The Strangest Thing You Ever Saw?

Question

As a real estate investor you see all kinds of really WEIRD stuff.

I remember inspecting an attic for a house i was thinking about buying.  It was full of HAY.  Yes Hay.. like in straw!  The owner needed more insulation and thought the hay would be cheaper.  I told the owner that that hay could easily catch on fire in the summer time when it gets to 110 outside and probably 180 in the attic.

Another time, i went to talk to a motivated seller.  She met me at the door in a see-through night gown.  She was 60-something.  The air conditioner broke and she was trying to stay cool.

I inspected a Lonnie Deal that had a pot growing room with black lights.

The list goes on and on.

What's the strangest/weirdest thing you ever saw?

Jackie Lange · Answer

Got a call from a lady who inherited a house.  She insisted on getting $600 - yes six hundred dollars.

I got the contract first then went to check it out.

It was a crack house.  The front door was missing and lots of people passed out inside.

I called my contractor to come over with lots of plywood.

I lured the crack heads out with Kentucky Fried chicken while my contractor secured the property.

wholesaled it for $5k profit.

sometimes it's better to just get your money and move on

I would not want to do a rehab in that neighborhood
When I went to check

Nicole H. · Answer

Chicken coops inside the bottom cupboards - yep the tenant had ripped off the doors, placed in his chickens and then put up the wire over the doors. PS this was in the 30th story penthouse apartment!.

Rob K. · Answer

Did you check to see if any are old silver quarters?

They are worth quite a bit.....

Don Koss · Answer

Steve,

Don't  think he's In the vending machine biz, but we did check the pay boxes on the washer and dryer in the building to see if they were broken in to.  Luckily, they were not...

donko

Rob K. · Answer

I once went to look at a house that was for sale. When I walked in, there were three teenage girls (all were pregnant) and they were sitting on the couch watching Jerry Springer. When I opened the door to the basement, the smell of cat urine/feces was so strong that I had to pull my shirt up over my mouth and nose like Bazooka Joe. When I got to the basement, I was shocked at the plumbing job that I saw. There must have been a clog with the bathtub drain on the main floor. Someone had re-routed the drain with a straight PVC pipe that emptied the bathtub into the basement laundry tub. From there, it could go down the laundry drain.

When I left that house, I felt like I needed an iodine bath.

Pat L. · Answer

It was 1962 & my father had some old properties down by Port Adelaide SA that we collected rent from weekly.
The old bathrooms were on the outside back wall with an access door to the back yard because the external hot water units used wood to heat the water for the shower etc.

The tenants had a cow in the bathroom & were milking it!!!

Sam Parkins · Answer

Jackie Lange nice idea for a post. I could go on for days about all the mobile home "adventures" I've seen, and I'm sure you have a few yourself! Just to pick a few more "memorable":

1. House filled with 7 dogs and more than 15 cats. Chickens with the ability to range into and out of the house with the other animals. It smelled SO bad I had to go to my truck and get an extra jacket kept in there to tie over my nose to go back in. There was a "film" on all the walls up to the windows from the animals, and we'll just say they needed new floors. 
2. Mobile Home: Had a born again Christian with me that did hard time in his "past life" for major drug/weapons dealing, he was looking to buy. We went in to meet the seller and and after about 2 minutes he took me outside. He explained that in my naivety I did not notice the seller had knives on him, I did not notice the seller was on bath salts, and I was informed NOT to turn my back on this guy. I wasn't apprehensive until my buyer made me aware that HE did not feel comfortable - even with his background. We went back into the home and found our seller's buddy in the back room giving a tattoo to another buddy, and after intense pressure to get a "free" tattoo I decided to leave the place...walking backwards. 
3. The mobile home hoarder house: We've all seen the hoarders I would assume. The difference in this one is aside from the waist high piles of crap, the previous owners had claimed to have had their dog run away before moving out. We later found out the dog did NOT run away at all, it was so nasty and packed in that home that the dog got stuck behind the couch, died, and we found his rotted body behind there months after the folks moved out while cleaning the place (which took more than 4 days to clean - it was only a 2 bed 1 bath)!

Michael Quarles · Answer

Wow.  Too many to list.    The weirdest and yet best outcome.

Bought a home from a mom being abused by her son.  When I questioned the interior dead bolt on a bedroom door mom replied that it was her son.

She went on to say that the only reason she was selling was to get him out of her life to stop the abuse.   Sad.

More sad was she was so large she is the only seller who couldn't physically show me the house.

I solved her problem.  Evicted him after I owned the property.

I would have rather kicked his ass.

Patrick L. · Answer

I have encountered a number of attics insulated with old newspaper, often dating back to the 50's or 60's.  I always wondered how they haven't burned down, especially with electrical run through the newspaper.  With the power company rebate it only costs less than $300 to blow in insulation to R-30 for a 1,000 sqft home and yet people install central AC and go with no insulation or newspaper as their insulation.  I always bring all of my rentals up to R-30 in the attic.....a lower power bill means a happy tenant and more money to pay the rent on time.

Steve Babiak · Answer

Don Koss - does that tenant not like you, or does that tenant work in the vending machine biz?

The Strangest Thing You Ever Saw?

Most Popular Reply