025 14:18

Around 12 years ago, an awful murder involving a child and parent happened a few miles from our house, it was such a shock and the house has been empty ever since.

It's now on the market, I personally could never buy it or live there and I feel sad every time I drive by.

Would you buy it given the history if it was perfect for you?

OP posts:
BorntoDillyDally · 10/03/2025 15:20

When I was a child our dinner lady was murdered by her husband. I often walk passed that house and wonder if the owners know what happened in their home all those years ago.
I could never feel happy there.
My friend lives in a house where a lady took her own life, he says it doesn't bother him but I feel the house has an uneasy vibe to it, couldn't live there either.

KezzaMucklowe · 10/03/2025 15:20

The only issue I would have is reselling.
So it would have to be at a price that would reflect the issues others might have with it - evident in this thread. So that I wouldn't make a loss when / if selling.
Other than that it really wouldn't be a problem for me.

PassingStranger · 10/03/2025 15:20

Some buildings have been bulldozed where children have been murdered. April Jones killers house was one.
Also Ian Huntleys house. They have gone.

PenguinLover24 · 10/03/2025 15:21

Hope you don't mind my comment OP but this has got me thinking 🤔 a family member is due to inherit a house where there was a suicide and they're planning on selling it .. would this put people off?

As for me I don't think it would bother me but not 100% sure as I go off of feelings in places 🤣

StCatsDay · 10/03/2025 15:21

Yes if I was planning on staying there forever - I live opposite a house where a mother, child and mother in law were murdered, It sold for about 60 thousand less than the other houses on this street.

KittenPause · 10/03/2025 15:22

I honestly don't know

I'd have to go inside and see what vibes it gives off to me

oakleaffy · 10/03/2025 15:22

LurcherMumma · 10/03/2025 15:17

There is a part of me that thinks if the house was on sale for a while and I was getting it cheaper then it's a great opportunity.

But in reality I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about what happened there .

Exactly.. dogs especially- we had a couple of dogs in our old house {where there had been the suicide in the 1950's of the bereft woman} but our Lurcher and Whippet used to sleep on the sofa in that room all the time.

Dogs and cats sense if there are bad vibes.

Elderflower14 · 10/03/2025 15:22

We moved into our house and a man delighted in telling me that someone had hung themselves in the house. I had to stop DH going round and giving the man an earful..

Poppymeldrum · 10/03/2025 15:24

At the risk of sounding woo,if it came to it,I'd have to have a look around the house and feel the energy

When I first walked into the house I live in now,I walked in and knew I'd be living here for the rest of my life-I felt like my home

It's history is built in the late 50's,a couple lived here,she died,then he died,he left it to his granddaughter who brought up 3 dc and then sold it to us

I have no idea if anyone has died here and it wouldn't bother me if they had

I know a young lad who murdered his mother's boyfriend in his flat-battered the poor bloke to death with a hammer (he wanted to 'get his own back' on his shitty mother and the boyfriend copped it)

A friend of my brothers lives there now and isn't fazed at all,even knowing the history

Another one is my elderly great aunt lived in a 1st floor flat and the bloke who lived underneath was murdered in his flat and they propped him up on his sofa

He wasn't found for almost 4 months and was In a bit of a state when they did find him (the cat had eaten most of him)

I went on a date with a bloke who happened to live in that exact flat (years and years later)

Didn't bother him-he had his sofa in the same place the bloke had his and used to watch TV,sat in the 'fingerprint' of where the poor old man died

WithASpider · 10/03/2025 15:24

I'm not sure I would, depends on the price really.

There's a house near me where a murder happened a few years ago. The part of the house where it happened was pulled down and is being rebuilt, the murderer is in Jail.

It's a nice house and will sell fairly easily, probably to someone from out of the area though!

oakleaffy · 10/03/2025 15:25

Elderflower14 · 10/03/2025 15:22

We moved into our house and a man delighted in telling me that someone had hung themselves in the house. I had to stop DH going round and giving the man an earful..

This is EXACTLY what was said to us! A gossipy old woman said ''you do know someone committed suicide in that house, don't you!''

I don't know how she died , but I wanted to sell up ASAP {but didn't!}

GiddyRobin · 10/03/2025 15:26

Yep, it wouldn't bother me. A murder is terrible but there's probably all sorts of other terrible things gone on in houses, too. Rape, domestic violence, CSA, to name a few. Murder is just the most obvious one because it's been drawn into the public eye.

It's just a house. People die in houses all of the time through old age, illness, suicide. The only thing that might put me off would be re-selling, but I'm sure there'd be plenty of buyers like me who wouldn't care.

oakleaffy · 10/03/2025 15:27

PassingStranger · 10/03/2025 15:20

Some buildings have been bulldozed where children have been murdered. April Jones killers house was one.
Also Ian Huntleys house. They have gone.

Plus Cromwell Street.

Cara707 · 10/03/2025 15:27

I wouldn't, no. Like Fargo79 though, it's not because of any superstitious stuff ,I would just keep imagining it happening in the room that it happened in and have nightmares.

IVbumble · 10/03/2025 15:28

I knew someone who wouldn't buy a house because their dog wouldn't go through the front door when they viewed.

oakleaffy · 10/03/2025 15:29

Poppymeldrum · 10/03/2025 15:24

At the risk of sounding woo,if it came to it,I'd have to have a look around the house and feel the energy

When I first walked into the house I live in now,I walked in and knew I'd be living here for the rest of my life-I felt like my home

It's history is built in the late 50's,a couple lived here,she died,then he died,he left it to his granddaughter who brought up 3 dc and then sold it to us

I have no idea if anyone has died here and it wouldn't bother me if they had

I know a young lad who murdered his mother's boyfriend in his flat-battered the poor bloke to death with a hammer (he wanted to 'get his own back' on his shitty mother and the boyfriend copped it)

A friend of my brothers lives there now and isn't fazed at all,even knowing the history

Another one is my elderly great aunt lived in a 1st floor flat and the bloke who lived underneath was murdered in his flat and they propped him up on his sofa

He wasn't found for almost 4 months and was In a bit of a state when they did find him (the cat had eaten most of him)

I went on a date with a bloke who happened to live in that exact flat (years and years later)

Didn't bother him-he had his sofa in the same place the bloke had his and used to watch TV,sat in the 'fingerprint' of where the poor old man died

Jeez...Those are heavy stories.

oakleaffy · 10/03/2025 15:30

IVbumble · 10/03/2025 15:28

I knew someone who wouldn't buy a house because their dog wouldn't go through the front door when they viewed.

I would believe the dog's reaction, too.
Animals can sense bad energy.

Wintersgirl · 10/03/2025 15:30

No, 12 years is too soon, my DD is 13 so when she was a baby the child in that house was still alive😭if it was 112 years ago then I would be ok with it

Shetlands · 10/03/2025 15:31

I don't believe in any kind of woo, vibes, energy, auras, ghosts, souls, gods, spirits or anything at all supernatural. When you're dead you just cease to exist. There is no afterlife. We're just apes made of stardust.

BUT I could never live in a house where someone had been murdered or killed themselves. I turned down a cottage once where an elderly couple ended their lives together on the sofa. I have no idea why my rational brain can't overcome such things but there it is!

LoveFridaynight · 10/03/2025 15:34

No. First house DH and I rented was an ex miners cottage and there was always a weird feeling on the stairs. We both felt it.
Turned out years before the owner killed his wife throwing her down the stairs (so landlord said anyway). After that I decided I'd never live in a house with history again. Never believed in ghosts or anything like that before then.

OneTC · 10/03/2025 15:35

Wouldn't give it a second thought

85pinkballoons · 10/03/2025 15:36

lucy889 · 10/03/2025 14:30

It doesn't bother me the land my home is built on, who's died naturally here etc it's just I'd think of the awful circumstances all the time, the parent actually killed their child and them themselves in the hallway of the upstairs.

I wouldn't be able to walk the hallway without thinking of it.

That would really bother me too. Knowing such a violent crime took place there, especially the murder of a child...I just dont think I could live comfortably in such a place, it would be on my mind a lot of the time.

ScupperedbytheSea · 10/03/2025 15:37

No I wouldn't.

I was having a similar conversation, as I often walk past a house where a girl was brutally murdered. It was big news for many years.

It's a nice house/location, but I couldn't for any price. Not quite sure why really, I think just knowing what happened there would make it feel off for me.

Original poster
lucy889 · 10/03/2025 15:38

It was a massive shock to the community, things like that just didn't happen around here.

It's a quiet and peaceful area to live.

My DD is 2 and it hurts even more now I have her when I drive past it, the child was 6 years old murdered by the father when the mother left him. He then killed himself.

I grew up in a "haunted house", it was previously owned by a priest and his maid and she hung herself in our bathroom, he died of a heart attack a few years later and my parents bought it roughly a year later.

Lots of weird and unexplained things happened there but it never bothered any of us, we'd always say hello when the kettle turned on itself or a door would randomly open and close. I was 4 when I told my parents that the nice lady who sits on my bed at night has pretty curly hair. I don't remember that or seeing anything but I lived there until I was 20 and things happened all of the time.

It's the circumstances that would stop me from buying a murder house.

OP posts:
notapennyless · 10/03/2025 15:38

I would buy it but get a priest to come and bless it before we moved in.