What gives you the ICK when viewing houses?

[FlowerBitLove]

Partner and I viewed some houses today and we both agreed that one house was definitely not for us because we got the ICK.

Never happened to me with a house before plenty of times with boyfriends though

Just wondered if others got it with houses and what caused it.

Bit worried about something in ours causing the ICK too now!

Anaglypta / woodchip wallpaper
Lumpy artex ceilings
Noisy / messy neighbours
No parking
Overgrown garden

Years ago when we were house hunting we went to see this lovely house that seemed perfect and very clean going by the online pictures... anyway the owners weren't there as they worked long hours so the estate agent showed us around... as soon as he opened the door the most awful smell hit us in the hallway... they had 2 cats and the litter trays were in the utility room which was directly off the kitchen by an archway so no door which the kitchen and the entire house absolutely stunk! It put us right off! The house and cats seemed clean but I guess the trays weren't cleaned out much...

Ours had excessive burglar alarms, a state of the art complex system we couldnt understand, wiring for both it and a previous sytem as well which made the underfloors look like a nest of spaghetti, sensors in all the rooms that lit up a red light whenever you moved (or even turned over in bed, which was weird), sensors that 'pinged' on windows and doors whenever they were opened, panic buttons, a massive safe, locks on some internal doors, and a bolt on the inside of one of them. We still bought it. I can guess at the reasons for some of it (warring owners) but the rest- we just ripped it all out and it's fine. (This is a very low crime area.) All that stuff is stuff you can just rip out. It's not dirty or smelly, which can be a problem with other strange things.

I can look past things as long as they can be changed but some things that make a place unappealing to me…

Smells (pets, food, BO, damp, smoke, sickly air fresheners)

Bathrooms where someone has just showered and it’s all steamy and wet.

Mould round the bath seal.

Stained toilets.

Carpets in bathrooms and kitchens.

Artex.

Fake wooden beams.

Dark stained wood everywhere.

Those really old lean-tos with plastic roofing and chipboard panelling.

Concrete fencing.

Cats. Smells - smoke, weed, bo, dogs (although I have my own). Dirt, clutter and dim lighting.

We once went to view a really nice house, lovely garden, good sized bedrooms, nice kitchen, good location. But the only bathroom in the house was downstairs and all the bedrooms were upstairs. I immediately knew it would take me about 3 days of living there to find that utterly unbearable and the ick was well and truly established.

I try to see past most things but plastic grass is very off putting, it just looks so shit.

Artex ceilings or asbestos ceiling tiles.

Every house we've bought has been filthy when we looked round, I can overlook most things that are changeable but scruffy houses next door and low ceilings are a nope.

UPVC windows are 100% ick.

Ditto Artex.

Big wall mounted televisions (these seem to go with UPVC and "feature walls", which are icky but can be changed easily).

I can live with anything else decorative as it can easily be redone (in fact, have only ever lived in renovation projects).

Bidets are not appealing (too many mental images of people washing their bits)

So many people are quoting things that should be obvious if you : _
look at the EA's pics & plans
read the EA's description
use Google for info about the area if you are not familiar with it.

A bit of homework saves everyone wasting time.

I've also asked EAs if there are dogs in the property, & not viewed if there are because they smell.

Bifold doors opening onto a postage stamp garden
Navy/grey kitchens with copper/rose gold handles
Cheap flooring esp polyprop carpet
Neighbours with overgrown garden/lots of cars on drive

OMG 🫣

Cigarette smoke I can understand....but you're not buying an unmade bed!

We rent nice houses, so I'm afraid everything has to be pretty minty 100% from the word go, as can't change anything! However the big no no in our case (as can't change) are the following

Horrible decor
Swirly carpets
Damp patches
Unkempt neighbours houses
Obvious signs that next door is a student house
General air of 'not cared for'

Too much open planness , I don't mind a kitchen joined onto a dining or family area but some people have joined all the downstairs rooms together and I love my family dearly, but sometimes I want a little seperate space from them.

I have an irrational hatred of fake lead windows and shiny tiled floors in living ares

We moved last year and looked at a lot of houses from the outside before arranging an official viewing. You can get a general sense of the neighbourhood from that, especially the adjacent houses, plus as the vendors are not expecting a viewing, any noisy dogs haven’t been spirited away and the garden specially tidied.

Inside: one had a smell and appearance of damp, one had every wall covered in anaglypta and sockets hanging off the walls and another had a jungle of a garden and a collapsed fence. Every house has hidden snags that you only discover when you are living there so I didn’t want to add all these obvious ones to them!

Those square boxy houses with white wooden or plastic panelling on the exterior - where its on the upper floors only.

Glass and upvc front porches with a conservatory style sliding door.

A house with both these features I wouldn't even bother to look beyond that.

Unmade beds? Really? What a silly thing to discount a whole house over. You know you aren't buying the beds right?

Yeah, I do understand. Decor can be changed, doors replaced but I got an ick vibe that was hard to put into words.

We visited a house where a couple had died quite tragically but that house didn't have an ick. It was a horribly sad story but the house felt like a happy place but also like a life interrupted but still - not an ick vibe. We made an offer on that house, so we're not easily creeped out people.

This house though. It had an oppressive vibe that wasn't caused by decor alone. The best way I can describe it was a mixture of violence and sadness.

When we finished the viewing my DH asked me what do you think, and my reply was - just get me out of here immediately. I was heavily pregnant at the time and I just didn't want to be in that house at all. It felt 'unsafe'.

I'm most definitely being ridiculous, I'm sure - it was just an average house on an average street but it made me feel so uneasy. Even DH said, I don't know how to explain it but I know what you mean.

I viewed a house a couple of weeks ago and reeked of dog piss. They had 5 dogs apparently, it was hideous. That really old rancid smell 🤢

I viewed a house once where there was a huge skid mark down the toilet 😳put me right off!

There was a really bad vibe in the house, it was dripping with fear and rage with the male owner sitting in the kitchen. I don't know if it was coming from him or the house but my DH and I ran out of there and it took ages to sell.

Swirly artex ceilings, carpet in the bathrooms, ashtrays on display, chemical air freshener smells.

Fake grass.

Being next door to any commercial property.

Once was smitten with a beautiful property, great photos. When I looked on Google earth it was next to a bp garage.