Tell me stories of your worst viewings?

[NinNinJin]

We viewed a house this morning. A beautiful Victorian 3-story building that ticks most of our boxes. But gosh inside. It is a witch's house. I met 6 black cats inside (yes imagine the smell), pentagrams everywhere, devil figures and hmmm ... some explicit BDSM posters let's put it that way. The property has been in their possession for 8 years and judging by previous pictures they have made a real effort to ruin it. Signs of neglect, mould and it is quite filthy throughout.

Do you think the ambiance will put people off? I'd be willing to wait for them to drop the price by circa 150K 😅

Another rather sad one. Elderly couple with disabled son with learning difficulties. During the viewing (wife was keeping an eye on son in another room) she said (son's name) is smoking again in a resigned way. The sad thing was, perhaps because they hadn't moved for a long time, they seemed to think viewing equals sale. Faces fell when we said goodbye without offering.

My favourite viewing was a big standard 4 bed newish build house, the couple selling it were lovely and very conventional.

We got to the fourth bedroom and the lady said - I hope you won’t be shocked at what is behind these doors and you’re open minded (she was Dutch)

DH and I looked nervously at each other, imagining a sex dungeon. She told us to get on our hands and knees and crawl in!

It was dark and we had to crawl through a tunnel and stand up, we were in a kind of dark circle with stuff at chest height.

Then a whistle blew, the lights went on and a full miniature railway that ran through the whole room sprung to life!
The gentleman (who was stood in the circle) even had a signalman’s cap on! It was incredible and he spent a good 30 mins showing us everything.

We didn’t buy in the end as it only had one parking space but it was a lovely house.

This reminds me of looking for a rental room in New Cross back in the 1980s. I'd seen lots of dreadful places, including a house where the owner expected to be able to walk through my bedroom to get to the loo and a place where the owner was on the verge of tears from start to finish and said how important she thought it was we included each other in all our social arrangements - plus all sorts of other oddballs and shitholes.

So it was quite a relief to look at a place where a normal-seeming guy said he'd split up with his girlfriend and needed a lodger in his spare room to help cover the mortgage. After I'd seen the room, he offered me a cup of coffee and then suddenly he said, if you're going to live here, you'd better meet Oscar and Jasper - and proceeded to lift two enormous pythons out of tanks in the living room and drape them all over me! I was actually really fascinated and asked a load of questions about what they ate and whether I'd ever be expected to look after them etc.

I really liked the room but I never heard from him again. Looking back with a less innocent eye, I think the point was probably just to get girls to come into his flat and then scare the bejaysus out of them for kicks - or worse - a selection test I apparently failed spectacularly.

You do actually make yourself incredibly vulnerable going to viewings.

We had someone come to look at our house, it was the lowest price 3 bed in the area on Rightmove and it had a smallish garden, not tiny but not huge, one couple came to view and said it was too small, they really wanted 5 bedrooms and a bigger garden and the estate agent got quite annoyed with them and said this house is at the top of your budget, you are not going to get five bedrooms without a lot more money! And another man asked if we thought the farmer behind us would sell a bit of his field to make the garden bigger? I mean obviously no farmer is going to sell a strip out of the middle of an arable field so you can have a bigger garden 🤣

Agggh these stories! I'll add a few of mine ...
Flat-hunting in Surbiton and the EA opened the bedroom door for us to see a naked couple still in bed. Oops.
Another flat in Surbiton where the tenants obvs DGAF about appearances - dirty plates and bowls al over the place, stinky washing up piled up in the sink and personal letters including CCJs opened and readable on the kitchen table.
But the worst one was recently - viewed a modest 3-bed bungalow priced at £720k and it didn't have a usable kitchen. Just a metal sink hanging off a wall. No worktops at all. Flooring throughout was cold grey ceramic tiles like you might get in operating rooms. Horrible. The garden was immaculate tho 😆
EA was quite affronted when we didn't make an offer.
Also saw a 'converted' bungalow where the conversion was sooo bad you could hardly get up the stairs and turn the corner into the bedroom. EA kept banging on about all the eaves storage space -- which you could only access by precariously standing at the top of the stairs and opening cupboard doors that unbalanced your footing, or crawl into a kind of tunnel to open cupboard doors. Mad.

The most memorable house viewing was a house that was so cluttered and messy, that it reminded us of Wayne and Waynetta’s house! The estate agent warned us about the house before viewing. I can’t remember whether we’d seen house details before going in (pre Rightmove days, you were sent house details) but needless to say we didn’t proceed.

Not the flat itself but the owner. My dad fell in love with this gorgeous flat being sold by a man on behalf of his elderly mother who was waiting on a place in a home. It was advertised as three bed but theyd knocked through most of the wall from the first bedroom to make a walk in wardrobe and the third bedroom was a tiny box room with fitted desks all round it.

But he loved it and figured we was going to redecorate anyway and wouldn't be hard to add a stud wall back in between the two main bedrooms and would be nice to have a proper office for his work.

Except this woman was still on the waitlist for the home which could takes days, months or even over a year and apparently had no where to go (despite having two children living in the nearby area). These were the owners demands.

He would sell to my dad but he wasn't allowed to move in until the woman had moved out and he'd have to cover all the bills in the meantime. erm no

He could move in but he'd have to stay in the smallest bedroom and the lady would stay in her bedroom until the place was found. Er, no

He could exchange and then give him 30 days notice to complete when the home found a place with up to two years exchange time allowed (bearing in mind my dad was selling his own property and would have no where to live). er, nope

He walked away from that one and found a beautiful flat he loved nearby

Oh gosh, nothing as bad as some of these!

When renting:

• We turned up on a snowy Saturday morning, where a disgruntled man opened the door and told us that they were in the middle of breakfast. EA then popped her head around and offered to show us around. We sheepishly agreed but left before viewing upstairs as the existing tenant just kept moaning about how we were interrupting their breakfast.
• The one that was literally falling apart but it was ok because the landlord was "willing to discuss the possibility of the tenants making some home improvements."

When buying (2022 - height of the frenzy):

• The pre market viewing we booked of a house that was great on paper, but needed SO much work to even be habitable. Stank of cigarettes, doors were hanging off hinges... just so neglected I can't even put it into words.
• The one that absolutely reeked of cat piss. It was inescapable.
• One where the owner showed us around. Lovely lady, very up front about work that needed doing in the house. She was in her 60s and relocating to be nearer family, house was on with an online agent. She was getting ready to go on holiday with her female friend, who lived with her, so they were both packing suitcases while we were there 😂there was a third undisclosed person asleep in one of the bedrooms but it was fine "as long as you're quiet."
• The one where the owner followed the EA around while we were doing the viewing, correcting her several times and telling us what we could/couldn't do if we bought the house 🤔

The viewing on the house we bought went pretty well, although the EA called us twice ahead of our viewing to make sure we didn't want to view any of their other properties instead 😂

A 5 bed rented detached house in the posh hilly slightly out of town bit of Hove.

Agent let us in to find about 12 people of varying nationalities and not related and mattresses everywhere and filthy . Clearly had been rented under some kind of legit thing (posh agents) and then used to house goodness knows who- Agent was visibly horrified and asked if we wanted to look round anyway.

We viewed a barn conversion, well not sure if it was a barn but an old agricultural building. We had to go outside and up a ladder to view the bedrooms. Agent contacted us to ask if we wanted to make an offer, we declined. He pushed for a reason and I said, "Well it hasn't got stairs." He replied, "There's nothing on your requirements about stairs."

I honestly didn't think we needed to specify stairs but apparently we did.

We viewed a house where the couple living there were splitting up. We arrived with EA to them having a massive row (which is why we knew they were splitting up). Basically he didn’t want to sell but she did. She told him to go for a walk while we viewed it. Before he left he used the downstairs loo and made a smell that only a middle aged man can produce. It smelt of rotten guts, old eggs, red meat and bad feeling and drifted around the whole house. Before he left he came out of the loo and gave us a massive smirk, he honestly looked so pleased with himself. It definitely was a “fuck you” poo. It worked though as it completely put us off the house!

We bought a lovely house just round the corner. 10 years later we still call that house “poo house” and wonder if it still stinks.

That made me laugh - "nothing on your requirements about stairs" - like you were just being fussy 😂

As did the dog I expect.

20 years ago, go to look at a house on a river with no road at front, only at back. Have keys from estate agent to let ourselves in and drop them back when we are finished.

We pull up in the back garden, as we are exiting the car, we see a couple approaching us, turns out its the neighbours, who want to know ALLLLL about us, and also fill us in on the comings and goings of the sellers (awful neighbours, he has a young girlfriend she's a bitch, always arguing, we will much nicer they agree as they make suggestions about when we can host them for dinner).

Try our best to shake them off, but not happening, so off we go to the back door and try the key - it doesnt work. Neighbours are speculating at all the reasons this may be the case while we phone the estate agents who tell us its just stiff and they will be along in a minute. Endure the neighbours for 10 mins until EA turns up, he cant get the lock to work either. Phones the woman seller, who says she will be there in 1/2 an hour with spare key. We all stand around akwardly while the neighbours go off on wild speculation.

Woman arrives, tries key, while berating the estate agent for being fucking useless, key doesnt work. She then launches into a tirade about her ex-husband who must have changed the locks. Decide to try the front door (but longish walk as no road access at front), then the neighbours suggest that we go through their house. EA reluctantly agrees and we start traipsing into their garden, then suddenly the woman says fuck this and runs back to the house, when we hear a smash. We duly all go back to the backdoor where she's put the side panel in, opened the yale lock and is screaming that her ex has changed the locks and how he can pay for the damage.

At this point we want to leave, but we cant because the neighbours are blocking our exit, so in we go. Estate agent hussles us out of the kitchen where seller is having a breakdown, saying that he'll show us it later, into the lounge. Neighbours are pointing out every bit of damp, crappy decorating, signs of mice etc. EA has as much luck getting rid of them as we do. Woman rejoins us, still ranting about her ex-h and up we go to the first floor and the master bedroom - EA opens the door and (I shit you not), there is nothing in that room except a mattress covered in black satin sheets, roses and bottles of wine. Woman goes from furious to apoplectic, neighbours are having the time of their lives.

EA then shows us the other bedrooms and takes us up to the loft room. We are up there when we hear this massive banging on the front door. EA looks startled and we all make our way back down to shouts of "where is he, I'm going to kill that cunt", and run into the woman, her brother and two mates on the upper landing, who then start verbally laying into the estate agent accusing him of trying to sabotage the sale of the house so that her husband can keep it for his new gf.

Neighbours link our arms and march us through to the other bedroom, and conspiratorially tell us allllllllll the gossip, going back years, turns out her brother is some kind of drug dealer and her husband owes them money and is supposed to be in Spain. Eventually the woman, now sobbing uncontrollably, is led off by her brother and his mates with a few parting shots to the estate agent about watching his back. EA - who is pretty shaken - seems to go on automatic pilot and insists on showing us the kitchen and dining room, which we humour because we feel so sorry for him.

Eventually show is over and we all leave, only it was a hot day and I'd left the windows on the car down. As we get into the car, the neighbours - one on each side - stick their heads through the car windows and KEEP talking at us, suggesting plants for the garden and how we should really replace the shed. After 5 mins I attempt a 3 point turn with the neighbours still hanging through the windows and eventually escape.

After careful consideration, we decided not to buy the house.

I'm not often lost for words but I was that day.

Oh I've waited a few years to tell this story! We were searching in another area with a view to relocating a few years ago. We went to see a house on a huge piece of land with a fishing lake on it too. We arrived and there were people fishing there, a house that looked unoccupied, and a caravan full of people. One fisherman was swearing and threatening to beat up another fisherman and the owner of the house who greeted us was evidently drunk/drugged up and very very odd.

As we walked around the house, he was almost trying to intimidate us into buying it (given the initial view of the locals, we'd already decided this was a no!). He explained that he and his wife were divorcing and that the lady following us around was his girlfriend (she appeared drunk/drugged up too). His wife then appeared who seemed lovely and absolutely desperate to sell.

He showed us a map of the land and what was his and what was not. The map had some areas with black lines around the boundary and some with red. He said it was all his so I asked about the red lines (i.e. why is it in a different colour?) - he squared up to me (I'm 5'6 in my socks) and told me if he said it was his, it was his.

DH and I were making frequent, desperate eye contact trying to find a way to leave (the guy was super intimidating, drunk/drugged and evidently on the edge). We struggled through a walk around the land and then he asked us if we were going to buy it. We said we were going to talk to the bank and would come back ASAP (we didn't want to say 'hell no!') and then drove off as fast as we could.

Horrendous!! Funnily enough, the place was called 'Lake of Tranquillity' - ha!

Two stick out. We were looking for our first time buyers house as BF and GF. One terraced place was entirely clad, in every single room, in pine panelling, like a bizarre ski chalet in the middle of South London. The back yard had been covered in concrete, painted with red gloss paint and was extensively punctuated with shit from a large German Shepherd (dog, not an extension of the alpine theme).

Second, many years later, was a 1930s place, probate job (sad story), empty but absolutely stank of cat week from dozens of indoor cats even though the carpets had been pulled up (exposed grip rod throughout), filthy, bees living in chimneys, very overgrown garden with seven (!) ponds, kitchen last replaced in the 50s. No-one had offered in the three months it had been on the market, but it was solidly built and we fell in love with it, put in silly offer, bought it, did it up and still live in a beautiful house in a lovely bit of town near good schools that we could never have afforded otherwise.

How did you get rid of the cat pee smell @CroisetteCroissant?

I love how many of these stories end with the estate agent acting all affronted when we decline to buy these shitholes. Do you think they practise in front of the mirror?

It’s probably part of their EA exams

I was the seller

Viewing arranged , lovely couple, liked the house , we sat chatting at the kitchen table about various bits when suddenly my very well behaved and house trained cat walked into the kitchen and shit on the floor right next to us
The pong was like something I've never smelt before - I was absolutely horrified

She had never done this before and has never done it again

🐈 💩

I've seen one house where I wanted to be sick the moment I went inside. In fact I almost heaved and had to go out for a breather. It was empty, so furnishings or anything. There was such a heavy and sad atmosphere, like someone had died in there, but it was mainly the damp or mold. I think my body was telling me to get out of such an unhealthy place.

This is why people don't like estate agents. Honestly....stairs for fuck's sake.

Yeah, clown school, more like.

I viewed a house years ago in Woking. I don't know what was going on, but the people living there absolutely didn't want it to sell! It was so dirty and they were really petulant. I got the vibe it was either being sold from underneath them maybe by a landlord or possibly because of a divorce or something. Either way I actually felt sorry for the estate agent. They were trying to hard to sell it but it was so weird compared to how the occupants were acting that it was almost like a comedy sketch.