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Original poster

Funny experiences in viewing houses

86 replies

potas · 04/07/2013 16:10

I went to view a house last week in the corner of a recently built estate with not much space out the front. When I got out the house after the viewing I found the neighbour had blocked me in with her car - she didnt need to park there she had a double drive - whereas I had parked in front of the house i was viewing. When asked to move the car she went off on a rant about how people in that house had always parked their car somewhere else before! Feel lucky to have met her then and not after buying the house!

OP posts:

crazyhamsterdisguisedasahippo · 05/07/2013 18:39

Rory That sounds a bit lot creepy

edam · 06/07/2013 16:13

We once went with a family friend to view a house. Gorgeous Victorian house, big garden, loads of character. Nntil we got to the attic floor. Walked into what had clearly been a nursery, opened the big walk in cupboard, which still had Edwardian nursery wallpaper inside... but such an awful feeling. Real sense of foreboding - the first person to peer inside jumped back it felt so horrid, but we all tried it in case it was imagination. Horrible. We decided there must have been a horrid governess who shut children into the cupboard to punish them or something.

Friend bought the house anyway and it became a very happy family home but I didn't envy the son who had that bedroom - I would have refused to sleep there!

edam · 06/07/2013 16:13

wow, overuse of the word horrid there, must have been overcome with memories of how awful it felt!

Zynniah · 06/07/2013 18:18

Blimey. There was a house near me about 7 or 8 years ago. The Murder House we used to call it. All houses on the road would have been about 500-600k at the time. He chopped her up and put her in the freezer. Or was it the other way round. I can't believe I am hazy on the details. Anyway, my friend and I used to push our buggies past the house on the way to the river and talk about the magic number, the price point at which we'd swoop in and say 'now! now I'll buy it!'. How macabre of us. But somebody did buy it after it sat empty for about 18 months!

edam · 06/07/2013 22:08

I can identify with that, Zynniah, I used to live near a house where a Tory MP died in a solo sex game involving (IIRC) a tangerine and a bin bag (it was a big scandal in the Major government). His house was gorgeous, Georgian and right by the river. I used to look at it longingly and think 'I wonder if they will have to sell it for peanuts...'

Zynnia · 06/07/2013 23:52

oh I remember that news story. I remember he was survived by his elderly mother and I felt very sorry for her receiving that news.

Devora · 07/07/2013 00:17

We dreamed of living in Chiswick, but it was out of our price range. Then a 4 bed house came up - still a stretch at 700k, but we went to look. Well, it was 4 bed in that there were 2 bedrooms, within which they had hung curtains down the middle to show how they could be split (into rooms where you could barely fit a single bed, let alone storage). And the 'reception' room was actually a damp, windowless concrete cellar that 'would be fine if you stuck a light down there'. Oh, and it was right by the railway line. But still 700k.

Viewed one house when the EA wouldn't give out details in advance, and would only meet us at a preassigned location to walk to the house. When we got there she warned us that the owners were splitting and HE didn't know that SHE had put the house on the market, so all very secret squirrel. Lovely house, but who the hell would want to take on that kind of complication?

Having said which, i did buy a house from a couple going through a bad divorce. If you ignore the filth (they were both on housework strike), the obscene and racially explicit graffiti left all over the bedroom walls by their unhappy eldest,the kitchen appliances we bought from them that never worked, and the fact that on moving in day they were still there with all their stuff and we spent 5 hours hiding upstairs with their youngest weeping in our arms while they screamed at each other downstairs, then we got a bargain

SunnyL · 07/07/2013 00:18

We viewed a flat once where there was a large painting of the couple lying naked in each others arms on the wall. Also when DH asked how deep the fitted wardrobes were she pulled one door back to show a massive selection of sex toys. They tried to persuade us to stay for a glass of wine which had DH convinced they were swingers.

echt · 07/07/2013 07:02

Two weird houses.

As a student, shown a rental with the bath in the kitchen not near/next to: in. It had a wooden cover on it to double up as a table.

Later looking to buy and shown a house where the late middle-aged, dog- loving owners had fallen out and divided the house, by a painted line going up the middle of the hall, stairs, etc. The was neutral territory occupied by their smelly/slavering hounds, too many to count. The entire carpeting, where not painted was a mass of dog hair.

A massive crack ran from the top of the house to the ground floor: cosmetic, we were assured. It failed the test: if you can get copy of the Building Regulations handbook into it, the building's buggered.

We didn't go for a second view.

Jaynebxl · 07/07/2013 10:02

I viewed a flat in Brussels once where as a space saver the kitchen doubled up as a bathroom. So you had all the usual kitchen stuff then the shower unit and tucked away in the corner behind that was the loo! Funnily enough I didn't take it.

Devora · 07/07/2013 12:04

As a student I rented a flat where the shower and toilet were iN the kitchen. The shower had lots of bare wires hanging out. There was a big hole in the wall by the sink where pigeons would stick their heads in for a look-see.

I'm amazed it was legal. It probably wasn't.

GemmaTeller · 07/07/2013 20:26

Years ago , went to look at a 9really really big) flat over some shops in a nice semi rural village.
Estate agent said it need 'some work',
would be the fact that you could see through the floorboards into the room below?.....

CanadianJohn · 08/07/2013 02:13

Some years ago, viewing a vacant house. The kitchen tap was dripping, and I automatically reached out and turned it off. The entire tap broke off in my hand, and a jet of water reached the ceiling.

There was no shut-off under the sink, and we couldn't find the main shut-off for the house. The agent had to wait hours for a plumber to show up, by which time the entire kitchen was ruined.

Or so I heard - I'd left with my tail between my legs.

Zynnia · 08/07/2013 22:59

omg! i'm laughing here! that is the kind of thing that happens to me! can you imagine moving in on day one and turning the tap on for a cup of tea! you spared some poor new home owner that drama!

Empross76 · 08/07/2013 23:04

One where the owner had clearly just done a big stinky shit in the bathroom. Opened the bathroom door, hit by the stench, the estate owner ushered us out of the house and apologised profusely.

Empross76 · 08/07/2013 23:08

DP and I went to view a flat to rent in a converted house. The owners lived in the downstairs flat so we went into their flat to chat further, sign papers, pay deposit, etc.

We went back home and had a phone call about an hour later from the landlord asking if I had, by any chance, picked up his TV remote control?

Turns out I had, whilst taking cheque book and wallet out of my bag, managed to put his remote control in.

I must have seemed like a right kleptomaniac. He still rented us the flat, though.

steppemum · 08/07/2013 23:32

we went to view a house. We had 4 houses to view one after another and we had dd2 in tow (aged 3)
In house 2, very nice, beautifully presented house, immaculate, very nice lady showed us round.
There was a dolls house in one bedroom and dd was looking at it, lady said that is fine, and we turned to talk to her about something.

Turned back to tell dd it was time to go, to discover she had weed on the carpet

was so embarrassed, apologised profusely and left quickly. Then had to strip her, put her naked in car seat, dash to asda, buy clean knickers and trousers, back to car and then to house number 3

Curioustiger · 10/07/2013 18:09

I viewed a house with an ensuite shower room. Which would be lovely were it not for the fact that the owner had removed the partition wall. So it was effectively a maste bedroom with a shower basin and toilet in it. I left after explaining to the EA that we aren't that kind of couple!

I also viewed another house which the estate agent insisted was tenanted by 'city professionals'. I don't know what was the more obvious tip off: the Uni textbooks, the general levels of mess, the studenty posters ... Or the incredulous looks on the part of the very-obviously-student tenants when the EA described them to me as city professionals. In front of them.

holidaybug · 11/07/2013 23:33

We have a corker ... When viewing one house, the vendor actually got into her bed ...

OnIlkelyMoorBahtat · 12/07/2013 13:54

holiday bug [shocked] what, to sleep? Did she talk to you from it? Don't leave me hanging!

Once viewed a flat where the vendor very proudly showed me the bath that he had mosaic-tiled himself - "It's like a Roman bath, see?" - but the trouble was that the tiles were very obviously wonky and not level, and the grouting in between them was actually more like cement, so every time you'd slide into your "relaxing" bath you'd graze all the skin of your backside! Didn't take that one...

VerityClinch · 12/07/2013 14:09

You will all love picture 4 of this house

flow4 · 12/07/2013 15:02

There is only one picture available on the link now, so the EA must have agreed that the other pics were, hem, amusing!

holidaybug · 12/07/2013 18:54

She just sat in bed with her collection of cuddly toys and yes she was over the age of 30. The lounge had lots of picture frames on the walls but still with the picture inserts in. No photos or pictures. The house was later repossessed - their business went bust and they fled the country. Well weird!

Chocolatehunter · 13/07/2013 01:22

We viewed a house once and it was all going so well. We'd been told that it was tenanted but we could see past the clutter and mess. That was until me, dh and ea all tried fitting into the en suite.

They aren't designed to be big and with three adults there's not many places to look. I looked down to find the toilet seat up with what looked like the largest poo a human had ever taken. It was standing up by itself, waving out of the water.

We didn't buy the house, we went for the identical house up the street which didn't have the same toilet troubles.

Onetwo34 · 13/07/2013 02:01

House turned out to be owned by the friend of a celebrity, who they were obviously very close to, so there were pictures everywhere of this character doing normal stuff, which was strangely jarring. Like, Rita off Corrie, having her Christmas dinner on the mantelpiece, there she is again on the way up the stairs, playing crazy golf with a child.
It wasn't Rita, but you get the idea.

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