I would NEVER buy a house with…

[Wyr]

• solar panels

• a ‘garden house’ IE a lockdown special outdoor wooden shed dressed up as an office - usually taking up half the garden and completely pointless

• a neighbour who has a load of cars / shit in their yard - hoarder vibes

who’s next? 3 things that would make you not buy a house…

We said:
With a pink bathroom
Needing a lot of money spent on it
With exterior wall coating

We bought it anyway, as it had room to keep horses. Loads of DIY later and a fortune spent it was our dream home.

I wouldn’t have plastic grass - although I can understand if if you have young kids and a garden with no sun.

Hate loads of spotlights.

Really don’t like the look of solar panels, but would consider them on the back of the house.

No side-access would be a pain in the arse.

Hate front door opening straight into the sitting room - a tiny hallway would be fine, but I’d need something.

Biggest deal-breaker of all would probably be (at my age) no upstairs bathroom and no downstairs loo.

I love my kitchen island, but looking at it now it’s definitely (more than!) a bit of a dumping ground! I think that’s our fault rather than the island’s though as in our old house we dumped stuff on the end of the kitchen counter or on the dining table - you’re either a ‘dumper’ or not! We now have a very large kitchen and if we didn’t have an island there would be a lot of wasted space and a lot less storage as it has loads of pan drawers, etc, as well as a wine fridge. I also wasn’t keen to have wall cupboards, so we have a big corner larder and that’s it (I didn’t want it to look too ‘kitcheny’ as it’s a kitchen/diner - big dining table that seats 10 at a pinch at the other end and we entertain a fair amount). I wouldn’t sacrifice a dining table for an island though and I think it’s a bit daft to shoehorn them into a small kitchen, but each to their own.

House bathroom/only bathroom downstairs

I'd find it a pain to have the bathroom upstairs. I've not had an upstairs bathroom since 1986. You spend more time downstairs so it makes more sense not to have to traipse upstairs to the loo or have visitors going up. My budget doesn't extend to houses with multiple toilets/bathrooms. Agree with the union jack/St George flag nearby, it suggests the kind of people I wouldn't want to live near. A large garden would only be viable if I could afford (and find) a gardener. I'd love a conservatory and a driveway though. Proper posh!

If you had a pink bathroom, you'd only be able to read the Financial Times every time you went to the toilet; otherwise you wouldn't match

Really don’t like the look of solar panels, but would consider them on the back of the house.

Do people really sit and look at the roof of their house?

North Yorkshire alone is the biggest county in the country. Once you add East, West and South you’re talking about a huge proportion of the country. So this is obviously nonsense.

lived in Yorkshire all my life and seen 1 house with an actual flag pole. Far more likely to see the Yorkshire rose than St George’s cross

Near a school
No rear access
No heating

The one person in our village who flies a union flag is ex army (he saw action in the Falklands).

He only flies it on occasions like the jubilee, coronation, remembrance Sunday and VE day.

He isn't a xenophobic arsehole.

It's sad that Brits aren't allowed to show patriotism because it is assumed that they are all racist xenophobes.

re solar panels you don't really get a say where they are put. they are put in the position that gets the best sun in order to optimise them. that possibly can be the front of the house

• A windowless bathroom
• No downstairs toilet
• Plastic grass (don’t understand why people do this, if you want low maintenance just do gravel & paving it looks so much better)
• A lean-to of any description

Nope. But I’d see them when I drove up to the house and I know they’d put my teeth on edge. Somehow I wouldn’t mind them so much at the back, as we wouldn’t really see them unless we were at the end of the garden looking back at the house,

folding tables, my dining room now holds 3 sewing machines....mind you I have no kids and rarely entertain.

100% with you on this @RampantIvy

No other country in THE WORLD, except England has to constantly apologise for flying their own country's flag. Boils my piss.

.

We put our solar panels at the back of the house, at the end of the garden and on the wall of the shed. It's not the absolute best for sun exposure but we didn't want them on the roof (DH was worried about fire risk, which I believe to be pretty minimal but he still worried) and we didn't want them in the front garden. We get enough power from them them day to day, although on dull days we have to refrain from using the washing machine, and we don't have a tumble dryer.

Well there are. It's just it's with our council tax and not metered so is a fixed cost.

My solar for May has generated £59 and my total usage including standing charges is £41. So Octopus will be paying me this month.

I am all electric (no gas here) so that's all showers, water heating, cooking etc. plus no water meter so I can do as much washing as I like.

Solar is great for the right households and with the right set up.

Edited to say this is in response to the reaction Scotland doesn't pay for water it does but differently.

Sorry, I realise I should have said that the back of the house is south-facing so that is where they would go.

no flagpole but I have decorated the front of the house with union flags, bunting and so on for the Queen's Jubilee and the Coronation. A few of us round her do or put up flags for England football games. I don't do football at all. I live in a naice "sought after" area.

There may be no water bills in Scotland, but right now there is very little water. I have just returned from a trip to Scotland. DH's relative who lives in Inverness says that the water levels in the lochs and rivers are really low. The river Ness has loads of pebbly beaches right now when they would normally be under water.

I really wouldn't worry, we will be full replenished in no time. 😂

I have just realised that I got my energy bill figures wrong. Due to the fine weather we have had this spring we are £46.45 in pocket this year. We paid out for energy January - March, but the supplier has paid in more than we paid out so far this year. They dropped money into our bank account in April and May.

It's worth having an "ugly roof" for these kind of savings.

Close to a green/playground

Next door to anyone with a hot tub, football net, basketball hoop, trampoline or anything that looks like they'd spend a lot of time outside being very noisy. Also next door to anyone with an unkempt house, garden and scrap or boy racer cars

Shared drive

Near social/council/lots of rented houses

Three storey with the master bedroom on the top floor

Garden/drive on a significant slope

For me;

1. Plastic grass
2. Caravan/motorhome next door
3. Hot tub next door (or human soup bowl as I like to call them).

Last one is partly due to the fact I use to live in a village where ‘wild swimming’ was popular and I’ve seen enough pot bellied men in Speedo’s to last me a lifetime, as well as women bending over whilst they put their swimming costumes on! 😂

Actually the dislike of motorhomes is also due to this previous house as people use to park up in our small village and use it as an unofficial camp site, leaving all their crap behind. Grateful to have moved! Wouldn’t recommend living in a tourist spot.

I'm currently looking to move and looking at houses. I've realised that there are things that I don't want through this process:

1. An overlooked garden
2. Too close to a waterway.
3. A house which street is not adopted by the council and having to pay a management company to upkeep.

Once you see the amount of money you save by using them, the constant hot water, selling back to the grid, reduced electric bill i think that would reduce the teeth on edge 😃
cant wait for my ones to be installed