House hunting has been a fun adventure and, like any adventure, it took some weird twists and turns. So we figured since we highlighted some of our close-but-no-cigar finds (here, here, here, and here) we should take a second to share some of our no-way-no-how finds as well. Because they were actually pretty darn entertaining.
First, we encountered a mammoth split level. From the outside it looked like your usual split-level home. Until we got inside and realized it had SIX floors. Yes, six. That’s six times the number of levels we’re currently used to. Granted the top (attic) and bottom (basement) weren’t entirely finished, but still – wow. You can thank my brilliant artist’s rendering below to roughly show you how it was laid out:
Then there was the dark house. Not “this doesn’t get very much natural light” dark. This was “um, there’s no electricity” dark. When we arrived the realtor discovered that the power wasn’t working – whether from the owner not paying the bills or from a storm earlier that day we’ll never know. But bless her heart, the agent was determined to show the house to us anyways. So we busted out our cell phones as flashlights (it was about 6pm on a cloudy day, so there wasn’t much natural light to speak of) and we walked through carefully. In the end, we think the darkness probably did the house a favor because it didn’t appear to be very clean.
And speaking of clean… there was also the house where the owner’s idea of staging was to leave her shoe collection scattered across the master bedroom floor. Picture piles of high heels everywhere (sort of like the pic below, but not running shoes and not nearly as orderly). We couldn’t even step into the room because of the mess. Maybe they were trying to impress us with how many shoes they could afford?
Now I’m sure we’re not the only ones with crazy house hunting stories, so we can’t wait to hear what you guys have encountered. Isn’t it amazing what some people consider “designed to sell”? What craziness have you seen? And have you checked out this site? Oh the hilarity.
Dark room photo from here, shoe photo from here.
Psst- We announced this week’s lucky Target gift card giveaway winner. Click here to see if it’s you.
Page says
When we were house hunting, our agent took us through an empty house. Exploring on my own, I opened the garage door and screamed. There, standing in the dim light, was the torso of a man. It turned out to be a dummy used for martial arts, but it sure gave me a fright!
Lauren says
One house that my hubby loved (pool in the backyard) had floor to ceiling boxes stacked in the garage with only a narrow walkway up the middle. I can’t even begin to imagine how long it took those people to move …
Irina@CanDoGal says
LOL! I know what you mean. When we were looking for our house. We saw one where there was an open, working toilet in the basement right next to the washer/dryer set. Throw in the laundry and “go.” We also saw a house where someone had installed a sound system behind the walls so the music would play in every room of the house. Maybe that wasn’t so bad, but definitely odd.
Madelaine says
How funny! I have one of those crazy six level split-levels. You do actually get used to all the steps and because it is so split up on its own, you can do whatever you like with paint colors. We actually really like the house, but know that we will eventually have to sell because we know we won’t be able to do the stairs forever.
Can’t wait to see some interior pictures of your new house!
shanna says
I love the shoe collection!
My favorite crazy house hunting story was this past summer. We looked at a house that had been on the market for about 5 months. Our realtor had learned that the owners had passed away (they were elderly) and their grandson was living in the home (rent/mortgage free). So as you can imagine, he wasn’t in a real rush to sell.
When we arrived for our showing, there was a car in the driveway. Yikes. Our realtor rang the bell and the grandson answered. He was definitely in his 40s, wearing a stained white tank top and sweatpants with holes in them. Awesome. My realtor asked if we could look around, as we had a showing and he said, “oh, sure, fine. I’m just going to make some dinner.” It was 4:00.
We walk in and the house is terrifying: crazy color carpet and these monstrous drapes in every room. Wallpaper in every room. The living room had these huge photos of grandma and grandpa probably from the 1970s that were blown up in these really ornate frames. The furniture was all very ornate and gold, gilded and/or gothic. We went into the basement which was soaking wet (it had rained the night before).
While we were touring, the grandson decided to fry up some chicken(?). I don’t know if it was chicken, and I don’t know what he used to fry, but oh-my-god. It was the *nastiest* smelling thing I have ever smelled (and hello, I have two children). It was awful. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Jackie says
Um, yeah we saw some weird stuff when we were house hunting!
One that comes to mind is a small cape cod that was totally remodled and looked like a show room. We could tell that it was probably a young couple that lived in the house and we were surprised to find a very fancy office on the first floor. Heavy, dark furniture and a sign on the desk indicating that the owner was a doctor. My husband opened up a desk drawer and a bottle of scotch rolled towards the front of the drawer. It was just funny!
Another funny house that we looked at and actually liked became known as the “3M house” The office of this house had tons of 3M products neatly displayed all over the room. It looked like a 3M showroom almost. We did wonder if the seller worked for them!
We also looked at a house that had renters living in it which was very very weird. They were in the house when we came to look at the house and we could tell that we were not being welcomed…probably because anyone buying the house would mean that they would get kicked out! Definately not a great was to show a house!
I’ll stop, but you are right that house hunting is sometimes a weird adventure!
Marci says
I love telling this story!….
Our realtor took us to a house during our search that we weren’t too excited about it. It was pretty unremarkable but supposedly had a finshed basement that we wanted to check out. We decended into the dark basement and noticed that there was a huge “Gilligan’s Island”-style bar which would have been cool had it not had red vinyl counters. So we’re making snide comments about it, and we turn to look at the rest of the basement, which is very, very dark and no one can find the switch.
My husband and realtor have had enough and ascend the stairs but I just have to have a look at the other side of the basement. I can see a fold out sofa bed undone with a lots of clothes heaped on it. As I approach the sofa bed…..THERE IS SOMEONE LAYING THERE UNDER ALL THE CLOTHES STARING AT ME!!!!!!!! I ran up the stairs and told the realtor who said I was imagining things. She unlocked the house, went back inside, came out and said “Yep, you were right.” How weird is that??????
Emily says
We checked out one house that would require ALL new carpet or flooring in every single room. It wasn’t slightly stained, it was disgustingly stained. As in, I could tell where someone threw up, the dog tinkled, etc. Gross. Too bad, because the house (layout) was gorgeous. They had edited all the pictures online so it looked clean. I couldn’t even imagine the cost of replacing all of it (especially with wood) and they weren’t willing to work out a deal.
Also, every door had holes in it, as if they were trying to keep possessed people from breaking out…super creepy.
And lastly…They were saving up and hoarding goods for the end of the world. Crap everywhere.
tricia says
People are WEIRD! When we were house hunting, I couldn’t stand when we would walk into a teenagers room and it just had a nasty odor! It was so gross, I almost threw up!
Cait @ Hernando House says
The only “um, no. just… no” moment I can remember while house hunting was a house that was not only completely dated but the ceilings were very, very water stained and saggy. About a week after we looked at it someone tarped the roof. Hmmm…
Kathy Z says
We visited a house where the owners were leaving as we pulled up. There kids (pre-teen and younger) were still home however.
Another house we visited had at least 9 cats living there. It was a fairly large house and, surprisingly, didn’t smell bad. But it was funny going from room to room adding up cats.
Erin says
HAAAAA! I love Marci’s story!
amanda says
Jackie, don’t stop, these are really entertaining reads! OMG, Marci, that’s is totally creeeeeepy! I love all those bad MLS photo sites. I mean really, WHAT are they thinking??
Carolyn says
Irina@CanDoGal, the house that I grew up in had a toilet in the laundry room. It was really odd, I don’t know what the plan there was. It wasn’t a small laundry room either, it was a huge room, with a door to the outside and the furnace in there too. There were a couple times I was down in the basement playing and decided to use that toilet, but I always felt weird and exposed and uncomfortable!
Shelby says
We closed on our house a year ago yesterday (one year home anniversary celebrated :)!)
Anyway on our search we came across an adorable East Atlanta Bungalow at the very edge of our price range. (We loved the curb appeal of the home and wanted to see why this house was quoted so high). Coming up to the front door we noticed cameras pointed toward the front stoop…odd but we kept on the house tour. Coming into the Master Bedroom we stumbled upon a mess, the entire roof had caved in (we had a lot of rain this time last year) and apparently poor draining had caused a sloppy mess.
Needless to say we left but not after seeing about 3 more camera’s at all entrances.
Stephanie says
We saw a house that was a combination of your numbers 1 and 2…a six level split level home where the electricity had been turned off! It was a short sale that was obviously not being lived in based on the empty bedrooms, but the owners had left some of their furniture there to stage it. Totally bizarre.
Bethany says
My most horrific house-hunting story involves a giant litter box.
We were looking at a house with an open loft at the end of a two story great room.
As we’re going up the stairs into the loft we notice a very strong smell.
When we get to the top of the stairs, we find that the owner has put a giant plastic kiddie pool in the loft. Only he’s filled it with cat litter to create a MASSIVE LITTER BOX. We didn’t see any cats during our tour, but apparently he had several.
The giant pool/litter box wasn’t even clean. It was truly awful. We hightailed it out of there.
Becki says
Our house search took nine months – during that time there was one house we kept coming back to- we liked it but it had some issues we weren’t sure we could overcome. We must have looked the house at least eight times. The owners had moved out but still had a bunch of random stuff tossed about the house – including a pair of dirty tighty whities on the living room floor! Seriously – eight showings over the course of three months and the listing agent never got rid of the dirty underwear sitting on the living room floor! We affectionately referred to it as “the underwear house”!
Frannie says
The same thing that happened to Marci happened to me… we were looking at a great little house with a finished attic- it was dark up there and the realtor had told us no one was home. I was poking my head into a little dark room when all of a sudden the shape on the bed moved and there were eyes looking at me! I ran out of there as fast as I could!
The house we ended up buying and eventually loving was the dirtiest dingiest little ranch house. It was so gross that we sat on the fireplace to write the offer, I didn’t trust any of the furniture in it. I cleaned it for three days and we painted every surface before we moved anything in.
Jenn L @ Peas and Crayons says
I love me some shoes.. but that is WACKO!!! Yikes!
The weirdest things i’ve seen aren’t that weird… but one house had white, straightjacket looking buckles on EVERYTHING in the house. The fridge, the windows, the doors… all ridiculously baby/child proofed in the tackiest way possible. Another had installed a shelf so low in the garage & so darn close to the door that anyone touring the house was sure to brain themselves on the way to the garage. owch!
The body under the pile of clothes… that will haunt me. thanks for that =) haha
Babs says
i found my house pretty quickly in the hunting process, but one of the gems i saw first completely took my breath away (not in a good way) … the basement had a lovely mural of assorted disney characters doing and/or dealing drugs (my favorite was piglet in a trench coat and fedora). while repainting is a option i would have always known what lurked under the many coats of paint i would’ve needed to cover it. also, living in a place where previously that artwork was condoned really wan’t my ideal location :)
Catherine says
My cousin just put a bid on a house in Atlanta and sent me a million pics her dad took as a tour. The house looks totally cute, and I’m really excited for her, but I was a bit distracted by all the laundry on display–including some ladies underwear just sitting out. Ew! I hope it was at least clean!!!
You’d think that in this market sellers would try a little harder…
K says
We visited a house in the same neighborhood we ended up moving into that was so disgusting. It was a tri-level, packed full of stuff. They had multiple animals all in cages while we were there. The bedrooms had paper plates with left-overs sitting out on beds and desks. There was gross hair – animal and human – in various places. The place was dark and creepy. I always wondering about the people who were brave enough to eventually buy the place.
Ann says
I actually feel guilty for posting this, but once we toured a house for sale and the owner was on his deathbed, dying of cancer. Of course, when we set up the showing with the realtor we didn’t know, and it was quite shocking to see.
Kristen says
We looked at some really bad houses in our search but two stories stick out–
We went to look at a gorgeous Cape on a huge corner lot just blocks from my parents’ house– I had always admired it as a kid. When we walked in, we were transported to 1952– avocado everything in the kitchen, baby blue bathroom ( even the toilet!), and an installed huge hair dryer that looked like a torture device. There were also cat food cans stacked high in the garage.
Another house we didn’t want to look at, but my father insisted it was a great deal because it was on a big piece of land in the city next to us and the outside of the house was all remodeled. We walked in and if the bright purple shag carpeting didn’t turn us off, the duct tape holding the oven, radiators, and bath tub together did!
Mary says
While house hunting a couple years ago we came across this adorable little home. Problem was, it was covered in dirt! From about waist height down on all the walls and doors were covered in hand prints from their kids. Mud patties on the walls it was so bad. It was so disgusting I couldn’t even consider the house (what other not so obvious dirt would I discover if I bought this home?) And I’m now obsessed with keeping my own doors and walls clean now.
Another one that made us wonder what was going on was a house with multiple beds in every room. Dining room, living toom, the creepy little add on with no windows. Mattresses all over the floors. I think we counted 12 beds in a 3.5 bedroom house.
Makes me want to live in my house forever and never go through the buying process again.
AT says
I was looking at apartments and went to look at this one in Shockoe Bottom. The apartment manager took me into the unit I was looking at and then tenets were still there but supposedly they knew we were coming. Well we walked around the place for a bit and then went into the master and the manager had to kick a pair of rolled up panties out of the way b/f we walked in and then we notice the girl was still in the bed! She kinda rolled over and looked at us so annoyed we woke her.
brandt @ New House on the Blog says
While we haven’t seen some of the hilarity that you all have seen (and Marci, your story is AWESOME), here’s a few that we’ve toured.
1. The house with the “finished” basement. I guess the realtor though listing a basement that was “self-finished” by the owners was good enough – except this self-finished basement had huge gaps in the drywall, the carpeting wasn’t securley installed (it was just a pad/carpeting that you could pick up and move), and the “bedroom” was just a walled off area with door hinges installed INTO THE DRYWALL, and a crooked door entry to boot. And the room was bright pink. Like – hurt my eyes pink.
2. We’ve been in a ton of disgusting houses. While we’ve had no run-ins with live animals, we’ve smelled our fair share of dog and cat urine. Ugh.
3. We toured a house that was treated really roughly, aside from being just a 13 year old house. We went in one of the bedrooms, and on one side of the bed was a stain about 12 inches in diameter. And it was brown. And it was liquid. And it wasn’t cleaned up very well.
Karrie says
The weirdest thing we encountered while house hunting was going to a house with our Realtor and upon entering the house finding the current owners teenagers hanging out. The house was supposed to be empty since we had an appointment and the teens were clearly caught by surprise. But above all, the intense smell of smoke (I’ll give you one guess as to what kind of smoke we were smelling) was so overwhelming, we poked our heads into a couple of the front rooms then quickly left. I wonder how the followup phone call went when our agent called their agent!
Mary Eovino says
True story-When we were looking for our first house years ago, we went in one house that had a pistol sitting right on the kitchen table in broad daylight. I don’t know if it was real, or not..it looked VERY real to us and my husband, realtor and I scooted out of there as fast as we could!
Samantha says
When we first visited our house there was a canoe in the living room, along with a bed, propane tank and clothes living in the coat closet. There was a “hunting room”, plywood bathroom (and kitchen!) floor, nasty dirty paint, cigarette burns in the tub (HOW!?) no driveway and other fun finds. (Food still in a pot on the stove? The house had been on the market (and EMPTY) for a year and a half…. yum.)
http://ourlonghaul.blogspot.com/2009/09/house-before-very-before.html
Amber says
Since I looked almost exclusively at foreclosures, I saw my share of weird things. I have to say the weirdest was a cute little brick ranch in a nice area. It had obviously been remodeled to make it more of an open floorplan, but not well. The front door opened up right into the toilet in the master bedroom!!! Cute house, but can you imagine when guests came over?
Margaret says
i was really interested in this house, so my mother, my realtor and i booked a showing. very cute from the outside, but the inside had a real problem…the owner was sleeping on the couch! can you say awkward? she claims she was “sick”, but i think she just wanted to scare me away…and she did!
schmei says
I think Marci’s story wins!
YoungHouseLove says
Agreed! Marci gets comment of the day for sure.
xo,
s
Ivette says
Well, the bedroom with the mirror on the ceiling right over where the bed would have been was interesting…
Amanda Wright says
We went to see a house with our realtor, and when we got there the homeowner was in the shower. We waited on the front porch for her to finish, and she finally got dressed and left, but she left her small dog in the house. The dog was terrified and followed us around the house growling viciously. Lucky for us it wasn’t a biter! When we went upstairs the entire carpeted hallway was covered in those puppy pee pads! We had to take a running jump over them to get to the master bedroom. Gross. Needless to say, we didn’t end up buying that house.
caroline says
My husband and I recently started the search for our first house. We’re not scared of a fixer-upper, but the first house we saw almost made us want to rent forever! The house was being foreclosed on, and it was obvious that it hadn’t been kept up. We walked in to no electricity, at least half of the plumbing gone, copper stripped from the heating and cooling system, and some kind of animal feces on the floor. When we got to the basement, there was what looked like blood smeared on the walls and floor. I wish it had just been a bad dream. After the fact, some friends that live in the town told us that squatters had been living there for about a year.
Amber says
A split level is fine, but six levels?! That would get old fast. I also love the website you provided. I laughed out loud a few times.
Elizabeth says
When my husband and I were house hunting a couple years ago we came across some pretty shady stuff. Some houses were in foreclosure and cabinets were ripped off walls, owners had stripped the houses of the fixtures etc. But one really stood out.
We were to look at an older home with a good sized lot. We made an appointment and our realtor was to meet with their realtor at the home. When we got there, their realtor was a no-show. We ended up having our realtor let us in the property to see it. Like one of your houses, the electricty was off, so we couldn’t see much. There wasn’t any furniture either. As we’re heading towards the bedrooms this huge guy pops out from the restroom asking us what we’re doing there. After explaining, he told us he lives there and the house wasn’t for sale and to get out. We never heard from their realtor either.. weird. Just weird.
Pammy says
Ohh oh! I have one! Early on in our lonnng adventure of house hunting, we toured a 1960s split level. It was really cool and super retro. There was a built in record player in the wall in the kitchen, and in the basement a bright yellow wet bar! My husband was looking in a crawl space… and found a nice collection of *vintage* porno magz! So hilarious!!
Allison says
Sadly our apartment hunting mishaps involve only dirt and grime! When my parents were house-hunting they were shown a house with a Harley Davidson parked in the living room. The realtor was like “oh and the couple is getting divorced and the husband really doesn’t want to give up the house so he’s being vengeful and put his motorcycle in the living room…and….it’s kinda…awkward…” Needless to say, they didn’t go for that house…
Hannah says
I used to work for a real estate company and I inspected foreclosure homes for them after the home owners were evicted. They were all fairly creepy and unsettling but there was one where I opened a closet door and there was a large man sleeping on the closet floor. Most terrifying moment of my life!! I quickly left the house, of course.
Sara says
My husband and I just bought our first house this past April (foreclosure) and I was most surprised that only ONE out of about 12 houses we looked at were actually a)still for sale, b)NOT occupied or c)NOTHING like the photo and description. We were pretty open to different types of homes and knew that looking in foreclosures we would find some pretty crummy digs but seriously some of these ad pictures were photoshopped more than Britney Spears. We looked at some that weren’t even close to the same color (aka dirt covered instead of paint covered) some that were advertised as brick but were in fact wood paneling and about 6 that were totally off the market when we got there to check it out. In other words there were already people LIVING in them but they hadn’t been taken off the websites. Even our agent didn’t know about some of the sales.
The apartment we were moving out of flooded 3 times… yes 3 so we were actually happy to be hunting on a day with it was raining. We saw puddles in a few of the front lawns and didn’t even get out of the car. NO WATER FOR US!
It was definitely chaotic but we were lucky enough to find our house on the first day! A quaint three bedroom (kind of 4 if you count the office)with a fenced in yard that actually ended up being cheaper per month than the apartment we were in! We love our first house!!!
Jenny says
We went through a house once, built in 1890, with sloping floors, disgusting carpet stapled to the beat up hard wood floor, ugly wood paneling in one big room, a bedroom upstairs with everything painted pink, and pink carpet, peeling outside paint, windows so old they were warped, rotting kitchen cabinets, a fridge that was blue inside (fuzzy blue…from mold,) a bedroom with dinosaur wallpaper that was peeling off the walls to reveal plaster that basically looked like powder, a front and backyard with grass to my waist, a broken wood stove, 2 fireplaces-one of them just a hole in the wall with nothing around it, lots of ugly wallpaper….I could go on and on. I still don’t know HOW we came to the decision, but we bought the house. Now it’s all fixed up :)
Kathleen says
I grew up in a 6-level split level and loved it! Although that’s all I knew at the time… There were lots of fun features like a laundry chute which we could easily climb up and down because it wasn’t very long. Plus, I think my parents appreciated having their own level at the top to get away from us kids!
Jasmine @ Eat Move Write says
I cannot believe your realtor showed you a dark house. Did she really think you’d buy it? That’s so funny. It’s crazy to think someone would leave their shoes all over the place, too. People are crazy. It’s a bad economy people!
kelly says
haha, my husband and I still talk about “The Bird House” that we looked at while house hunting. We couldn’t walk into one of the rooms because it was their ‘bird room’. There was a baby gate on the door and then 6 or so bird cages inside. AND the birds were allowed to roam around on the floor of the room! It smelled so bad and was so disgusting. I think they were offering a $2000 credit to whoever bought to fix up the room..but I don’t think that would be enough to get rid of the stench, I swear!
~*S*~ says
so funny. I grew up in a split level with 5 levels…underground basement (workshop), semi-underground family room, floor level living area, upper bedrooms, and unfinished attic. Of course, 6 is just one too many :)
We toured a home that had all antique furniture in it…i was afraid to touch anything and even the floors creaked! the house wasnt even THAT old….
Lauren says
We toured a house that was really nice and clean until we got to the master bedroom and there were clothes everywhere. The bed was even piled with them except for the edge that was cleared off enough for someone to lay down.
Another house had no furniture except for the living room that had a recliner, a TV tray with dirty dishes, a drum set from Rock Band and a huge TV. My husband wanted me to take a picture to add to my decor inspiration folder ;-)
Elizabeth says
When my husband and i were house hunting, we saw some pretty bad/bizarre things. But the most memorable one was the house where every available surface was covered in mosaic tiles – as in: the floors, the counters, both concrete patios, the dog house (seriously), the stairs – even the walls, ceiling and floor of the 2-car garage! I do wonder occasionally who bought that and if they kept the tile. And if not, how many man-hours it took to remove…LOL