Scariest objects found in a property.

19 Reply

Steve Morris

Real Estate Broker · Portland, OR · Member since 2019 · 4k+ posts · 2k+ votes

5y

I wonder where that machete was - Can you send it in a plain brown wrapper?

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Nathan GesnerBusiness Member

Moderator

Real Estate Broker · Cody, WY · Member since 2010 · 28k+ posts · 41k+ votes

5y

I purchased a property in 2019 that had an old leather pouch with about 15 Medicine Man bones. Each one was carved with little symbols. The leather was so old it nearly crumbled. The bones stunk like death. Pretty creepy.

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Mikel Kaubfa

Investor · San Diego, CA · Member since 2020 · 50 posts · 31 votes

5y

When helping my old boyfriend fix up his first rentals years ago, we found a human skull in the attic. That would be the weirdest thing. We found boxes of stored china, a fairly nice old set, in the crawlspace under one of our homes.

Nam Trang

Investor · Seattle, WA · Member since 2020 · 106 posts · 89 votes

5y

We found a knife set and a lock picking kit hidden in a closet, shoved under the AC intake system. Never would have found it if the AC didnt need a repair..

Jim S.

Sterman, MI · Member since 2017 · 378 posts · 306 votes

5y

Originally posted by @Sawyer Smith:

The Sleeping bags and meds are sketchy enough, but the machete!!!

So let's hear who has also found some shady/illegal/lethal items in their properties.

I really don't see what is so scary about someone having machete much less a sleeping bag.

Ekta Patel

Rental Property Investor · Macon, GA · Member since 2020 · 37 posts · 20 votes

5y

@Sawyer Smith

Too bad nobody found lots of cash. I was expecting cash or pot of gold coins

Gail W.

Investor · IL · Member since 2019 · 151 posts · 135 votes

5y

Not my own property I was working for a company that owned retail and office properties as a maintenance supervisor and we had a c-store on the interstate where the toilet was plugged. The plumber gave me a call and said he had pulled a switch blade knife that was in a leather cell phone case, (the kind people wear on their belt) out of the toilet.

Dennis Wayne

Member since 2020 · 339 posts · 356 votes

5y

Many times I have found crack pipes , filled up condoms and feces covered &ex toys in my apartments .

John Patterson

Member since 2019 · 4 posts · 5 votes

5y

@Ekta Patel

I’m sure people do find these things. But as smart investors......no need to mention it.

Josiah Barkman

Rental Property Investor · Wooster, OH · Member since 2014 · 72 posts · 41 votes

5y

@Sawyer Smith craziest thing I've seen was a choke wire strung across a bedroom door. That same house the guy had a hatchet on the floor by the door when we entered...all the windows were covered in plywood or something to seal them off. Some braced with additional 2x4s.

John MorganPro Member

Rental Property Investor · Grand Prairie, TX · Member since 2018 · 2k+ posts · 2k+ votes

5y

I found about a dozen used drug needles inside a rental I reclaimed from an eviction last June. Several switch blade knives and a machete in there too. Gang members were squatting and doing illegal activity in it while the moratorium was in effect.

Rob Bowling

Investor · Prospect, KY · Member since 2015 · 47 posts · 77 votes

5y

Doing demo on an apartment I had recently purchased. My workers found a loaded .45 in the vent fan in the kitchen. Didn't think much of it until a long time resident told me the police had searched that apartment up and down for that gun. I called police and they came and got it.

Jim K.

Handyman · Pittsburgh, PA · Member since 2018 · 5k+ posts · 13k+ votes

5y

I bought a tax foreclosure house formerly owned by a convicted child molester. The guy lived in it with his preteen daughter and was renovating it for them to live in. Finally the daughter told her mother she was being abused and the mother had the guy arrested. The neighborhood remains completely divided on whether the abuse really happened or whether the little girl was coached by her mother.

The place had these giant two and three-foot crucifixes in almost every room, sometimes more than one. Creepy as hell when you knew the backstory.

Sawyer Smith

OP

Specialist · Joplin, MO · Member since 2019 · 79 posts · 58 votes

5y

@Jay Hinrichs

Ok, you might just win with that one. Also, the car seems like one of the worst cases of poor planning in recent history.

One of the most upsetting things I've learned since getting into real estate is how unsafe some peoples living conditions are and how they just don't even realize there is a problem.

Having a bad habit of not cleaning your room doesn't just vanish when you become an adult. If anything it gets way worse because your mom might not be there to clean your mess.

Do you think the landlord should get involved at some level in helping train people in proper/safe living standards?

Jonathan PfluegerPro Member

Ben Lomond, CA · Member since 2016 · 338 posts · 337 votes

5y

@Sawyer Smith

During a renovation on a multi-family we have in the San Lorenzo Valley, Boulder creek we found a huge pornography collection in the attic. I'm talking magazines on top of magazines from all genres dating back to the 60's. Later on we found out that the attic was only part of the collection, when the owner had passed the seller had cleared out a full garage and two other units full of it - guess they missed the attic. Some people said the collection could be worth some money and we should try and sell it, we opted to dispose of it at the dump in black trash bags. One of those "if the walls could talk" situations and I wanted nothing to do with it.

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Sawyer Smith

OP

Specialist · Joplin, MO · Member since 2019 · 79 posts · 58 votes

5y

@Jonathan Pflueger

Maybe an extra layer of paint in that one. Just to make sure those wall stay quite.

4 Reply

Jay HinrichsBusiness Member

Real Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes

5y

Originally posted by @Sawyer Smith:

@Jay Hinrichs

Ok, you might just win with that one. Also, the car seems like one of the worst cases of poor planning in recent history.

One of the most upsetting things I've learned since getting into real estate is how unsafe some peoples living conditions are and how they just don't even realize there is a problem.

Having a bad habit of not cleaning your room doesn't just vanish when you become an adult. If anything it gets way worse because your mom might not be there to clean your mess.

Do you think the landlord should get involved at some level in helping train people in proper/safe living standards?

short of paying for weekly maid service there is no training peeps are peeps and many just live in very dirty situations.

I spent a good part of my early sales career doing in home presentations.. I would say majority were lived in look some spot less

and then you had over the top dirty.. I mean stuff most folks would not believe or comprehend.. Also protective services for them to do anything the house has to be over the top and have young kids..

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Justin Phillips

Lender · Phoenix, AZ · Member since 2018 · 440 posts · 256 votes

5y

Wow these are nuts. Great stories to tell over a beer!
The only thing I'm wondering: @Jay Hinrichs Why demo the house and use an excavator? Couldn't you have paid someone to dismantle the Chevy instead?

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Jay HinrichsBusiness Member

Real Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes

5y

Originally posted by @Justin Phillips:

Wow these are nuts. Great stories to tell over a beer!
The only thing I'm wondering: @Jay Hinrichs Why demo the house and use an excavator? Couldn't you have paid someone to dismantle the Chevy instead?

Well the house was the absolute ( or one of them Hoarder houses) I had ever encountered.. you could smell it from the side walk.. we ended up with 3 underlying lots of record so we just put up 3 new constructions that sold in the mid 600 range.. so all in all it worked out.

but I also had to sue the owner for specific performance the first time I had done that in 40 years.. And I know a lot of folks talk about it.. but to actually do it and win is a very long and expensive journey.. On the date of closing you have to put all the money in the escrow account ( amount you agreed to pay for the property) and leave it sit there for the 2 years it takes to get a judgement.. Then even then the owner would NOT sign the deed.. so we had to go back in to the judge and get him to make a ruling that the title company could rely on to insure our construction loan and give us an owners policy.. then of course we had to go through the courts to evict her.. all in all 3 year process.. So when these folks talk about specific performance its rarely something that is actually done and especially if its just a case of you have a contract with no money at risk save a few grand.. those just go by by.

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Scott WolfPro Member

Lender · Boca Raton, FL · Member since 2014 · 1k+ posts · 956 votes

5y

Originally posted by @Jim S.:

Originally posted by @Sawyer Smith:

The Sleeping bags and meds are sketchy enough, but the machete!!!

So let's hear who has also found some shady/illegal/lethal items in their properties.

I really don't see what is so scary about someone having machete much less a sleeping bag.

Jim, you missed the part where the house was empty when they started renovations. Meaning a squatter with a machete moved into the attic.

Dave FosterBusiness Member

Qualified Intermediary for 1031 Exchanges · St. Petersburg, FL · Member since 2013 · 9k+ posts · 9k+ votes

5y

In honor of @Ekta Patel, a happy find. I'm the guy who found a Mickey Mantle baseball card behind a staircase I was demo ing!!! Unfortunately it was only "a" Mickey Mantle card and not "the" Mickey Mantle card. So what is scary is how quickly I spent that money in my head before it was appraised :)

And a nod to @Jay Hinrichs. I too inherited a car in a foreclosure (some mid 90s caddy with a blown head gasket). The former owner wouldn't come get it. The sheriff and city wouldn't move it for me. At that time no salvage was even picking up (post hurricane). So we opened the garage (slightly downhill to the street) and whoops it rolled all the way across street into a vacant lot. The city picked it up the next day.

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9 Reply

Charlie MacPherson

China, ME · Member since 2014 · 3k+ posts · 4k+ votes

5y

Nothing too out of the ordinary - except in one vacant foreclosure where I found an armor-piercing incendiary rifle round. I called the police to remove it before some neighborhood kid decided to put it on a hot stove.

Then there are the hoarder homes. Sadly, I've been in several where there were pathways through massive piles of junk that were literally hip-high. Very sad to think that people actually live like that.

Not too long before I got our of selling real estate, I went into another abandoned foreclosure in a nice part of town. I noticed there were a lot of water stains on the 1st floor ceiling. On the second floor, a tree had fallen and punched a hole in the roof. The carpets were sopping wet and a slimy brown fungus was growing on the floor - about a foot long and looked (I imagine) like an enormous crocodile poop. As I approached for a closer look, it let out a *poof* and a little cloud of spores came out. I noped right the heck out of there.

I'm now selling businesses for a living. That is - thankfully - a lot less "exciting".