If buying a house, what would make you want to walk straight back out?

[JMSA]

I mean it lighthearted-ish, as we probably wouldn’t be quite so rude! But what is an absolute dealbreaker for you?
For me it would be the presence of a Saniflo/macerator toilet. Evil things.

Not really as you need to see the house and the neighbourhood and you may come back to it

• Damp - visible or smell-able
• A room where half of it is underground - ie the garden comes up to the bottom of the window. Bloody damp again!
• Ceilings that look like they’re about to fall down
• Artex on ceilings
• Black gloss paint on the walls (saw that in one house - hideous and hard to remove)
• Layers of thick textured wallpaper
• Evidence of DIY electrics and plumbing - ie things wired in where they shouldn’t be, extra plug sockets in bizarre places, wires running down the walls, etc

Yes we have both but unfortunately most of the houses I am viewing don’t have a utility

Damp

Brand new very trendy decor. It means they are expecting me to pay for it being on brand but i want to paint it to my taste.

Tiny square footage. Extensions cost so much now that if you're going to want to do work its barely worth buying.

Tiny garden.

Amazing typo! Surely the shitting room alone would put you off!

Damp smell
Only bathroom on the ground floor
Carpet in the bathroom (unless the plan is to renovate the whole place completely)
Too many tiny rooms
Narrow front entrance

oh yeah - another horrid thing - public right of way through/ close to the garden!!!

small windows

If it’s a fitted cupboard that you’re buying then you’re mad not to open it.

But really, if the price is good none of those are a problem. Because if I would buy a house I would completely renovate/ change it anyway.

Ensuites.

Bad neighbours or a bad smell

Fag smell or discoloured walls/ceilings due to nicotine. Evil stuff and takes years to get rid of the smell.

Dog/Cat smells too - again, seeps into the carpets, curtains, wallpaper, etc and takes years to get rid off. Also usually dog/cat hairs stuffed down the fins of radiators which is a nightmare to get out.

Japanese knotweed in the back garden. Fuck no.

In fact, any kind of suspiciously blank garden fone on the cheap eg just wall to wall gravel or paving slabs gets me twitchy… hiding something

Bad vibes (yes, I know)
Smells, including plug ins
No off street parking

Or of dog.

An estate agent told me that the best bargain you'd ever get on a property was a dirty house, especially if the doors were bashed in. Others wouldn't consider it so the price went down, but it wouldn't have to be you that did the clean up!

Depends what I’m buying. I’ve bought wrecks in the past, including a house with no roof, in which case nothing made me walk out.

shared drive that wasn’t mentioned in the listing. Boarding kennels/cattery next door ☺️. These are things that absolutely happened & I was ‘just no’ not at any price. We like DIY. I will always want to change the layout & decor anyway, so nothing inside would put me right off, just the local/external things that you can’t control.

Next door neighbour’s garden looking like a scrapyard. Large dogs next door (looked at one house which had five large dogs in a small yard - that was a NO.) Basically, things over which I have no control and I can’t change.

Next door having a barking dog. Next door being a shit tip, living near a pub, things we are moving away from. Plus.. we've just seem a perfect, lovely cottage down a country lane with.. a manhole for sewage in the downstairs loo. That was a dealbreaker for me.

We've just put and had an offer accepted on a old tired house with character, needs rewiring, central heating put back in and plastering, not even that put us off in comparison! Plus the garden is sublime.

Wouldn't put me off, as sugar soap and decorating would happen anyway, plus removal of anyone else's carpets. So smell would go.

The first house I bought with my ex husband, I wish we had went and looked when it was dark and at the weekend. It was a 4 in a block and our thru the wall neighbour worked Monday to Friday 9-5 then made so much noise after 5 and all weekend. We lived there a year before we sold up and left.

Serious hidden mould issues.

A vengeful spirit who couldn’t be reasoned with.

Any carnivorous predator larger than a badger.

Are you going to ask for a try of their shower before you decide to buy ?!