What is the strangest house you have viewed

Bonniepurple

hazyjo wrote: »

Oh yep, saw one of those! Literally out the shower/cupboard into the bedroom.


The weird 'speaker house' I mentioned also had a shower cubicle in a bedroom. Have seen it in a cheap b&b before, but not in someone's house. Very odd - not even a manky old square one or a small one, it was a proper posh big corner one in a bedroom (taking up a big chunk of the room).

We saw a house like that - the previous owner had had dementia and so it was easiest to wash him in the same room. I wouldn't have had a problem with that - it was just the other half of the semi is owned by close friends of my inlaws that we know through church and we felt that was potentially a bit too awkward!

hazyjo

Did view one with a chin-up bar (I presume) across the doorframe to the lounge. It was at chest height though so, unless the owner was extremely short, I don't really understand its purpose! We did wonder if it was holding the doorframe together and it would collapse when removed!


The house was a bit of a mess - photographed beautifully, looked perfect actually, but on viewing, there were a few little bodge jobs. The curved bay window had skirting board at the bottom, but it was made up of loads of tiny bits of skirting board so it would go round the curve.

robatwork

tho wrote: »

First house was just over the A30 from the runway, probably 300m at most. we turned up to look, while waiting for the estate agent high fived a couple of pilots as they came in for landing and made our mind up there and then, but thought we'd have a look round anyway. The house didn't even have double glazing and physically shock every 30 seconds.

I'm sure I learnt a long time ago that every house blighted by the Heathrow flight path got paid-for triple glazing as compo for evening flights. Your potential landlord probably pocketed it...

Callie22

hazyjo wrote: »

Oh yep, saw one of those! Literally out the shower/cupboard into the bedroom.


The weird 'speaker house' I mentioned also had a shower cubicle in a bedroom. Have seen it in a cheap b&b before, but not in someone's house. Very odd - not even a manky old square one or a small one, it was a proper posh big corner one in a bedroom (taking up a big chunk of the room).

Lol, we have a shower cubicle in our bedroom - it's not posh at all, think of a huge, lime green metal 'tardis' complete with power shower and an 'aloha from Hawaii' sticker inside. Oh, and with a drain pipe that runs across the floor and out through the skirting board ...

It's one of the more charming features of our 60s built house and was added by the original owner, presumably because he had four kids and one bathroom just didn't work. Needless to say we have never used it and it WILL be going very shortly.

StumpyPumpy

robatwork wrote: »

I'm sure I learnt a long time ago that every house blighted by the Heathrow flight path got paid-for triple glazing as compo for evening flights. Your potential landlord probably pocketed it...

The Heathrow Night Noise Insulation Scheme was/is* very limited so that there were not that many properties qualifying for it. Those that did could claim either 50% of the cost of replacement bedroom windows, or free secondary-glazing of them. IIRC you couldn't just ask for the money either, you had to get them from an approved supplier first then claim back. Definitely wasn't a chance of getting the whole house triple glazed for free or being able just to pocket the cash for the same (though I'm sure some people tried to work out a way to do that)

There were a few other schemes that had an even tougher bar to qualify where they'd send around experts to judge whether there was anything they could do and would do it at no cost to the home owner, but again, they didn't give you cash: they handled all the work themselves.

*I say "was/is" because I haven't lived around Heathrow for a while so don't know if the schemes have changed since I last checked them, but I very much doubt they have suddenly become much more generous than before.

SP

walwyn1978

Two, at various times. We viewed a first floor flat and were sent a complex set of 'how to get there' instructions by the EA which involved approaching from the side along a walkway from the next few flats. We enter the flat through the door onto the back 'balcony' area which linked to the walkway. Soon as we got in you could smell fat and meat cooking. 'What's that smell?' We ask. 'What smell?' Says the EA, hopefully. Turns out the flat is above a fast food kebab place, and the EA hasn't shown the front door on the listing because normal access is through a door next to the kebab shop. The bloke flatly denying any smell was one of those 'did that really happen' moments.

Years later, on our most recent house move, we viewed one 4 bedroom 2 bathroom house described as 'almost finished modernisation, just needs your stamp putting on it'. Limited number of pics on Rightmove but the ones there look very good, we assume maybe a bathroom needs modernising but essentially it was a good possibility. When we get there, two 'bedrooms', one 'bathroom' and the 'utility' are literally just 4 walls a floor and a ceiling. No wiring, no plumbing, exposed floor joists in one room... hence the lack of photos. We rang the EA and blasted them for misrepresentation. They apologised, said they'd speak to the vendor and update the description/photos. It was still on RM 6 weeks later on exactly the same state...

Winter_Phoenix

We used to have friends who worked for a college and lived on site.

One year the college got contractors in to redecorate all the staff quarters, but our friends were abroad for the summer and so weren't available to choose their preferred colour schemes. They asked if the head of the Art Faculty could choose on their behalf, thinking that he would have a good eye for colour.

They returned home to find their living room freshly wallpapered - in bright lime green with black-and-white ballet dancers every few inches. The other rooms were equally appalling; I seem to recall that one had red-and-white-and-purple fairy cakes all over the walls.

Apparently the Art Faculty guy had gone for an 'edgy' and 'ironic' style...

tori.k

We finally found something odd during a due diligence drive by yesterday, went to find a small tucked out of the way cottage with beautiful gardens, it did state there was no parking with the property but we thought to have a drive by to see if access could be created due to the large amount of land. The house is down a lane attached to another bigger house's drive way, have a sneaky suspicion that there is bad blood between the houses due to the electric wire fence the big house has placed along it's front boundaries, the place is ready for the zombie apocalypse I kid not. The bad atmosphere is almost tangible in the air between these properties.

phoebe1989seb

The strangest house we viewed was the one where the first floor bathroom had a very old, high-level toilet.........with no cistern. A length of string beside the toilet disappeared up into the ceiling.

On venturing up into the first of two attic bedrooms - that was directly above said bathroom - we found the missing cistern, sitting on the floor adjacent to the only place a bed would fit (the house was empty), the string attached.

Despite the fact that - amongst other things - the property had no lighting to the ground floor, we put in an offer that was accepted.

Until we got round to replacing the bathroom, any guests sleeping in that attic bedroom had the dubious pleasure of knowing exactly when someone on the floor below had used the facilities, lol, and to make matters worse, had to negotiate their way around the cistern to get into/out of bed :rotfl:

tori.k wrote: »

We finally found something odd during a due diligence drive by yesterday, went to find a small tucked out of the way cottage with beautiful gardens, it did state there was no parking with the property but we thought to have a drive by to see if access could be created due to the large amount of land. The house is down a lane attached to another bigger house's drive way, have a sneaky suspicion that there is bad blood between the houses due to the electric wire fence the big house has placed along it's front boundaries, the place is ready for the zombie apocalypse I kid not. The bad atmosphere is almost tangible in the air between these properties.

We pass a similarly appointed property when we take our dogs out. It also has hand-written signs warning visitors (do they welcome any?) not to let the animals out. Gipsy encampment sprung to mind. The amount of barbed wire and electric fencing used did initially make me think the householders were expecting some kind of invasion and - as the house is hidden by enormous hedging and cannot be seen from the road - I expected a grotty, trailer-type residence to be behind. Imagine my surprise when one day the gates were open and we caught a glimpse of an immaculate, large house with beautifully manicured gardens. Around the corner what looks like acres of greenhouses have fallen into dereliction.

DH later learned the back story - two brothers owned the land (a profitable market garden) but later fell out. They split the land so now one owns the nice house whilst the other is left with the rotting greenhouses. The huge, impenetrable metal gates etc are apparently to keep the other brother out. I guess there's more to it than that though.......

VintageHistorian

hazyjo wrote: »

Oh yep, saw one of those! Literally out the shower/cupboard into the bedroom.


The weird 'speaker house' I mentioned also had a shower cubicle in a bedroom. Have seen it in a cheap b&b before, but not in someone's house. Very odd - not even a manky old square one or a small one, it was a proper posh big corner one in a bedroom (taking up a big chunk of the room).

The house we bought (which we're now living in) had that in the main bedroom! Had been a student rental for 8 years and clearly the extra shower had been put in to prevent too many arguments over who was using the bathroom too much (although there's only 3 bedrooms). Or possibly it was to stop too many complaints about using the disgusting bathroom, which is an internal one and had a very poor extractor fan, black mould was growing around the shower and on the ceiling.

Naturally the first thing we did was get the bathroom ripped out and replaced (and a much better fan installed) and get the bedroom shower removed and the area made good at the same time. Unfortunately the people using the bedroom shower hadn't thought to open the window while using it so when we took down the blinds on the windows we discovered more mould on the walls. And then when it came to painting the window alcoves we discovered that the paint was flaking off because the lettings agents had just arranged for someone to paint over more mould in between tenants.

Can't be too angry though as the general incompetence of the agents meant that we got a good deal on the house in the first place, and we've made look much nicer than it originally was!