Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

I'll go first

We went to this one house in Wantagh - It was seaford Schools. Small cape, Cute dog in the back yard. The house was a mess. Clothing every where. The beds werent made. The bathroom was dirty. There was "NO" stove or oven at all - odd. There was a sink filled with dishes, and a half eaten piece of toast on the counter.

Second house - Levitt Ranch - Asking $399k. It was 100% original. I think there was something wrong with the past owner. He boarded up some of the windows, and made storage like rooms. It was very old....There was a gross back porch. We didnt even bother looking at the second floor. It was bad.

Third House: Levittown Ranch. Over $450k. And it needed work on the inside. There was spots that werent sheet rocked, spots that still needed to be sanded and painted.....and it was dirty.

Fourth House the mold house - Levittown. It stunk. Whew there was a water leaking in the ceiling in the laundry room - back bedroom and the people were living there with 2 young kids. The rest of the house needed work too. It was bad. Sold at Foreclosure for $369k

5th house - Split Level in N bellmore - $429k and taxes over $9200. Very small lot. Right behind a commercial building. right off Newbridge rd
House needed a complete gut. The kitchen was nasty. It had one new beautiful bathroom. They ripped all the rugs up to reveal hardwood that needed a lotof work. The outside needed to be resided, and the house needed new windows all around. The rear porch was falling down a little. They sold it and the owners must of put $200k into it.

Scott

Message edited 1/25/2006 11:11:28 AM.

Re: cary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

Only one house stands out. We went in the house hubby said lets do this fast.

1. People had pots and pans in the sink of a 1/2 bath upstairs

2. there were sheds all over the backyard with mattreses in them

3. No electric on

4. Hubby grabbed my arm and said thats it dont touch anythig else this house is invested with roaches....

They wanted 369 in Massapequea Polo Estates area....

Re: cary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

One house we looked at must have had new carpeting and new paint but the owner did not let it vent, so by the time we saw it the house reeked of mold, paint and new carpet. We barely opened the front door stepped inside and had to run right out. DH, the realtor and I got nausious and all had to leave. House is still on the market. When we looked they were asking 389k, and now they are asking 369k. I wonder if the owner knows how bad it smelled b/c no one was living there - it was completely empty.

The other house DH and I call the cat ladys house. Stunning brazillian hardwood floor, custom shoe closet (with about 500 high end shoes arranged by color no less) (i.e. Manolo, Jimmy Choo, etc.) But it was more the accessories, in the bathroom she had a vat of moisturizer the size of the giagantic costco mayo jar - at least 30 gallons. And the husband smoked cigars, the cat peed all over and she had a horrible candle. It was revolting. Oh and she cut the doors to let her cat walk through with the door closed so every door has a 1 1/2 foot square whole on the bottom to let a pet walk through. They were asking 425k. I have no idea if it sold or not.

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

I forgot of another house I looked at - Danielle wouldnt even go in - the front of the house had the original asbestos shingle. The inside was old....and the whole house smelled like B/O and Curry - NAsty.

Scott

Re: cary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

The very first house we saw was so moldy that I was sick in bed for two days. Did I mention the crack houses around the corner...

Another day we had a few doosies. One smelled of stale beer and cigarettes and had black curtains on the kitchen windows. My DH and I smelled of this for the next few hours...yuck!! The kitchen was painted blood red!!

That same day we saw a house that had dirty underwear (yes, you could tell!) and pantyhose on the floor, around 10 people in the house, who weren't looking at the house, just lingering about..weird

The best, however, was the "colonial" with the stucco'd ceiling that was spackled with silver glitter. How in the heck does that come off??

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

oooh silver glitter - How and why did they get that up there.

We looked at another house in West Babylon...It was really nice, and there was a 1 bedroom apartment on the second floor. The guy left his underware out on the floor yuk.

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

There were 2 that come to mind.
The first one was a pretty nice house but the owners were DIRTY. I don't mean messy, I mean dirty! The bathrooms were so nasty and they didn't even make the beds! We went around with our realtor and this was the only one without a lockbox. The owners realtor had to meet us at the house. She wasn;'t even embarassed by it!

Another one, the owner was home. I wasn't sure if the owner was a man or woman (not that this matters!). (S)he told us (s)he was home because half his/her lungs were removed and not allowed to leave the house. I learned a lot about her/his medical problems! There were a few other things but I can't remember them right now. As we were walking around, DH and I went down tot he basement to check it out. The owner was a musician, classical from what I could tell. (S)he had turned the basement into a library (I mean like a public library with the rows of shelves!) and a musical studio. Instead of books inthe library though, it was all old records and there were some really old musical books. I felt this weird presence down there which convinced me that it was haunted. It was so spooky! I don't even remember the rest of the house!

ETS:
OMG! The scary house is still available Here is a picture of the music room I was talking about!! (It really is scarier in person!!!) It goes on for about 50 more feet to the right of this picture with shelves like these

Message edited 1/26/2006 11:08:59 AM.

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

the house I bought.

When I first saw it I walked through, walked out and affectionately referred to it as "the Disaster House". Everything was original 1971, nothing updated, gross bathrooms.

1. Rust on the outside of the refrigerator... YUCK

2. Trump Loile (sp?) through the house. It's when a scene is painted on the wall... huge flowers in the 1/2 bath, birds flying all around in the kitchen. She spent all of this money on decorative when she should have spent it fixing more important things.

3. No closet doors on any of the bedrooms.

4. Mailbox ducktaped to the post

But I loved the neighborhood and layout. I went to see about 12 other houses but I kept dewllling on the "Disaster".

I had my FIL walk through it with me (kitchen contractor) and take notes on what needed to be done. He cruched the numbers and the amount to fix it (cost for many items, not retail) was much less than the same house in better condition in the same neighborhood.

I waited until she lowered the price again and I found out she had already bought a place in NJ so she was desperate. I bid low and well...

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

I'm so excited that I have this to look forward to.

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

a minor or young girl giving a B* with a grandfather type person as they get up and out of the room we were looking at...

later to we find out...they are related


like what are people thinking, you know we are coming to look at the house

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

There were two that I can think of:

1) In Deer Park, about $380. We pulled up and there was no lawn, just grass, with toys all over it and like 5 dirty looking kids sitting on the porch. We ask to go in, and there are no parents there. We're walking around, being followed by multiple cats and dogs. The place was disgusting and there was clumps of pet hair everywhere. Rust and mold spots, holes in the sheet rock and apparently the kids had been allowed to draw on the walls. The mother finally materialized from somewhere in the mess, but we were already ready to leave.

2) The ultimate junk house in North Babylon. DH actually wanted to buy it! He saw it as a challenge. It smelled when you walked in because there was water damage everywhere. There were missing walls, electrical wires and pipes exposed in the rooms. The upstairs had been gutted so that it was just an open loft with a hole in the floor. The smell in the basement made me nauseous and you had to hold onto a pipe on the wall to be able to walk steadily (and the pipe was loose). I think they had the nerve to ask $379. The owners weren't there anymore and their realtor just kept laughing about the impossible situation and said, "You can leave whenever you've seen enough of this mess."

Oh and I forgot about the house that had a basement with an outside door they couldn't find the key to so you couldn't get into it and if you opened the door to it in the house, there were no stairs. I opened the door thinking it was a closet and nearly fell in.

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

We went into a house. The people had 2 teenagers. The daughters room had beer bottles all over it and then we went to the sons room and it had a HUGE Bong standing on the floor. Mike and I just busted out laughing. BTW this was an OPEN house. It wasnt like we sprung up on them to see the showing...

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

This isn't really scary more weird. We closed around 4PM got all our stuff together and our truck and got to the new house around 7PM. The former owners were still there doing laundry! AND they had their friends over drinking beers!!

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

We went to go look at a house in Ronkonkoma....from the picture it looked nice on the outside.

When we pull up we realize that the entire neighborhood is trash...the house across the street had a fence for a front door.

We would have gotten right back in our car...but the owner of the house came running out to greet us...so we went in.

The house was covered in bird poop....they had about 4 birds...all flying around. The birds had pecked holes in just about every wall.

Shag carpeting through out the house...Flower wall paper in almost every room...no floor in the kitchen... and a bathroom upstairs was missing the toilet.

They listed an above ground pool..so we went in the back to look at the pool....which was caved in.

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

One will haunt me forever.
It was a house in Bayside,Queens.. 2 family-brick, 6 over 6,right across from the Throgs Neck Bridge. Great house,we originally only looked at 2 families- so as to help with the mortgage..we later gave in & bought a single family home.
Anyway, we came with our realtor & were greeted outside by this maybe 4 yr old girl, she was in a coat but no socks or shoes! It was Feb. & freezing!! They took us to the top floor ( we weren't allowed to view first floor) and there were maybe 40 pairs of shoes littering the hallway like the little girl couldn't find some there?????
The kitchen had a HUGE butcher block in the middle & no table..on the block was a gigantic piece of bloody leg of something.. as big as a TV.. This was soooo disturbing I could barely unblur my vision to notice the rest of the top floor,except that there were 20 mattresses everywhere,no furniture.
They take us to the basement.. when our realtor turned on the lights..people scattered & ran to corners like scared mice. Once again, 20 mattresses.
These poor people,all probably illegal immigrants from somewhere in the Orient. I was soooo disturbed I wanted to call some type of help agency but oviously others were aware too...it was on the market.
It sold in under a week for $770,000.

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

We looked at a place with a friend of ours. It was a really cool loft space, but the owner was letting his son and his son's friends live there and it was sooooo gross! Stuff left floating in the toilet!

Then there was the crack house where every room - ie living room, dining room, and all bedrooms were being rented out to different, unrelated people. Totally scary!!!

Weirdest though, was the house that had a staircase in the bathroom... It seemed to go nowhere, but when you got to the top, there was the toilet!!! Of course!

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

We saw this one house that was kind of messy and had about 10 cats or more.. they were breeders and were moving to FL... I don't remember the house at all since I was more interested in the cats and kittens... they were sooo adorable.

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

I saw a bunch of winners but this one beats everyones....I should start by saying that my real estate agent was also my cousin so we had a blast when we would go out, at times laughing ourselves to tears..
I asked her to show me this one house that I saw on Mlsli a couple of times and she didnt really want to take me there but I thought it could be the one. It was a Split in Wantagh right off of the north side of merrick. We should have known not to go in just by passing by it b/c the side yard was the firehouse but we had an Appointment and didn't want to be rude.

A 20 ish girl opened the door with a towel wrapped around her head as if she just came out the shower. Her and another lady were trying to feed a 9mth old with a spoon while laying completely on his back on the couch. So the one lady gave of the grand tour. First the house STUNK of all different spices and food. To me the dining room table was placed in the wrong direction (narrow skinny room you would think the table would be placed the same way but it wasnt it was placed width wize) so you couldnt have access to the kitchen from the dinning room since the table blocked the entrance. Kitchen I cant explain there were bathroom tiles on the walls. Then the bedrooms. 1st one 2 queen size mattress's on the floor one made the other looked as thought the pillows were stuff under the blanket turns out there was someone sleeping there. 2nd bedroom a full size china cabinet the middle section had china in it and the other two had clothing folded in it another two mattresses on the floor. Then the bathroom I went in first and saw a huge clump of hair on the shower wall. I lose a lot of hair when I shower too but I am talking enough hair to make a wig hanging on the wall. I called my cousin back into the bathroom and she started gagging she was like we have to go now. The woman just kept opening doors and there were more beds and more china cabinets. The kicker was the garage that they made into an apt. we were only allowed to go in half way b/c the man was sleeping in the back but the hall that we went threw had dirty molded food on plates lined up going to the bathroom since that was the only running water.

Would you believe that this house was going for $469 about 1 1/2 yrs ago. The only thing that it had going for it was that it was in Mandalay schools.

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

Message edited 9/16/2011 1:14:40 AM.

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

Posted by BabyBoy

a minor or young girl giving a B* with a grandfather type person as they get up and out of the room we were looking at...

later to we find out...they are related


like what are people thinking, you know we are coming to look at the house

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

It's a toss up between the house decked out in confederate garb (flags, muskets, even some uniforms/costumes hanging in the closets).


Or the one that had an upstairs that you could only get to if you walked outside and around the back of the house...and oh yeah, that's where the only shower was.

How convenient in the middle of winter to have to walk outside to take a shower.

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

Holy cow these stories are amazing.

I decided I wanted to look at houses with the intention of getting something bigger. Every place we went to for an open house -- was much worse than what we have. On a main street, crummy neighborhood, whatever. Am I glad we didn't waste our time going in any of them after reading all these horror stories!!

BTW our house is actually very nice, it's just that dh bought it with his ex -- but now, after what I have seen and read -- I absolutely LOVE our house!!

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

DH and I saw this one house where we could swear they used to shoot pornos!!!

The house was PIMPED out in ultimate 70's decor.
There were all film processing rooms and black rooms in the basement.
Upstairs the wall paper was a bright lime green with giant storks.
All the carpeting was shag... all different shades of brown and green. The kitchen was just 70's retro.
Our favorite room was the black white and red room. The room had black and white velvet wall paper in this way "groovy" design that hurt your eyes. Then the drapes that covered the windows and the lights were all red! It was pretty trippy.
We laughed ourselves to tears with our real estate agent.
This place was hysterical.It was very clean I must say... but just absolutely hysterical.

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

We went to one house that had no oven!!!
Stovetop and a tiny convection oven above the stovetop....noone who bought that house was doing Thanksgiving Dinner!

Re: Scary things you saw during an open house - or when you were looking at a house

We went to a house where this lady made us take our shoes off. Ok fine maybe if her house was immaculate or something, even then a little weird...But her floors were filthy! I remember having stuff stuck to the bottom of my sock after walking around!