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!

I live in an HMO, the landlord tells us "ill bring someone round next week" but won't tell us when and sort of expects us to be ready to present our rooms whenever he rocks up.

Last time he appeared whilst I was on a zoom call and he just carried on pointing out the plug sockets in the background.
He walked in on my housemate showering once as well, told the viewers to come on in as there was a shower curtain so apparently it was fine?

My late partners daughter was looking at a rental property.. She opened the built in wardrobe and found a handgun and a baseball bat!
She didn't rent the house!!

I viewed a lot of properties when I last moved and had the ick about two of them. One was dirty with old, grungy carpets and pen/felt tip scribbles on lots of walls. The other one was a rental and the tenant was there cooking dinner and allowed her small child to follow us round and chat constantly. The house was also so cluttered it felt unsafe to go upstairs and it was impossible to get in one room.

Anything that's not within your power to change, so for me it's usually been the location or as others have said how the neighbours present their houses. We viewed a gorgeous house where the neighbour next door basically used their back garden as a junkyard. They were burning a load of stuff when we were there and swearing loudly in the back as they did it. Put us right off at the thought of having to live next to them for an undeterminable period of time. And the vendor being there too. All three viewings we had with vendors present were thoroughly awkward. The last one opened the door, told us she was having a mental breakdown due to the sale of her home having recently fallen through and then literally begged us to put "any offer" on the table for her. Meant we unfortunately wrote the house off before we'd even stepped through the door. Which was unfortunate given that she spent the next half an hour following us around and telling us her physical health history and we felt too sorry for her to leave.

Strangely when we were looking we went to see a property that picture wise should have been right up my street. However there was an overly synthetic wax melt smell in the house that gave me a headache and put me off the house totally.

Cigarettes ashtrays, bathroom carpets, bed not made.

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

It's not the bed itself, more like giving the impression of a lack of care or effort, perhaps.

I'm renting, but some of mine are:

• small windows and lack of light
• dated decor, of course, like ugly or cheap looking kitchen
• en-suite. Too much cleaning, just don't want it again
• divan mattress bed. The marker of a tight fisted landlord.

Pet snakes! Couldn’t buy the place, what if one had been left behind!
Or one place we looked round the owners were obsessed with tigers; massive pictures of tigers everywhere and so much was tiger print it was hard to see past it, especially when we got to the giant tiger statues in the garden.

Carpets with THAT pattern on from the 70s

Neighbours with massive caravans on the drive or road.

Crappy looking curtains or blinds.

Pet smells.

Hairs or pubes in bathroom. Skids down the pan....

Pebbledash
Bad smells
Net curtains
Covers on loo seats or those revolting loo pedestal mats
UPVC front door

I know all these things can be changed, but I find them very off-putting and would find it hard to see past them.

Smell of cigarette smoke.
Ditto cats.

Plastic grass

flat roof

totally paved garden with nowhere to grow stuff

carpet in bathrooms

slug trails in the kitchen (that was the worst!)

A brand new high gloss kitchen with dark granite worktops. I hate the idea of a new expensive kitchen upping the value when the style makes me want to rip it out.

Cluttered
Smelly
Visibly dirty

Grey everywhere, fake grass, L O V E in the kitchen.

I don't think there is any decor or smell or whatever that would put me off buying the right house! Surprised at the responses.

I think you just get a gut feeling as to whether you could see yourself living there, and you see past the manky toilet or whatever.

I did view the world's creepiest house a few months ago, it was a former manse that had been empty for about a year, and very badly neglected prior to that. It was very dark and a dismal day with torrential rain and occasional thunder and lightning. The house was absolutely freezing and very damp, had bare floorboards and ancient, ripped, nicotine-stained wallpaper. At the back there was a large lean-to with a plastic corrugated roof which had segmented concrete cages with chains, apparently 'for dogs'. The house was entirely empty except for one of those big coach-built Victorian prams in the corner of one of the bedrooms, and a child's train set and dollshouse in the attic.

DH and I could not get away from that place quickly enough.

Physical ick once. The woman had loads of cats, one of which had diarrhoea. It was about 80 degrees, I was pregnant and we had to negotiate puddles of stinking slurry in the porch, the kitchen, the hallway … the woman chatted on cheerily as though it was totally normal to be surrounded by a miasma of steaming hot cat shit, and I literally couldn’t speak for fear of projectile vomiting. Out of there in less than 10 minutes.

Mental ick once. Man with creepily long fingernails and greasy hair proudly showed us his ‘summerhouse’ - a dark shed in the garden which featured a gigantic, filthy hot tub and a projector screen, where he’d apparently had ‘lots of fun’ in the past. I reflexively yelped “oh Christ don’t touch that” as my son started to poke his finger into a spout in the tub. After an awkward pause we declined to look round the rest of the house.

Hand painted kitchens, often the owner has painted over a totally inoffensive wooden kitchen.
I viewed a house with my son and when I opened a kitchen door the paint had dripped down the inside of it.

Cat smell yuck
cigarette smell
too much carpet
shoddy/unprofessional addons
garages converted into rooms
short/small windows in all the rooms

Grey painted walls, quotes (especially the transfers), cheap laminate, corner sofas, cat litter trays, any sign of black mould or damp.

Wet dog
or smoke smells would really turn me off
and things like dark dingy rooms that felt dirty and grimy

Things that gave me the physical ick the last time we moved:
Carpet in the bathroom (plus 20 years worth of talcum powder)
Carpet in the kitchen (plus 20 years worth of spills and stains)
Brown stained loos
A nicotine stained cloakroom (yup, 20 years worth)
Bedroom carpet sodden with cat pee (ditto)

But, the sellers were lovely. They were good people who had had some tough times. And the house was lovely with beautiful original features underneath all the neglect and grime. We bought it. Ripped out all the grimness. Restored its beauty. Exchanged Christmas cards with the former owners for many years. Still here 25 years later.

I think it's the emotional vibe of a house rather than the physical ick that's important. A few years later we were given the opportunity to privately buy a bigger, better house in the village at a very good price because the owners had got in a pickle and needed to sell quickly and thought we'd like it. A lovely house and on paper it looked an attractive deal. But they were odd, unpleasant people, it was a strange, unhappy relationship and I really didn't want to live there knowing what they were like.

Did view a house once where the garden was littered with dogs poo. Made it rather awkward to walk around the garden 🥴
It definitely gave us the ick the thought of having to pick up huge quantities of their dogs poo because they couldn’t be bothered to. And the house was expensive too so go figure