What is your worse viewing experience

[Ladyof]

Just seen a post about dirty houses and it made me interested to know - what is your worse viewing experience?

Mine isnt as bad as I imagine some are but at 1 viewing the house was really messy and when we walked in they were cooking a greasy fry up, it was 2pm on a saturday and the smell of grease was knocking me sick. I couldn't wait to get out!!!

I went on my own as DH was working away.
Lovely house until I get to see the master bedroom.
Mirrored ceiling, handcuffs on the bedframe and fastens on the wall.
The wife who was showing me around insisted that the fastens would be removed
and the wall replastered.

A viewing took place on a property I was selling. The most obnoxious man showed up, having already looked online at the potential value of the house next door before arriving. So he had lots of preconceived ideas about what the sale price of mine should actually be and walked up the front path loudly pointing out all the things he believed he could see that should warrant a price reduction for his benefit. Failing to understand that the house had been priced with those things already in mind. Not to mention that the house next door was mid terrace, whereas mine was end terrace with side access to the back, which meant we were on a larger plot of land. My house had also been extended in three places, so there were several reasons why my selling price was higher than the house next door would go for.
The previous owners had done lots of their own electrical work in the house and some months earlier, there had been a one-off quite severe electric shock from a lightswitch.
The highlight of the viewing was when the man veered off by himself to nosey around, rather than allowing the estate agent to continue her tour of the property. He touched the lightswitch as he entered the room in question, screamed and hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. But because the estate agent wasn’t in the same room as him, she didn’t believe it had happened, thinking it was just part of his attempt to find fault with the house and secure a lower purchase price.
I did not enlighten her.

I was the tenant in a horrendous viewing. Landlord (who owned the office under the flat) would never warn us that a viewing was taking place so we would just find the estate agent letting themselves in. I worked nights and got woken up by the estate agent, who luckily was very apologetic. My housemate was fed up with this so had locked his bedroom door, cue landlord coming barrelling up the stairs and screaming in my face that I must be jobless because I was home in the day, He doesn't have to tell us if someones is viewing his property, get out I'm evicting you immediately etc etc. I still kick myself for apologizing to the estate agent for the landlords behaviour......

I've told this story before but it started while I was waiting for the estate agent outside and a random woman came up to me and said "Are you waiting to view the house?" Thinking it must be a double viewing I said yes.
The estate agent turns up and leads us both in. The woman starts saying how perfect the house would be for her and her kids. The estate agent obviously hasn't been here before and isn't familiar with the layout. The tenant is there with her new born baby so we are all creeping around trying not to disturb her. He starts to point out the under stairs storage, and tugs at the door.
"Oh" he says, "a bit stiff". Gives it an almighty pull, it flies open.
It's not storage.....it's a toilet. Complete with confused MiL with pants around her ankles mid-pee.
She gasps, I gasp, random woman gasps and very camp estate agent shrieks.
We then complete the rest of the viewing without referring to what happened in a very British way.
To make matters even weirder, I later find out random woman was literally a passer by. The estate agent thought she was my friend, I thought she was invited by the estate agent. Neither of us knew how she ended up hijacking our viewing or witnessing poor being lady on the toilet.

The worst one ever was when I was renting as a student, we were a group of friends looking for a 4 bed. The landlord showed us round a lovely house, we were very keen.

Until, just as we were leaving, my friend asked him what the locked room at the front of the house was. The landlord said "oh, don't worry about that, it's just a room I keep for a friend who stays there from time to time".

So, basically, a strange man we'd never met would have a key to our home, a locked room in it, share all our facilities, and swan in and out unannounced. And the landlord wasn't even planning to mention it!

Three spring to mind.

One where the garden was full of dog poop - you literally couldn’t step out the back door - it was vile!

Another was a period property and the agent wouldn’t go upstairs, we went up and instantly felt so weird - couldn’t get out of there quick enough it had such a horribly oppressive feeling to it, we were totally freaked out.

And one where the tenant/owner clearly hadn’t been told there was a viewing. The agent let us in and then a towel wrapped man stepped out of the bathroom just as we were about to go in and look at it - awkward!

The house with a shower in the unconverted cellar, a serving hatch on the upstairs landing that looked out onto the top of the staircase, a gloss painted bath - on the inside of the tub - and the badly applied transfers on the bathroom tiles of cartoon pigs having a bath. What a dream that was.

We had a couple of 'odd' viewings when we were looking.

The first, similarly to a couple of PP, had a teenager still asleep in bed after lunch so we were asked if we would just pop our head around the door of the very dark room! There was a dirty nappy on the floor in the living room, the house hadn't been hoovered and the kitchen worktop still had crumbs and grease on it from lunch. I wouldn't have minded but this was Saturday and we arranged the appointment on the Thursday so they had two days notice to run a hoover round and sort out the teenager plus it takes seconds to dump a nappy in the bin before opening the door!

The other one was a man who had obviously had a lot of people doing first viewings but not proceeding or going back because his almost first words to us were 'I hope you're not going to waste my time like the others I've shown around. If you're not interested just say so and you can leave'! Like we could tell we weren't going to be interested without actually seeing the house!

We viewed a house where someone had unplugged the fridge with some stuff left in it, before moving out and leaving the fridge behind with the door slightly open. The house absolutely stank and the estate agent had only discovered it just before we arrived. She apologised about the smell but it was really difficult to get past it and view the house objectively when all we wanted to do was get out as soon as possible.

@YukoandHiro I was the opposite of this. I was renting a house that was up for sale, was working nights and woke to find the estate agent and viewers in my bedroom.
The landlord was swiftly told no more viewings till I’d moved out. It was a horrible experience

I reckon our house might have been a horror viewing for someone.

We were selling it long distance, had it professionally cleaned, turned the water off and came back regularly to check on it.

On one of those trips, I discovered the toilet had vee completely blocked by someone 🤮 and they hadn't been able to flush it away because the water was off. The smell was awful and I nearly vomited clearing it.

Once it was removed however, the house did finally sell. Thank god. God knows who left that for us to deal with.

I worked as an EA for a while. We had a property on our books that was for sale but was currently let out to 2 young guys who were flatmates. We were scrupulous about contacting them for permission for viewings. I had a couple who wanted to view on a Saturday morning. I contacted the tenants on the Friday for permission to view and one of them replied "we'll be out Saturday morning, so go ahead".

The house was a converted Victorian terrace house and the flat was the upstairs flat. So you went in through the front door and then the door to the flat was at the foot of the stairs. I opened the door to the flat, with the viewing couple standing just behind me, only to be confronted with one of the tenants standing at the top of the stairs stark bollock naked brushing his teeth!! . He was standing just outside the bathroom on the landing. Anyone who knows the layout of a Victorian terrace will know what I'm talking about.

To be fair to him, he was very good humoured about it and allowed the viewing to go ahead!

A house where every door was deeply scratched and the carpet, floorboards surrounding the door was ripped to shreds, the owners had dogs which thankfully weren’t around when we viewed, although we could smell them. Also the kitchen walls were so thick with brown grease from floor to across the ceiling we thought no, no thanks before we’d seen the rest of the house.

Probably the viewing of the house we now live in The owner had been bed-bound for 10 years and died in the living room. The house was filthy, there was a man smoking outside his house wearing a net vest and it was almost on the door step of high rise flats.

DH asked if I liked it and I laughed before wanting to cry.

It all turned out very well thank Christ.

I looked round a house that was rented out to a family. When I arrived there were loads of adults and kids standing in the street staring at me as I parked and walked up the road. When I was being shown around one of the women came in with a small child who had a poo, which obviously was unpleasant. The EA then informed me that the tenants were the sister to the family next door and obviously didn't want to move away so were intimidating viewers as they came to view.

I used to be an estate agent years ago, I've seen all sorts! I remember turning up to show people around and finding the vendor passed out drunk on the bedroom floor. It was sad really, she was selling as her husband had left her and she clearly had all sorts of issues. We also had unemptied potties, tenants in bed was really common, cigarette smoke, fleas, handcuffs round bedposts...

The worse one was on the day of completion when the new buyers moved in to find a dead cat in the wardrobe. That was horrible, the sellers were vile people and left the house in the most awful state as well.

A man locked in the bathroom, having a bath and refusing to come out

A woman sobbing into the sink because she was selling due to divorce and was beside herself with distress

And during the pandemic, at the only viewing conducted by the family rather than the agent (vendors were always out, for COVID safe viewings) a house teeming with people, including an uncle lying in bed hooked up to a drip and wheezing away. It was in a right state. Almost a year later it is still for sale.

House sale due to divorce. Went in with EA, teenager stomps down the stairs and slams the front door on the way out. House lovely on pics, filthy in reality. Pile of white powder on glass topped table in said teenagers bedroom..... Didn’t buy it.

Awkward viewing of a house being sold by a couple who were divorcing. She showed us downstairs, he then showed us upstairs including giving us a 5 minute demo of how the shower worked with us all crammed in the tiny bathroom.

The other one we had was just sad. Lovely Victorian semi with a massive garden, which was in a bit of a state. The vendor showed us loads of photos of the garden looking stunning in its heyday but he'd just let it go to pot after the breakdown of his marriage. He was desperate to sell so he could retire to Spain. It never did sell and he still lives there now. I drive past it every day and still think about it but it needed too much work for us.

@Lavender201

House much smaller and more awful than the photos, stank of cigarette smoke. The whole family (parents and teenage children) were sat round the tiny kitchen table for the entirety of the viewing. And their old cat was dying in a box in the living room. Plus the estate agent was about 12 and we had to wear plastic shoe covers and view one at a time due to COVID. So after I’d had this viewing I had to meekly go and get my husband out of the car for his turn to view, even though I knew he would have an awful time, it just felt too awkward not to. Argh.

that sounds really awful , the cat sick and dying would have upset me so much , it would have taken me a good while to recover from witnessing that in a viewing

There are the houses where the vendors are present and assume because they've got a viewing they've got a sale! I remember one very in your face talkative guy who looked really miserable when we left without offering. Another rather sad one a quite elderly couple who also seemed to think viewing = sale. They were distracted by their son with quite severe learning difficulties who was there and I remember the lady saying to husband "(son's name) is smoking again" in a worried way.

@MelissaVonStressel

The one where we were shown around by a really smelly estate agent- she let us in with a key but then said she needed to tell the owners we were here. We waited in the doorway to the living room where this elderly couple were watching the TV with headphones on - so it was silent. She went over to talk to him and he started yelling at the estate agent "you'd better not disturb us like last time you stupid cow" in a really nasty way. We went around the rest of the house - totally normal house, got downstairs and he was in front of his study, said we could only go in there if he was supervising. He was such a nasty man, he tried to put the sell on DH - couldn't bring himself to look at me - and the poor EA was almost crying. And we never saw the living room or his study. The house was on the market for ages, unsurprisingly.

I've also been on the other end - came home after work to find the EA running away from my house - he said it was a bit messy. Went in to find the cat had dragged a pigeon through the cat flap at some point then spent the day chasing it around the house pulling feathers off, then eating bits of it in every room then chucking it back up - the entire house was covered in feathers and bits of bird and/or boak. The people he'd been showing around had given up.

Our cat did a massively awful poo which got stuck hanging out of his backside and was dragged around our entire living room while be tried (unsuccessfully) to remove it. It was all over the floor and even on the curtains and sofa.

Fortunately he did this ten minutes AFTER the last viewing of the day which happened to be the person who ended up buying our house 🤣

I viewed a tenanted house once with an EA and the tenant followed us from room to room pointing emphatically at items that belonged to him and saying, “Mine!” like a two year old. Odd, because it was stuff like lamps, paintings and clocks that we wouldn’t have expected to be left behind. And it wasn’t a ploy to put me off - he had given notice and was emigrating.

We viewed a cottage, there was no answer when we knocked the door. Rang EA who said the owners son was to show us round. Knocked again and a teenage boy appeared wrapped in a duvet. He didn’t speak at all, just left the door open for us. We went in and started looking around. When we got to one of the bedrooms the boy was in bed with a girl, then asked us not to tell his mum his girlfriend had stayed over! We didn’t tell on him!

The other was where a teenage girl wouldn’t let us view her bedroom and swore at her mum theough the shot door using many words I had never heard of! Mum was cowering and apologising and trying to placate the girl. Just awful.