Buying a house with a bad history

lookstraightahead

Most houses would have had unhappiness in them at some point. Along with happiness. I don't see the problem myself.

silvercar

I’d be more concerned about the current vibes of the house if buying off a divorcing couple.

I remember someone commenting on an old neighbour of my childhood home, that they’d bought a house with a weeping willow in the garden and that meant misery. They’d lived there quietly about 10 years when he murdered his wife!

user1977

Section62 said:

user1977 said:

goater78 said:

user1977 said:

Murders are, obviously, but how often are suicides newsworthy? You really don't get the circumstances reported in that sort of detail, especially if they happen at home.

People in the local road would know and I imagine gossip about it. Would be surprised if nobody mentioned to you that someone had killed themselves in the house. Also people google their own addresses and imagine something would come up for it. 

Where would a domestic suicide come up via Google? Assuming the deceased wasn't somebody notable.

These days suicide at home is unlikely to be reported (in any detail), but it wasn't that long ago (1960's?) that some local papers would report deaths of this type in some graphic detail.

A Google search would currently be hit-and-miss, but sites like newspapers.com have extensive collections of newspapers which have been OCR'd so can be searched once logged in. If that information ultimately crosses the paywall then no doubt Google etc will show all the detail.

One of the issues will be whether the news report can be linked to a specific property - which may be relatively easy in rural areas, but could require some detective work in urban areas.

It was somewhat easier in the era of newspapers publishing full addresses in stories, and often including gruesome details which they'd omit from the story these days (e.g. not "a worker suffered a serious injury in an industrial accident" but "Jim McDonald of 4 High Street lost his left hand..").

There's a guy who has done this sort of research for various Edinburgh tenements - not just bad stuff or things which actually happened at home (though some of that crops up), but all sorts of historical interest about previous residents:

https://tenementtown.com/

YoungBlueEyes

Ooh I like your site @user1977, very interesting. Bit like this one - if anyone likes a less personal history from a bit further left geographically  https://www.abandonedni.com/single-post/2017/08/11/absent-but-not-forgotten 

Sorry for the derailment OP.

I wouldn't be bothered by a house's history myself. I think it's a case of 'what you don't know won't hurt you'. I can understand how others would be put off by it though. Tricky situation - there's no one right answer I spose.

RelievedSheff

SecondStar said:

A colleague’s wife would only agree to buying a new build, in case of any bad juju like the OP described. 

I don’t think I could live somewhere knowing that there had been a suicide. It was hard enough to live in the house where my ex’s grandmother had been found passed away asleep in her bed - when I came through the bedroom door, I could picture it.

What you don’t know won’t hurt you, but if I did know then I’d rather not.

Whilst a new build house is very unlikely to have had anyone die in it (barring any construction incidents which are not unknown), you can't really say the same for the land it is built upon.

The estate we bought our new build on was built on farmers fields that have been undeveloped since published maps began. The archaeological survey however found evidence of roman settlement in the area, so chances are there will have been many deaths on the site. 

Skiddaw1

I think it's more of an issue when something has happened comparitively recently.

We previously lived in a Victorian terraced house, which I am sure had seen a few deaths. That didn't bother us and nor did the fact that we backed on to a large Victorian cemetery (we saw it as a plus point). However, one of the EAs we had a valuation from commented that being adjacent to a cemetery/graveyard is a complete no-no for some people. The same EA had recently sold a house not far from where we used to live, which had seen a murder/suicide a year previously (we remembered the news story). House was priced accordingly and it clearly didn't put the buyer off but I'm not sure I'd have been comfortable about purchasing it.

rach_k

It wouldn't bother me in the slightest.  I'd feel daft being put off an inanimate house because of something that happened there, unless, of course, there is the possibility of... 'parts' still being in the house?!

I think my teenage children might enjoy discussing it with their friends but they've been brought up with a matter-of-fact approach to such things so I don't think it would have bothered them as little ones either, if we'd even told them.  They know that it is fairly likely that people have died in our 1900 house now. 

I'd quite happily tell any visitors making a fuss to put on their grown up pants and stop being silly about something that doesn't affect them - or us - in any way.

If I did allow myself to be daft for a few moments, I would choose to believe that it's a good thing to give an old house a better time, with a happy family living in it now.  

markin

Could it be converted? It would then be in the house.

eddddy

FWIW, there was a particularly unpleasant murder in a house I lived fairly close to. The victim's body was bound and gagged, and left undiscovered in their own house for a week or two.

There was a huge police investigation, it was front page news for weeks in the local paper. And the house attracted lots of 'sightseers'. Following an eventual court case, everyone locally knew the gruesome details of what had happened in the house.

Eventually, the house was listed on Rightmove with a one sentence description:  "Please contact the estate agent for details".

I don't think there's any question that the saleability and value of that house was affected by what had happened.


The eventual buyer demolished the house, and built a new one.