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subject odors...
1. Vacant house, no power. Told my clients DO NOT OPEN THE REFRIGERATOR, IT WILL SMELL BAD - DO NOT OPEN IT!!!! Of course during the inspection, the buyer's boyfriend just had to....we all went outside and he was the one that went in to open all the windows.
2. Buyer's agent opens the house and goes to the bathroom while we go into the kitchen to take care of some paperwork. She is in there a long time, then she joins us. 30 seconds later the stench follows her and hangs in the air (air HAH, it took over the entire house). It was like someone had died in there. She acted like nothing was wrong. My eyes were watering.
3. Vacant house,crawlspace was missing vents. I start to go in and catch a glimpse of something black and white back in the dark. I shine my light around, catch a good look, then take off running. It missed me, but the smell inside the house about drove us out. They ended up trapping a bunch of the critters under there.
We went to a house years ago and it was uninhabited.
We went in and a male cat had obviously been in the house and "sprayed" in what seemd like EVERY corner. It was rancid.
My husband goes into the kitchen, and I kid you not, the cabinet door fell off in his hand!
Then, on to the dining room where there was coffee dripping under the chair rail down to the floor!!!
We're not done yet...the tennis wallpaper was peeling from the walls and then we went to the back yard.
The family had it graveled! Every square inch of the yard was graveled!!!
I was laughing about our visit to the house one day with a group of people, some friends some acquaintances and the former owner was there. She did not laugh at all.Ooooops
We were viewing a house and there were several large holes that the owner of the house said (the wife or soon-to-be-ex) her husband "used to punch regularly during fights."
great...nice energy in that one...yikes.
Also, when showing houses in Brooklyn we would always call the tenants first (we usually showed multi-family houses) and give them 24 hours notice. If not 24 hours, at least 3 or 4. In this case, we called and gave the tenants about 2 hours advance. We took (myself and my teammate) a Hasidic couple to this house and started in the basement. We worked our way to floor one and the house was looking excellent to them. Next was the second floor, and the couple was pretty excited at the prospect. The third floor was locked and my coworker knocked. The Hasidic couple wife was behind my coworker, and her husband, then me. After another knock the door flung wide open and there stood an Asian man with long straight hair and a slight mustache. He was just staring at us...then said...hello...and he was butt ass naked....the Hasidic lady nearly knocked me over stumbling back down the steps...Needless to say, that house didn't sell...
Last edited by jjbradleynyc; 06-06-2008 at 01:11 PM..
One more gross one - guy living in the house used the floor register next to the toilet for a spittoon.
CLOSETS
1. House that had labels on EVERYTHING including a zillion boxes, They must have just bought a label machine and went to town.
2. Single guy living in the house - only one bed in a 3 bedroom house. Each closet was filled with shoes. He would have made Imelda proud. There had to be hundreds of pairs.
3. Teen age girl's boyfriend hiding in closet. Seems he crawled thru her window and she didn't know there was going to be a home inspector going through the house. OOPS! Mom was really pissed.
4. The shrine to Michael Jackson in one closet including dozens of candles and photos, etc. It was way too creepy.
5. A hood from an old pickup standing against the wall of the closet.
I went to view a supposedly vacant property. I took off my shoes at the door, started to walk down the entry hall, and had a naked woman jump out of the closet and run screaming at me. I ran for the door, snagging my shoes as I turned the door knob, and didn't quit running until I reached my car. Turns out the previous owner had gone AWOL from the mental hospital and was hiding out in her old home. Scared me silly.
Went through an open house recently, and just inside an upstairs bedroom were a couple of vintage wedding bridal photos -- faded colors so they looked like they were from maybe the '60s. Upon second look, the brides in each of the photos were actually men in wedding dresses.
We have walked in on teenagers SERIOUSLY making out, seen a home with an enclosed patio with the toilet installed where the barbecue grill used to be , seen wall paneling hanging at 45 degree angles to the wall suspended by glue strands....
My home inspector friend has told of gross and funny things he has seen in houses.
He told us about finding a dead dog in a crawl space and then being asked by a little girl if he found her missing dog. Sad.
He walked in on an older teen boy having sex with a 10-year old girl. The single mom just laughed. Gross.
He found carpenter ants eating through a ceiling, above which there was a heavy old trunk waiting to fall through onto the bed below. Yikes.
subject odors...
1. Vacant house, no power. Told my clients DO NOT OPEN THE REFRIGERATOR, IT WILL SMELL BAD - DO NOT OPEN IT!!!! Of course during the inspection, the buyer's boyfriend just had to....we all went outside and he was the one that went in to open all the windows.
2. Buyer's agent opens the house and goes to the bathroom while we go into the kitchen to take care of some paperwork. She is in there a long time, then she joins us. 30 seconds later the stench follows her and hangs in the air (air HAH, it took over the entire house). It was like someone had died in there. She acted like nothing was wrong. My eyes were watering.
3. Vacant house,crawlspace was missing vents. I start to go in and catch a glimpse of something black and white back in the dark. I shine my light around, catch a good look, then take off running. It missed me, but the smell inside the house about drove us out. They ended up trapping a bunch of the critters under there.
Next up....
Weird stuff in closets.
Comment on #2 which is surprisingly about #2. She was thinking don't panic, it's organic.
I was shown a house in London by an agent - the family were home at the time.
The 31 year old son was still living there and he had the upstairs bedrooms as his bedroom, sitting room and office.
When the agent opened the door to the son's bedroom I nearly exploded laughing - the ENTIRE room was plastered with topless/nude porn magazine pullouts. And we're not talking "artistic".
The poor agent was sooooooo embarrassed but it cracked me up for weeks.
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