First-time homebuyer horror stories
Water plays a major role in stories from homeowners who uncovered disaster after they had closed on their first homes, according to one website's collection.
We've all heard stories of first-time homebuyers who unknowingly bought a money pit. There was even a movie.
When I bought my first home, as soon as the water main was turned on, a flood began to gush from the ceiling. I was lucky. It turned out to be merely a broken pipe carrying the water supply from the kitchen to the wet bar in the living room, and we caught it before it did major damage. Repairs were $60.
Curbed set out to collect disaster stories of first-time homebuyers and found some doozies, both from home searches and home purchases. The winning story also involved water leaks.
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Here were some of the contenders:
- In Washington, D.C., prospective homebuyers were looking at what they thought was an empty house. As part of the search, they opened the door to the basement and prepared to check out the downstairs. The home searcher writes: "As I began to descend, a door suddenly opened and an overweight man in boxer shorts and black tube socks burst out of one room and ran into another one. I screamed and ran up the stairs. We all then ran out of the house."
- In Atlanta, despite a home inspection, a buyer had no idea how much work was needed on a 1960s-era house that had been vacant for a year. The homeowner writes: "For the first major project, my experienced reno friends used a garden hose to spray all of the ceilings to remove the ancient popcorn texture. It rained 50 years of cigarette smoke and filthy ceiling curds on our heads like an Amazonian jungle storm of nasty. ... Apparently the filth was holding the house together because after we removed the popcorn, the plaster ceiling began collapsing in my bedroom." And that was just one project.
- In Detroit, an interior designer bought a two-story brick home at a county auction for $5,000. Her extensive research did not unearth the fact that the home, which had been vacant for 30 years, was on the city's demolition list. She couldn't get any utilities turned on until she got the demolition officially canceled. She writes: "I spent days at the Coleman Young building navigating the ridiculous maze of "go to this dept, no that dept, not MY dept, pay this fee, now that fee, oh, and don't forget these fees" until I finally got the piece of paper that said I'm off the demo list (I hope this bit of info makes it to the wrecking crews)."
The winning story came from Philadelphia, where the homeowners uncovered a plethora of plumbing woes, after their home inspector pronounced the house "solid." As the husband took his first shower, his wife discovered that the water was draining through the ceiling onto a couch on the first floor. And then there was the bucket in the wall. The homeowner writes:
During a nighttime rainstorm, we awoke to find a puddle of water on the kitchen counter. We inspected a particularly water-damaged soffet to find, inside the soffet framing, a quart-sized bucket that had been built in behind the drywall. The infamous bucket, covered in black algae and disgusting mold, had captured who-knows-how-many years' worth of disgusting roof-filtered rainwater, and spilled over who-knows-how-many times. We ended up gutting the entire kitchen.
These kinds of surprises aren't just for new homebuyers, of course.
I once bought a home in which the previous owner had redone the bathroom and kitchen – but had failed to reconnect the plumbing under the sinks.
Tip: Make sure someone is there when the water is turned on for the first time.
Can you top these stories? What's your worst home-hunting or homebuying horror story?
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We bought a brand new log home in a beautiful setting. The day we arrived, there was a waterfall running through the air conditioning unit, and 6" of red clay in the unit.
Seperately, the sewer line was never connected to the septic line, so everything backed up 3 days into the new house. The furnace was never converted from gas jets to propane, so it melted down. The tile floor in the lower level started to come up as we arrived. The water pipes burst the first winter.
The dryer vents were never connected to the outside so it was venting into a crawl space, the lower level cement pad was severely cracked, and never repaired, the house had trees growing within 3" of the new construction, there was no way to get to the lower level, except through the house, they buried the construction debris under the gravel driveway, all the screens on the deck were blown out.
Most importantly, the developer had agreed that any and all of these items on the punch list would be completed before we arrived. We held $10K at closing, and used every bit to complete his work. When we finally sold it, the house was amazing, and in great shape for the new owners. Oh, yea one more thing, check the Covenents and Restrictions before you buy. This neighborhood forbid too many animals, cars that wern't working, and RV's but there was no restriction on shooting guns off your deck.... really, you can't make this stuff up.
My wife and I bought our first house in a new housing track.It was brand new complete with a 6 foot privacy fence.You can imagine the excitement.When we moved in we noticed the dryer outlet and the stove outlet were switched.How could they miss something like that?Later they built more homes in back of us on a hill.No more privacy and we got all thier rainwater.Backyard never fully dried.over the summer and winter seasons we spent thousands on heater and AC repairs.They said the Duct vents were not the right size making the unit work harder.The repair cost contributed to our bankruptsy( that and me losing my job).We were told the house would go up for auction on March 29th.The final step towards foreclosure. So we did what anyone else would have done,,,we moved.We were happy to be out of that house but the trouble did not end there. Just last Friday we got a notice from the city saying we still had to mow the lawn at the old house.No Way!! After a few phone calls we learned the auction was cancelled by the bank's lawyers and didn't tell us.So now we are renting a house but own another house that we cant do anything with.No telling when it will go up for auction.
The American dream is no longer to own a home. The new American dream is to have a good job.
Another place I went to inspect the basement and found 2 feet of water. The tenants (a young couple who had not responded to the real estate agent's knock because they were busy in the bedroom) told me that they had unplugged the sump pump. Good idea, with a basement full of water it was unlikely that they would be forced out if the house sold.
A place we did buy turned out to have had a major roof leak in the past. Did not dicover this until we decided to replace the living room carpet with wood tiles. Found the floor rotting in one corner, and the wall studs and a roof rafter rotted. Had to take vacation from work and do the repairs myself.
I don't understand why the second entry is even here. They sprayed a plaster ceiling with water. Why does she think it started to collapse? It's not like they used a wet rag on the ceiling. They used a garden hose.
If you click the link that takes you to the entire article this is from, the author goes on to say that she had to hold up the plaster ceiling with a wing and a prayer until she could find someone brave enough to let concrete fall on their heads. Why was there concrete in the ceiling, and why was it falling?
That story doesn't make any sense.
About Teresa Mears
Teresa Mears is a veteran journalist who has been interested in houses since her father took her to tax auctions to carry the cash at age 10. A former editor of The Miami Herald's Home & Design section, she lives in South Florida where, in addition to writing about real estate, she publishes Miami on the Cheap to help her neighbors adjust to the loss of 60% of their property value.
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