Renters - would you rent a property where the previous occupant had committed suicide?

[MN2025]

We have a portfolio of properties (LL investor) and a property has just come up for sale in our local area. It was a family home and the daughter committed suicide in the house.

The family understandably cannot face going back to live there - and have posted all over social media desperate to find a buyer. They’ve moved out already and renting somewhere else…

I’m thinking about making an offer on the house as I know there is ‘demand’ in the area in the rental market and I think it could rent out quick - but would you live in a place that had such a haunting past? Property was recently renovated so apart from a deep clean nothing will need to be done.
people die in properties of natural causes I get that - but not really that often in these tragic circumstances?

🙄

Thank you all for your replies - good to get some insight.

I have approached the current owner and are planning to view this evening. The owners are willing to accept under the market value to get the property sold - similar properties on the same street sold for £265k that are same quality. Owner is happy to accept £200k which we would look to offer if we were to proceed.

We would tell all prospective tenants a brief history of the house so that they can decide if they want to rent - rather them know from me than a neighbour.

also - for those that have ‘hate’ for investment landlords - we’re still creating housing opportunities for those that cannot afford to buy.

Well yes, that was the ask all along - that people would stop policing others' language aound suicide. I don't think ANYONE here has suggested we should be compelled to use the term 'commited suicide'. They have just expressed disagreement and annoyance with the (now familiar) arrival on a thread of someone gratuitously trying to guilt people into not using it.

It is so odd, sixty years after the repeal of anti-suicide laws, that people should suddenly start trying to fan into flames the long-evaporated association of the phrase 'committed suicide' with its former illegality - just in order to tell us how important it is to avoid that association.

The number of people who say "Ooh, I never knew the term had anything to do with criminality! I will avoid its use in future!" Well, quite - you never knew. Someone had to create the problem for you, so that they could then offer their pious solution.

Oh, for heaven’s sake. It’s not individuals ‘policing’ language. Look up any suicide prevention charity and they will be saying the same thing. And frankly, unless there was language change, people would still be throwing around ‘re*rd’ and ‘spz’. It’s not that complicated.

No one has been throwing the term 'committed suicide' as an insult, unlike those other terms you mention. The situation is completely different in that respect. And regarding what you said about organisations, well perhaps some of them are trying to impose language change of this sort. though I have not come across it myself despite my family experience (and in any case I suspect thet are trying to impose it on their own staff and volunteers rather than on suicidal people or bereaved people or friends of bereaved people). But organisations are just as capable as individuals of making a wrong call here, of getting caught up in language because it is easier than facing the awful, moiuntainous tasks of actually improving mental health care and support.

Well, take it up with all the suicide prevention charities, then?

Actually you will find they are some of the words disabled people are taking back. That was literally my point on my post about disability and being 'corrected' on language. Like I said we do not like to have our language of our conditions policed or be banned from using the words we choose.

There is a world of difference between me a person with a brain injury that effect my movement and vision calling myself 'retarded' (which literally means 'delayed/hindered') when my body wont respond to what my brain is trying to tell it to do or 'spazz' (an informal shorthand for spasm) when I have literally just locked up flailed and thrown the remote across the room vs. someone ignorantly calling their able bodied mate a 'retard' thinking it just means 'stupid/unintelligent' which it doesn't.

The latter use of the word is wrong in context and being used incorrectly as an insult, thats the issue not the actual word. In this case the assumption 'committed' means 'criminal' is the same wrong ignorance.

Most disabled people have in jokes, I mean it would be pretty miserable if we had to be serious all the time and we have enough issues to deal with. I wouldn't go up to another disabled person I don't know and be like 'what up retard' even if we have the same condition because I would follow their lead on how they choose to refer to themselves (for example I know someone who will only respond to 'cripple') but I will also not be policed in what I can say about myself.

If you do not wish to say 'committed' that is entirely your choice and I support you but no one get to tell others they can't say it.

There are on average 5 people chasing every Rental property in most areas of The Uk right now
It won't be an issue

Well, take it up with all the suicide prevention charities, then?

I do indeed to that, with the one organisation that I am involved with. Not just in relation to that term, but in relation to a general retreat into the realm of language.
Too often, organisations are so caught up with branding and the statement of values that they start to believe that words alone have more power than they actually do. I suspect that, although there may have been some small-scale research, most evidence for this attempted language change is based on speaking to very small numbers of people - many of whom haven't seen any problem with the phrase until it is pointed out to them. And then when it is pointed out to them, they are seduced by the thought that advocating for a change of language is a kind of low-hanging fruit - a really easy way of 'doing something'.

The other worry (and this is actually my main concern) is that values-rich, performative language use is rife in mental health care and can be experienced as inauthentic and alienating by service users - or even confusing and destabilising. Terms like "completed suicide" or "unalived himself", or the sentimentalised "took his own life" can contribute to a feeling of unreality, loneliness, etc.

(ETA: Sorry, I initially forgot to quote your post @GiantSuit , so I have added it in bold.)

You can 'put out' whatever mad things you would like to have happen.

But it is ridiculous to say with the country the way it is that we don't need landlords,

This I think is the best explanation.

People affected by suicide can call it whatever they want, people discussing suicide can call it what they want.

The phrase I hate the most regarding suicide is unaliving themselves, to me that just sounds completely ridiculous, but if someone closely affected by suicide chose to use that phrase, then I'd respect that.

Yes. But I would sage throughout and have the poor soul in my prayers.

So sad for the family too, I'm not surprised they can't face going back there.

"Committed" does NOT just mean a crime, FFS. You can still commit suicide as you have done it. It means the same as doing something, completing something, etc. Words have more than one meaning. Stop policing what people can and cannot say.

This a million times

"Unaliving themselves" is such a ridiculous euphemism that I always assumed it was a bad joke!!!

Yes, when I was in a meeting, a while ago and heard it being used (by someone who had not herself been bereaved by suicide), I almost couldn't breathe. I felt sick and shocked - 'retraumatised' I suppose is the correct word. I just couldn't believe that someone could play stupid little games with something so momentous. I feel sick just remembering it now. It is part of the reason I have been so vocial on this thread. The woman who used this term sounded like a little child, playing at encoutering something awful. And at the same time she was so smug, so sure of her rightness. It is so hard to get past total, numb, bewildered confusion in the face of a suicide. And then someone glibly makes it worse.
The difference between honest, frank words and this hideous gameplay is like the difference between a real child and one of those nightmarish "reborn" dolls. I want to encounter my son and his actions in a real way, not in an uncanny valley pretence.

It very much is. Society does not agree with you, there is no broad consensus, language will change organically over time if it feels like it.

This nonsense happens daily, one woke Mary Whitehouse enters a conversation about something and tells people how they're allowed to communicate with each other.

Well, i'm not sure what you want from me

3rd homes and above should be mandatory purchased to provide a social home to whoever wants one

Or sold on the market to first time buyers xxx

I don't want anything from you. But blanket statements like your first one don't help anybody..

Whether you like it or not, we do need landlords here and now in the actual place we are living we do need landlords.

but I think we should just drop this conversation because it's derailing the thread.

I can’t even quite explain why, but it feels like a kick in the stomach when I read it

We dont need them, but agree xx