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

[lucy889]

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?

If you think about their home as also being a place where they had positive memories of their daughter - a place that's connected to her- then it might be easier to understand.

If i lived in the area when the murder happened it would probably put me off as i would associate the house with the murder.

If I was new to the area or too young to remember the event then I would buy it.

Yes, presumably it doesn't come with a resident murderer, so is just a perfectly good house potentially for a very good price.

That isn’t as daft as it sounds! It’s been on tv that dogs have ‘told’ their owners they have an illness before it’s diagnosed. There was one dog that kept sniffing it’s owner’s stomach. Turned out she had stomach cancer. She went to the doctor early because of her dog, and was operated on successfully. That dog undoubtedly saved her life.

No. Having lived in a haunted house I wouldn’t chance it

Yes, it's just a building and probably a cheap one at that

Like PP I love to research the history and story of houses I live in. A murder would definitely enrich that story. I'd love it, to be honest.

Would have to be a really REALLY tasty deal

No, but not because of any 'woo' reasons, but i'd worry about possibly having to deal with people coming to the house if the murder was particularly notorious, wanting to see where it happened.

I like watching forensic/crime stuff on tv - the science really interests me - but i do feel for people who currently live in what was once a crime scene, and turn on the tv to see their home in a BBC documentary.

Murder is bad enough, but the murder of a six year old? No way.

I would buy it if the price was right and I liked it.
Why would a murder previously happening in the house mean the house is unsaleable? The murder didn't because of the house.
Sadly murders happen in a lot of different places people don't stop walking through the park or on a beach because a murder happened there or stop driving on a stretch of road where there was a murder.
My house is over a hundred years old all sorts of things will have happened in it, some happy and some sad but those things are past and the house has been changed many times over those hundred years.

The other thing is that if it was a notorious murder, notorious enough to have been covered by one of the many, many true crime social media channels out there, then you'll get rubberneckers standing outside taking photos.

My main concern would be resale value and that it would put other people off.

I don't think I would knowingly want to live in house where a murder of anyone has taken place.

If it was a well known case locally then it would always be thought of as the murder house, no matter what decor you have. People have long memories and as evidenced here some of them can't wait to remind you of the murder in your new home.

There is also the chance of rubber neckers if it's a high profile case.
I feel sorry for people in the US who own 'murder' houses as there are bus tours you can take to visit them!

I know there's Jack the Ripper (walking) tours in London but they don't stop outside houses.

Even if you were planning on living in it for decades?

No, I couldn’t do it.
I don’t believe in ghosts etc but I just wouldn’t like knowing I’d be living in a place where something so terrible had happened. I think it would depress me.

I live near the site of an absolutely notorious multiple murder. The current owners are foreign and only found out when journalists came knocking on the 25th anniversary of the crime.

No.

Where I grew up there was also a beautiful house where a child was murdered. The murder remains unsolved.

The house stood empty for about 20 years before being bought by someone who presumably didn’t mind.

Yes, my house was built 120 years ago, pretty sure some terrible things will have happened here. I do work in criminal justice though and deal with the details of the most horrific sexual and violent crimes, so I'm probably more able to detach from it than most

I could never knowingly live in a house with that history.

I'm not sure I would - not for bad energy or woo or such tings. I'd probably think about it whenever I entered the room it happened in, and that would stop me enjoying living in my home.

If it were a house the murderer had lived in but the killing didn't happen there I would buy it, as I wouldn't think of the violence in association with the building.

See now usually I’d say yes, wouldn’t bother me. But this one is different given the structure of the house was incorporated in to the murders.

Yeah why not say?

I'd see how I felt walking around it. Some houses you instantly feel like it's a home, others you don't get a good feeling. If I felt it was a home and I could put my stamp on it I don't think it would bother me too much

To be honest if a blood police sniffer dog went through our old house it would probably alert to the living room carpet. Apparently the place looked like a murder scene after my son was born at home...oops

I was coming on to say the same thing!

I live in a medieval house in a village that had a massacre several hundred years ago. Our house was already 100 years old and is one of several still lived in from that time. It's pretty much inconceivable that any of our houses or outbildings escaped the slaughter, and there are mass graves in and around the village. We had a house blessing when we moved in. I've never felt anything uncomfortable or amiss in our house or neighbours' homes, and the dogs don't react badly either. Everyone's roses and camelias grow very well. And over 600 years there will have been countless deaths including children, mothers in childbirth and probably accidents and violence, probably in every room.
On the other hand knowing about a specific horror such as a family annihilation in relatively recent times would be hard to overlook- not because I'd fear haunting, but because it would be hard to put out of mind.