Would you view/buy this house with a dark past?

[medicinewoman182]

Hello,

I'm after your opinions or personal experiences of buying a house with a dark past.

The house in question is a really well presented, 3 x bed semi in a suburb just outside of leeds in a sought after area. Decorated fantastically, a lovely street/neighbourhood, schools, transport, shops and nightlife nearby. Basically ticks all of our boxes.

EXCEPT.......

Back in 2012, there was a murder. The father has a psychotic episdoe, killed his wife in the kitchen, daughter in the living room and his second daughter and dog were found alive but shaken.

My first thought was NO, NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS.
But I've been researching and thinking about it a lot and may be coming round to the idea.

The house didn't kill those people, he did, and he's in HMP for life!
IF, and thats a big IF, there are any ghosts, ghouls or spirirts there, it's fairly reassuring knowing that they were good people, and wouldn't be out for revenge.
I would say most houses have had somebody die in them (granted not under the circumstances) at some point.

So basically, I want to know what you guys think.
I think we are going to view it, and get a feel for the place. I might run out screaming, or get a good feel and want to make it a happy, loving home once again.

P.S. It has been lived in since then, we would be the second owners since the incident.

Or change areas. When it's a semi, you could find renters or even AirB&B at any time if the owners chose to. I'd want to know why they are selling, but I suspect even if you ask you may not get a truthful answer so go on your own feelings and the survey.

I've also just read the news reports. That poor little girl, and the 4 year old that was still alive. What must she have seen. I can't imagine the terror their mum must have felt. I just couldn't do it personally....living in a property where something has happened in the past is one thing but knowing the locations of the murders in each room and then picturing the scenes that would have taken place. I just have a vivid imagination and wouldn't be able to live in the house!

My husband owned a house and rented it out to an older couple. Whilst we were dating the lady died in bed and the man moved on later that year so we moved in and made it our first home.
I had my son at home, in that very room, and it sort of felt like life had come full circle.
I never felt odd or uncomfortable.

I absolutely could not. I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. I live in a Victorian house and no doubt some people might have died here over the years, even been brutually murdered, who knows?

But that's just it - I don't know, and I'm not thinking about death constantly like I would in a house where a family was annihilated in the recent past.

I would be worried about gawpers and ghoul tourists.

I've just read the news article and its horrific what he did to them and he only got 15 years and that was in 2013 I wouldn't live in there even if someone gave it to me, Cannot beleive what an appauling sentence he got for what he did

I wouldn't be put off if it was an otherwise nice house.

I've seen a few threads like this. It wouldn't even remotely bother me but if it would you, maybe it's not the house for you.

I couldn't. Google Stone Tape theory.

People have died one way or another in most houses. It wouldn't bother me at all tbh

It would bother me and I think enough other people to make it hard to sell in the future-this would stop me buying it even if wasn't already put off

It's an appalling crime, but no, it wouldn't stop my buying a house I liked. And you can discount the ghoulies steaming out of the walls because of the whole 'ghosts don't exist' thing. A friend of mine lives in a housing estate built on the site of a battle in the English civil war, in which thousands died violently, yet no phantom headless Cavaliers groan from under the stairs or ride up and down the cul de sacs (culs de sac?)

No, I would not be able to entertain it personally. I would not be able to get past what had happened there. Like others have said ordinary deaths in a house is one thing but a horrific murders is another. Oh dear, just read some horrid stuff too. Very sad indeed. No way, it would do my head in thinking about what they went through if I lived there. To close for comfort.

' Like others have said ordinary deaths in a house is one thing but a horrific murders is another. '

Death is death.

I viewed a house once where there had been a murder about ten years earlier. It didn't feel unpleasant at all. Was a nice family home. I don't think bricks can hold onto anything. If you like the house, you like the house.

I grew up in a 300 year old house which had definitely seen some deaths in its time, and my husbands gran lived in a house where the wife had hung herself on the stairs. Can't say I've ever felt uncomfortable in either of them x

No, but I'd be worried about things like ghoul tourists or say, if my kids invited people over and the parents didn't let them come because we live in 'that house'.

scrubba that's an entirely different situation, not at all comparable.

I wouldn't buy it. It's far too recent & I wouldn't be able to stop myself thinking about them.

On a practical level you'd need to get it cheap, very cheap, so you could sell it cheap when you need to sell. It's going to be a very long time, if ever, that it sells at market rate.

It's the fact that a child that was murdered there that would bother me the most. I wouldn't want my own children to know and as it's quite a recent murder there's a high chance that someone would probably tell them at some stage.

Yy, to resell value.

Every older house must have seen plenty of deaths, especially from the days when people didn't die in hospitals, but they would also have seen lots of births, and wedding nights, and the whole experience of human life. I wonder if nowadays we feel a bit uncomfortable having all of that at home? Didn't people used to have a wake over the corpse, like a lying in state, but with the body in the front room in its coffin? That normalising of death as something domestic doesn't exist any more. At least not in my circle of family and friends. But as for this house, I wouldn't personally want to live there, not for superstitious reasons (though I do think places have a palpable atmosphere sometimes), but because of being able to imagine it so vividly, it would be upsetting.

A friend of mine lived in a rented flat where a very well publicised murder (think front page of the papers for weeks) had taken place a few years earlier. He said it was absolutely fine and no weird feeling or anything, they got the rent really cheap because of the notoriety

This wouldn't put me off generally, though I'd avoid this particular house personally as the family were friends of a friend's and it'd be weird.

Only cheaply because of low resale value

Play on all these primitive superstitions and get it cheap.

And for those worrying about renters next door - trouble makers usually stop paying and even the dodgiest landlord will then evict, although it can take up to a year. If your drug dealing barky dog screaming party animal neighbour is an owner, you are stuck.