What has been your worst viewing experience?

Riq

Stood on a rat as I walked in, a dead one. Dead quite a while.

I didn't bother looking any further.

FireWyrm

devotee wrote: »

Agents are wise sometimes, no interior photos!

I never bothered viewing a house with less than 5 photos. If the vendor cant be bothered to do a decent job of advertising, I cant be bothered wasting my time with DIY projects. The more photographs, the more I was interested even if there were a couple of cases of creative photography.

DizzyDasher

My worst one was a rental years ago. Horrible poky place in an estate all arranged around a central square that was deserted other than a swing, on which a mournful looking adult woman was swinging while crying. The house itself had obviously had an elderly person die in it - bedclothes still on the barely made bed, dead flowers in a vase, etc. Really creepy *shivers*. Agent didn't even bother to get out of the car, which should have been the first clue!!

Worst one buying wasn't that bad, but was a rental with every spare room being used as a bedroom (so front and rear receptions each being used as a bedroom with a curtain between etc.) Everything that could be broken was broken, and there were a couple of live cats wandering round AND a dead stuffed one on the front windowsill!!!! Still, there was a nice house lurking beneath it. Far too much work for me though, even without the issues of whether the tenants actually want to leave or not! More weird than bad really!

Dinah93

Some of these are staggering! Our worst one, although tame by comparison, was turning up to a nice detached house in a very sought after village, for the door to be opened (but only a little, left on a chain) by a girl of about 14, smoking, dressed in hot pants, high block heels and what I honestly think was her bra, she asked what we wanted, we said we had an appointment to view, she said her mum had gone on the lash last night and hadn't come back so probably pulled, she doubted she'd be home for hours. We just left, the combination of her being comfortable enough to open the door half dressed, but it being so dodgy that she kept the door on the latch just put us right off! When we went to meet the vicar who was standing in for our wedding a few weeks later he lived in the house at right angles to this one so their drive was across the back of his garden, and he said it was a lovely area, although there had been a few issues with the family to the rear throwing rubbish over the wall into his garden!

pulliptears

House One
Just before OH and I got married we were shopping for our first home and found one we liked the look of. The smell hit us as soon as the owner opened the door, on walking into the huge living/dining room we realised the owners had converted almost all of the dining room into a home for their Chinchilla's (I counted at least 5). The cage ran the length of the dining room, was floor to ceiling in height and a foot or two into the lounge, it was about 3 feet deep and did it stink!

Weirdest thing I ever did see....we bought a house further up the road in the end which bore another set of problems...

House Two
We loved, just what we wanted. They had a lovely old dog that would sleep at the bottom of the stairs in the white painted hallway. Needed a lick of paint here and there but nothing major so we put in an offer. Offer is accepted and everything is progressing nicely. On moving day I unlocked the door to see the pristine white hall, stairs and landing was now completely purple :eek:
We theorised that the owners had still been taking sneaky viewings hoping to get a little more money (we got it cheaply) and we had previously noted that where the dog slept the wall was marked. Obviously they took rather drastic action.
7am the next day I was painting it back to bloody white!!!

House Three
We decided to move (we stayed put in the end) but went to look at a split level bungalow. On entering the bedroom the woman owner said "And as you can see it has a dildo rail"
Cue the rest of the viewing not being able to make eye contact with OH cos I could hear him sniggering and I knew if I looked at him I'd collapse. We managed to make it back to the car and fell apart.
:rotfl:

ShelleyC_2

A funny one and an odd one from me!

The funny one was looking round a beautiful but run down farmhouse. The wife showed us round but was really negative about everything. Half way through her soon to be ex husband turned up. Clearly she didn't want him to sell and had tried to tell us it was damp / boiler knackered etc. When he started corrected that they had a screaming row and we left them too it to and wandered the garden until she stormed off in a huff and he then showed us round with positive spin! Best bit is that he works in the same field as me and I still see him at some formal meetings and struggle not to :rotfl:

The odd and worrying one was when within 5 minutes of me arriving the lady showing me round realised she'd forgotten to pick her older daughter up and said I'll dash out and get her you don't mind watching the others and looking around on your own do you?! She left me as a complete stranger with her 9 and 6 year old kids :eek: Luckily I was trustworthy but could have been anyone. Plus she was gone for 40 minutes by which time we'd definitely decided we didn't want to buy the house but thought about charging babysitting costs.

westlondonbuyer

Not quite a viewing experience, but proof that searches don't bring up *everything*.

Friends of mine have just moved from London to the countryside. They've been plagued for months by random strangers turning up on Saturday nights, and then claiming they've got the wrong address when my friend's husband answers the door, usually with the baby in his arms.

Turns out they've bought the local brothel; the madam had failed to tell her customers she was moving on.

LittleMissKitty

Our worst viewing experience (selling) was when a young couple came for a second viewing to our flat. They'd brought the girls father with them to do the once over treatment but it turned out he was an estate agent from scumsville a few miles up the road. While the young two were excitedly running around measuring up and discussing where there sofa was going to go Mr old-school estate agent was busy telling us that the whole flat was a disaster and he wouldn't sell it for half the price it was on for (it was the cheapest flat in the area and sold for 2% under asking ), everything needed replacing and we were obviously delusional if we thought we'd get anywhere close to what we wanted. He was HORRIBLE. If it'd just been him he's have been out on his ear but the young couple were just lovely. It didn't help that I had a 2 week old baby and was obviously fairly hormonal but I just stood there gaping at him because I couldn't believe anyone would actually come into someones home and talk to them like that! My husband was fuming. On the way out the son-in-law actually stayed behind and apologised profusely to us. He was as embarrassed as we were.

Our worst viewing from the other end was when we went to see a massively underpriced house up the road from us. Turned out it was full of foreigners who I can only assume were squatting. They were using every room as a bedroom and it STANK. We actually went back for a second viewing but it went to sealed bids and we lost it.

DizzyDasher

westlondonbuyer wrote: »

Not quite a viewing experience, but proof that searches don't bring up *everything*.

Friends of mine have just moved from London to the countryside. They've been plagued for months by random strangers turning up on Saturday nights, and then claiming they've got the wrong address when my friend's husband answers the door, usually with the baby in his arms.

Turns out they've bought the local brothel; the madam had failed to tell her customers she was moving on.

Unless this is the same place, this happened in a village near me too - obviously more countryside brothels around than one might imagine!!! This was about 15 years ago though, so if your friend's experience is recent I guess it must be a different one. Poor people! I think with this one after a couple of years all the potential "clients" had got the message, and it wasn't too bad after the first couple of months!

gld73

I met the EA outside a house at the arranged time, but he didn't have the keys as the owner was meant to be letting us in. She and her daughter turned up about half an hour late, but made us wait outside a further 10 mins. I thought they would have used the 10 mins to rush around and get the house tidy ... but no, the woman and her daughter had both got changed into their pyjamas, and on letting us in, then got into bed - the double bed in the middle of the living room!! This was in the middle of the afternoon. They had closed the curtains, then complained when the EA turned the light on, so I had to try and view in the dark.

The house was full of botched, half-finished DIY attempts. The only reason I was viewing it was due to the low price, as apparently the owners desperately needed to sell it quickly and I could get it for a good price as I wasn't in a chain. For someone who was desperate to sell, the owner had a funny way of showing it!!

You know, I actually felt a bit sorry for the poor EA trying to show me around ...