Would you buy this house? TW-suicide

[Consideringbuying]

I am a lone parent with 2 small kids and am almost through a fairly awful and dragged out divorce. The circumstances around the divorce were horrible for all of us and I'm so ready to be in a secure home and just move on from it all.

I'm (hopefully) going to be in a position to buy a house soon and there's a house has been up for sale for a couple of months round the corner from where we live. I love the area and have really liked living here. The house is much bigger and better than the one we're renting and is exactly what I'd be looking for. It's one of the nicer homes in the estate.

It's also significantly under my small budget and is about £40k under market value for other homes of the same size in the same estate. I've been told this is because the owner is wanting a quick sale however it's sat for a few months already (unheard of in this area) and was empty for about 2-3 years before that. The reason being that one of the adults in the home took their own life in the property a couple of years ago.

Initially when I heard I was a bit wary and wasn't sure if I'd want to buy somewhere that had held so much pain for the previous owners and where a traumatic death had occurred but the more I'm thinking about it I'm wondering if that's silly and I should go for it if it's still available when I'm ready?

Being so under budget would mean I could pay off earlier than anticipated and would financially be just massive for me under our current circumstances. It would also mean I'd be able to redecorate rather than having to live in it as is for a while and try to save. Its a fairly new build house too and homes in the area are well built and reliable.

The downside is that it's been empty for so long, and I'm wondering about the impact of the history of the house on my kids as its common knowledge what happened and they will probably be told at some point by friends on the street which could be upsetting for them.

So my albu:

Yabu - don't buy the house (please can you explain why you wouldn't)
Yanbu -I would buy or have bought under those circumstances before.

My Dh took his own life in our kitchen. We also had 15 happy years together, mostly in that house, had our first kiss there, and we brought ds home from the hospital to it. Multiple parties, Christmas dinners, you name it. I did eventually move out but years after Dh died there and frankly it never occurred to me to tell the buyers! I’m sorry to have to say that suicide is pretty common, just like happy events. Buy it and live a full life there.

I grew up in a house that was built in 1545, I expect loads of people died in it. In fact my grandad did die in it, he came to us to live out his last months in comfort when he was diagnosed with cancer. If it can give you and your family a happy, fresh start that sounds like a fitting way to bring some positive energy back into it. A breath of fresh life.

I get ‘feels’ from houses. Wouldn’t even buy a house from a messy divorce, let alone a suicide.
But, if you see a house as simply bricks and mortar, go for it!

The previous occupant of my house killed herself. I was already familiar with her name and story before I even started house hunting, because it was featured in a media campaign, so it did feel slightly weird when I put it together and realised it was her house I was buying. But I didn’t really hesitate, because I loved the house, and still do.

Buy it!

I think the way a house feels is huge. I wouldn’t like to think about the pain experienced there. But irrational but that’s me.

You know best whether or not it would be upsetting for your children.

As for the house having seen so much pain, I just wanted to share this:

I once seriously attempted suicide, and was found and saved. I'd been seriously depressed and traumatised for years.

As I lay dying, I turned to Jesus and felt an overwhelming sense of peace. And although there'd been so much pain in the years before that, I'd also had many of my most joyful times and happy years in that same house.

When we recently sold the house after the death of my surviving parent, I was so sad to say goodbye to it. I wish my husband and I could have bought it to bring up our children there.

So it doesn't mean that it was overall an unhappy place for the person who died there.

Our then next door neighbours' son took his own life just a few years after they moved in. It's hard to imagine a more painful experience for parents. Yet they stayed there and say that overall they have been quite content and at peace in their home.

So please don't let it trouble you that it feels like a house of sorrows and pain. Who knows how much joy and happiness it has also witnessed.

I'd absolutely buy it.
Your family will give the house a new lease of life.
Make it a happy place again.

You really don’t, you know. Houses are just containers for living. They don’t hold ‘energy’. They make people feel in particular ways because of their architecture, decoration or smell.

How on earth would you even know whether a divorce was ‘messy’ or amicable, assuming one spouse didn’t murder the other in the living room and leave DIE YOU BASTARD scrawled in blood on the wall?

Sending love @PermanentTemporary. My sibling died by suicide at home. Finding the ghoulishness of this thread a bit distasteful.

It wouldn't bother me at all but I would definitely have a thorough survey done, just in case the suicide isn't the only reason it hasn't sold yet and is so cheap.

Most people have no idea of their homes history, and from death there should always follow life.

Decorate, make it yours and the owners can also move on happily

Would not bother me in the slightest.
People die in many house for many different reasons.

Buy the house. Ask fot if to be blessed or burn sage or something.

That's a fair point tbh, I think unless it was a quite public/media event it's unlikely you'd know. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Also as I was sorting my AIP I found it's actually fucking hard to even found out when the damn house was even built let alone what happend with the people living there! 😳😫🫠

Have you looked around it? How does it make you feel when you are in it? Does it make you feel safe and like you are at home or does it name you reel sad or on edge.

Any house which isnt new has a history. There will have been deaths, births, very sad stories and very happy stories in them.

I would yes. The estate agent went to great lengths to tell me the owner of the probate sale property I was buying hadn’t died in the house when I was looking round it. I told him it wouldn’t bother me if she had - in my case a 94 year old woman dying of old age at the end of long life in my now bedroom wouldn’t cross my mind day to day.

In your case I’d simply feel it was very sad for the person in question, but it’s unrelated to the house. If there was still evidence as such I’d be very keen to eradicate it - redecorate or lose the carpet or whatever, but I’d not be freaked out.

There was a nice, way, way below market rate house local to me when I was looking a few years ago. It was over £100k cheaper than it should have been. The bathroom in particular was nice and a decent cellar. I googled the house and found out the owner had murdered her partner in it - a grizzly murder where she concealed the body under the patio. Where she’d hidden evidence in the cellar and that she’d considered murdering him in that bathroom. Disturbing diary entries accompanied the story in the local paper. It was incredibly dark and unpleasant - I didn’t go and see the house simply because it was all so gruesome and sinister. She was deranged and while it wasn’t the fault of the perfectly nice house, I’d think about it too much - I’d not be scared of the prospect of ghosts or bad energy or whatever, but those chilling diary entries would be in my mind all the time. Creeped me out.

I bought a house where there had been a murder. It had been about 5 years previously and had been owned and rented out in between.

The murderer was in prison, and I’d moved before he was released. I couldn’t have lived there if he’d never been caught or if it had been a random break in. That’s not an issue for you of course.

I did have a couple of taxi drivers say “oh that’s where…”. But unless it’s a tiny village people soon forget.

When I moved I said I was looking forwards to having a new house where there had been no murder, and my colleague said “how do you know…?” Which was a fair point.

so yes I would.

My next door neighbour died by suicide in her home. Her partner and kids moved not long after, understandable of course. It’s SH so they did a swap with another family. I don’t know if the new family ever knew, I’ve not said anything. But they’ve lived there years now and are perfectly happy there. Our houses are Victorian so there’s a lot of history anyway. I do get “feelings” about homes but I got good vibes from mine and it wouldn’t phase me if I found out something awful about it.

I would buy it but have a Priest come and bless it at the earliest opportunity.

Next door but one to our old house the dad of the family that lived there hung himself in the back garden right by the back door. The family moved out soon afterwards. The house has been lived in by the new family for years now, over fifteen years, most people dont know or remember his suicide. Buy the house and fill it with good feelings and memories.

Exactly, and if it's reasonably recent it'll soon be old news. There is only so many times neighbours can say 'You know what happened there don't you' and my reply would be that the only true certainty in life is death, and we all have to do it somewhere.

Go make it yours, fill it with love and happiness once more 💕

There’s a house near me where the mother killed her two sons and herself back in the 90s.
There’s a new family living in it now.
People die in houses all the time.

Definitely buy it. The only reason it's a big deal now is everyone sees it as "previous owner," "suicide house," but once you are in it, people will just see it as your house.

People die all over the place, it's a normal part of life, you can just make sure your kids are not blindsided, but I really don't think many people are telling their kids about local suicides when they are really young. By the time anyone hears about it, they'll be old enough to brush it off.

Death doesn't bother me but suicide would. I would think of it and I wouldn't want those thoughts attached to my home.

I would wonder where, how, what were their last thoughts, last thing they saw in the house etc... grim but that's why I wouldn't buy it!