Craziest Thing You've Ever Found in a Property

Investor · Saint Louis, MO · Member since 2016 · 970 posts · 1k+ votes

I'm about to go into a hoarder/mismanaged potential apartment building and am prepping for the worst, so it got me thinking.

whats the most disgusting/craziest/expensive thing you've ever found in a prospective or rental property?

human remains... antiques worth hundreds of thousands... 25 abandoned cats?

and GO

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David Faulkner

Investor · Orange County, CA · Member since 2015 · 2k+ posts · 3k+ votes

I was cleaning out closets to prep for paint and in the corner of the upper shelf found a baggy of what I assume were drugs of unidentifiable type ... and no I did not test them out to see what they were ...

Another one that is more common but what I use as a "tell" that I'm likely to get a good deal is this ... for bank foreclosures, in my market they don't have to worry about freezing pipes so they normally turn the water service off ... well, for some reason some people still see fit to use the bathroom facilities even though the water is off. So, if there is a turd in the toilet, I know I'm getting a good deal because it eliminates 99% of retail buyer competition, and it is usually an easy fix: 1)turn on water, 2)flush, 3)replace toilet for $100.

Oh, and one of the more ironic ones found once was a complete VHS set of a get rich quick real estate guru package ... it was in a foreclosure I bought, so I guess that particular system did not work as advertised. I put it in the trash where it belongs.

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Max T.
Investor · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2015 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes
9y
Tickets to a temperance movement.
Old coins worth more than their face value.
Newspapers used as insulation with racist comics (Sambo caricatures).
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JD MartinBusiness Member
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Rock Star Extraordinaire · Northeast, TN · Member since 2015 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes
9y
disgusting - thousands of dead roaches behind every single piece of the house - light plates, anything that was attached to the wall, wall cavities, etc. Also houses where people had been ******** in the corner.
craziest - not sure. We find all kinds of stuff people have left behind, mostly in the foreclosures but sometimes in the estate sales. I had a tenant once that left her entire Wiccan spell kit herb/spice kit behind, complete with directions. I was in a house yesterday that had a Stephen King "It" mask lying empty in a creepy basement.
expensive - thousands of dolllars worth of tools from an estate sale where the heirs just got tired of cleaning through the piles.
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Jason Hirko
Lender · San Antonio, TX · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
9y
@David Zheng Just found a live animal trap in an attic of a house we're doing demo on. Unfortunately, the live trap caught a raccoon (I assume) and it has decayed to the point that it was a gooey skeleton glued to the inside of the trap. We thought it was a plumbing problem causing the smell...
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David Zheng
OP
Investor · Saint Louis, MO · Member since 2016 · 970 posts · 1k+ votes
9y
@Jason Hirko Thank goodness you were doing demo and not just wholesaling it or something quick haha.

@JD Martin what happened to the house with roaches? was it a flip for you? did you pass on it
1 Reply
Elizabeth Wilson
Real Estate Investor · Memphis, TN · Member since 2016 · 940 posts · 695 votes
9y
We buy foreclosures in Tennessee and I can't begin to describe some of the houses we've been in and/or purchased. I really should have documented them better because I don't think people believe me.
Grossest: the number of people who let their animals use their homes as a litter box.
Funniest: an entire room full of "bachelorette party" paraphernalia. (use your imagination for this one...)
Most useful: An entire attic full of nothing but Christmas trees and decorations. I think there were 7 or 8 fake trees and countless numbers of boxes of ornaments and such. All well taken care of and organized. (Stranger part is that the foreclosure was the result of the wife shooting her husband as he was leaving the divorce lawyer's office in the center of town...)
Favorite: boxes of pre-Civil war books and maps. Still have them and will either try to sell to antique book dealers and/or frame the maps.
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JD MartinBusiness Member
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Rock Star Extraordinaire · Northeast, TN · Member since 2015 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes
9y
Originally posted by @David Zheng:

@Jason Hirko Thank goodness you were doing demo and not just wholesaling it or something quick haha.

@JD Martin what happened to the house with roaches? was it a flip for you? did you pass on it
It was a buy and hold from an estate sale. The woman was a serial hoarder in her 90's when they got her out of there. To keep the city from tearing the house down they had to put on a new roof and new windows. Half of the sheetrock was gone because it had to be cut out because of the filth. All the kitchen cabinets were gone - rotted away apparently from hoarding kitchen garbage in them. The clawfoot tub had to be removed because it apparently rotted through from the lady using it as a garbage can. Can you imagine what it must take to rot through cast iron in a tub? The lady's husband had died a few years earlier, and the lady used his truck as a trash receptacle. The neighbors told me that a remediation outfit in haz-mat suits spent 3 days pulling stuff out of this place. Kind of a sad story, all in all.
Needless to say, I picked it up for a song. It has been quite a profitable house. It was seriously disgusting on the front end, but hey - that's where dollars are made!
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Ron Dayley
Clarksville, TN · Member since 2016 · 238 posts · 96 votes
9y
I listed a house for sale that had a Skyway BMX bike from the 80s in the attic that was in mint shape (still had some of the frame protectors on it from the shipping create). The owner of the house doesn't know how it got up there or who's it was. He let me have the bike since I ride. I ended up selling it for $1200.

By the way, he was the original owner of the house.
3 Reply
David Faulkner
Investor · Orange County, CA · Member since 2015 · 2k+ posts · 3k+ votes
9y
I was cleaning out closets to prep for paint and in the corner of the upper shelf found a baggy of what I assume were drugs of unidentifiable type ... and no I did not test them out to see what they were ...
Another one that is more common but what I use as a "tell" that I'm likely to get a good deal is this ... for bank foreclosures, in my market they don't have to worry about freezing pipes so they normally turn the water service off ... well, for some reason some people still see fit to use the bathroom facilities even though the water is off. So, if there is a turd in the toilet, I know I'm getting a good deal because it eliminates 99% of retail buyer competition, and it is usually an easy fix: 1)turn on water, 2)flush, 3)replace toilet for $100.
Oh, and one of the more ironic ones found once was a complete VHS set of a get rich quick real estate guru package ... it was in a foreclosure I bought, so I guess that particular system did not work as advertised. I put it in the trash where it belongs.
10 Reply
Steve Vaughan
Rental Property Investor · East Wenatchee, WA · Member since 2014 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes
9y
The usual thrills and chills, but there was this one memory I still laugh about that happened during the inspection...
A lady with too many cats to even know how many she had was foreclosed on (forfeited) by a private seller carry. You could smell the cat pee from the street!
I was doing a proper inspection with my 15-yr experienced inspector, Randy. The recycling area on back porch still had newspapers from 1982. A hoarding cat lady!
Randy was doing good until she was cooking ramen or something in the kitchen and asked if we wanted anything to eat. 'Excuse me' Randy said and promptly ran out back and started puking.You alright? No, I'm fine. Blaah! You ok? I'm good. Blaah! Purple and green. I knew right then I had more negotiation room. We were at $31k pre-inspection, I got it for $20,550. Lot value. Those were the days!
4 Reply
Scott Klauser
Real Estate Investor · Saint Louis, MO · Member since 2016 · 3 posts · 5 votes
9y
Oddest thing I found was a big brick of weed. It was probably about one foot squared and it was sealed up very nice. I have no idea how much it was worth but we called the local police department and donated it to them. Pretty sure they do not get a lot of calls people donating weed, but I just wanted it out of our house.
4 Reply
Kiet N.
Atlanta, GA · Member since 2016 · 91 posts · 67 votes
9y
found a cast iron bathtub in the crawl basement. The puzzle part was how it got there in the first place. The entrance was 1/3 in size of the tub.
The first impression was they build the basement around the tub ?!#@
Until we noticed all newer material of floor joists and subfloor directly over the tub. Turned out previous owner could not take the tub out thru the doors, so he cut the floor and dropped the tub down
Thinking put a mattress next to the tub and start renting out for cheap .....
1 Reply
Peter B.
Investor · Ogdensburg, WI · Member since 2016 · 273 posts · 351 votes
9y
#1 We bought an unoccupied duplex... While cleaning my wife found a half carat diamond engagement band between the drywall and baseboard.. Up until that point my wife was not a huge fan of the rentals.
#2 was a large amount of weed.. The vacating tenant had told he me he forgot where he hid his weed. I laughed... Not until a number of years later when I had a tub diverter valve stuck I found the weed. The drywall was perfectly cut inside the closet wall a number of years before from a repair.
#3 last year a tenant left behind a really nice squat rack and 300lbs of Olympic weights..
3 Reply
Candace Postell
Real Estate Investor · Dayton, OH · Member since 2017 · 107 posts · 51 votes
9y
a car
1 Reply
Nicole A.Pro Member
Rental Property Investor · Baltimore County Maryland and Tampa Florida · Member since 2013 · 2k+ posts · 2k+ votes
9y
There might be something wrong with me, but I'd love to one day find one of these great hoarder homes and buy it for a great deal. It sounds exciting!
In my own home while doing a kitchen renovation, we found a ruby ring under the carpet right where it meets the baseboard/wall. The ring fits me too !
3 Reply
Sean Cole
Investor · Cincinnati, OH · Member since 2012 · 506 posts · 331 votes
9y
Found $3k in cash in the basement sitting on top of a drop ceiling tile. Same house found a Polaroid photo of the previous owner servicing her husband - with eye contact for the camera.
9 Reply
Teddy Smith
Real Estate Broker · Wilmington, NC · Member since 2016 · 236 posts · 126 votes
9y
Tenant had stacks and stacks of crunchy taco shells from taco kits. Like hundreds of taco shells just stacked in the corner.
It was bizarre but hilarious at the same time lol.
4 Reply
Ryan Libersher
Investor · Schaumburg, IL · Member since 2015 · 9 posts · 9 votes
9y
I was working for my Uncle at the time who owns a lot of buy and holds and we went to one of his SFRs which recently became vacant and the previous renter left his brother behind (mid 30s but very slow mentally) and he was using pots around the house for bathrooms for at least a month. Really felt for the guy as he was all alone and we had to call social services to come and help him out.
2 Reply
Dave Chapa
Rental Property Investor · Katy, TX · Member since 2015 · 175 posts · 111 votes
9y
Gross:
The top of a refrigerator was covered in dead German roaches, to the point you could barely make out the color.
I was checking out the electrical box on one of my units on a service call, the box is in a closet. When I turned to leave the closet, there was a shoe rack with an adult toy sticking out of one of the compartments only a foot from my face. EEEEK!
Useful:
A wine/drink refrigerator is great shape.
0 Reply
Loren Clive
Residential Real Estate Broker · Paia, HI · Member since 2016 · 479 posts · 311 votes
9y
a huge pile of clipped human nails stored right beside the clippers
this was in a $1M home in a gated community that also sported multiple nude portraits of the former owner throughout the house
5 Reply
Linda S.
Investor · Richmond, VA · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 2k+ votes
9y
Probably dime bags, although the 3" dead cockroach was a close second!
0 Reply
Dumitru Anton
Cumming, GA · Member since 2014 · 218 posts · 71 votes
9y
hay
goat droppings
pink stripper pole
1 Reply
Daniel Hanson
Investor · Waukesha, WI · Member since 2011 · 199 posts · 97 votes
9y
Found a duplex built on top of side by side garages with a steep driveway leading out to the street. This was toward the beginning of the last crash and winterization was hit or miss on foreclosures. The property had been vacant and several pipes burst but the water stayed on. The neighbors finally called the city when the ice dam running out below the garage doors out to the street started to interfere with traffic. The utility company said 78,000 gallons had gone through the meters while it was vacant. Somebody else got a good deal on that one.
0 Reply
David Zheng
OP
Investor · Saint Louis, MO · Member since 2016 · 970 posts · 1k+ votes
9y
Eating was a bad idea while reading through these. Half the time I was either choking from laughter or holding in vomit
3 Reply
Zana Blue
Investor · Saint Augustine, FL · Member since 2015 · 227 posts · 61 votes
9y
The previous owners literally just walked away...dishes in the cabinets...pans...rolling pins they collected...kids pictures...all left ...and a sweet little scared cat...she just sat there day after day waiting for her humans to come back...who does that
0 Reply
Linda WeygantPro Member
Investor and CPA · Arvada, CO · Member since 2015 · 2k+ posts · 3k+ votes
9y
bag of pot
tank full of still alive tropical fish ?!?
one had a box full of baby blankets, baby book, school pictures, report cards, etc, all with the previous owners name. Contacted selling agent to contact seller to ask where to ship this box full of memories too. Was told to just throw it away. Couldn't bring myself to do so. Probably still up on a shelf in my garage. Will be a mystery someday for somebody else.
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