What's the worst house you ever looked at?

Question

I was reading the other thread by Brandon Turner about your worst tenant horror story. It made me think about some nasty houses I've looked at over the years. I have two that really stand out in my mind.

The first was before I ever bought a house. I was 20 years old and found a fixer upper in a C neighborhood for $11,000. I took my dad with me to look at it, as I knew nothing about houses. The family that lived there consisted of a husband, wife, and six kids in a small three bedroom house with a basement. What I remember most was turning on a light in the bedroom and seeing cockroaches running across the beds. I had never seen them before. I can't imagine sleeping in bed and having roaches crawling all over you. When we got to the basement, there was a sump without a pump. There were pipes coming into a crock and then a pipe leaving. I have no idea how it worked. When my dad lifted the cover, the whole crock was full of spaghetti and cockroaches. It was disgusting. I ended up passing on that house.

The other one that stands out was years later. I was looking at a house for sale that had tenants already there. When I walked in, there were four overweight teenage girls watching Maury Povich on TV. At least three of these girls were pregnant. I guess they were watching so the could find out how to go on the show and have a paternity test to find out who the baby daddy was. When I walked down the basement steps, I was overcome with a nasty odor. There was a litter box overflowing. I hate cats! The smell made my eyes water. The funniest part was that the plumbing had been completely hacked. The bathtub on the main floor had a pipe that drained into the laundry tub in the basement. From there, I guess all of the bathtub water would go down the laundry tub drain. I've never seen that before or since.

I've seen other nasty houses over the years, but those two are memorable.

What have you seen?

Mark Updegraff · Answer

Nasty houses are the best for lowball offers :D

The worst ones IMO are ones with deferred maintenance that leads to complete destruction of other elements. IE, the leaky roof destroys the plaster walls, warps the oak floors, and then lands on the electrical panel.

As far as worst by resident abuse. I bought one where they locked their dogs in the basement. All the dog crap they cleaned up they threw into the space under the steps on the way out of the basement to the outside. It was over 2' high, and over 2' in radius. I poop you not :D

John Colburn · Answer

I may have you all beat with the worst home ever, and to top it off it only cost $650K. This was my first REI purchase during the height of the market in 2006.

The building itself was a 6,500 square ft. Captains house across the street from a beautiful beach. During my inspection of this four story building I noticed the post and beam structure was severely warped, and the floors were very uneven. My partner assured me that the home was professionally inspected and was structurally sound.

After we bought the building I found out it was never inspected, in fact it was unsafe to be in. We had professional carpenters go into the basement and run from the building (no joke).

It turns out that the previous owner poured concrete on the second and third floors to level the floors. The weight of the floors was collapsing the post and beam construction. For months we looked but could not find a contractor willing to work on the house.

Finally I found a friend from high school, who is a reputable builder, he hired a structural engineer, removed the concrete and reconstructed the interior support beams. The cost was only $100K.
The funny thing is that this turned out to be a decent investment.

We converted the building into four separate units that we rent out for $1,400 per week in the summer, and $1000 per month in the winter.

You learn a lot from your mistakes…

Ryan B. · Answer

Looked at a house that had so many roaches it made the dark brown carpet look like it was moving. Almost impossible to take a step without putting your foot in a pile of dog poop (not just regular poop, but looked like they only fed the dog burritos). Some god awful stench that made cat urine smell like cologne. And to top it off......dismembered doll parts in the dishwasher.

Jon Holdman · Answer

Looked at a REO once that had plastic sheeting for the rear wall.

Jason Shen · Answer

I once checked out a quadraplex selling for 19,900. When i went inside, i could see why. Homeless people had broken one into one of the units and basically used the place as a bathroom LOL.

Another wouldve been the very first house i ever previewed. It was listed for 13,500, but when i got there, i could see why. One of the bedrooms was breaking off of the house and the cracks in the eall were two inches or more wide. It was some straight up twoilight zone sh*t LOL

Bob Hank · Answer

The worst house I was in this year I bought.
It was a 2 bedroom one bath from the 1950's and had been vacant for at least 24 months. At some point someone tried to rip out the little bit of copper that was there, but it looked like they gave up with the 2” thick plaster walls. Part of the windows were updated with half inch plywood. It looked like it was the original bathroom with holes in the floor from water damage and had a bit of mold. The oak flooring had buckled from humidity. The foundation and bricks looked great, the underside of the 1x6” roof strips looked great also. I took $15,300 to closing and spent $35,000 on the rehab, but I’m only getting $1,000 a month on the rent. I do know I had around $300 in paint trying to cover up the bright paint colors.

The worst one I had ever been in had basement carpet and when I stepped on it it mushed before I decided it was covered in mold. The bedroom had a few larger blood spots n the floor and what was left of the walls.

Mike McKinzie · Answer

I am sure many of us with any type of experience have bought "houses" with the sole purpose to raze them to the ground and build a new house. You are just buying it for the lot value minus demolition costs.

But to buy a house for rehab, I gave that up long, long ago. My worst house was my very first house. I paid $30,000 for a house, about half of what the comps were going for. Did some repair and sold it for $50,000, still under the comps, but a nice $10,000 for me. Not bad for a 21 year old, that was over 30 years ago.

Jon Klaus · Answer

I looked at a trailer by the lake a few years ago and after some heavy duty CPU cycles, I decided free was too much. Even after clearing the home, junk trees, etc, it was still a small lot in a terrible area. Think country war zone.

Brian K. · Answer

It's one I'm working on now that sticks out in my mind. The cold cuts down on the smell if there are any, but it has 2 holes in the roof uncovered from a fire upstairs a year ago, nothing has been updated for years. While it has been empty for a year its been broke into a few times, so there is stuff laying evey you walk.

Jon Holdman · Answer

Oh, this was worse than that. We came in the front door and there was nothing between us and the back yard but a curtain of plastic.

What's the worst house you ever looked at?

What's the worst house you ever looked at?

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