This shot of the exterior brick wall isn’t the lead photo for this home, but it is the best photo.
The primary photo isn’t all that bad, but once you go inside… all bets are off.
I have to respect a listing agent that’s willing to brave such a terrifying environment just for the paltry commission they’ll be earning on a $15,000 listing.
How do homes even get like this?
Is that a toilet… in the bathtub? Never mind, I don’t want to know.
Missing windows with bird nests where the glass should be. Perfect.
How about I make you a deal. How about you pay me $15,000 and I’ll find a way to bulldoze this place to the ground and wipe its memory from the earth. That sounds pretty fair.
I’m wondering how they fit three bedrooms in there. The listing says 1 bathroom, but I counted 4 toilets (including the one in the bath tub), three of them installed. What?
The condition of the kitchen makes me wonder if this place had either become a hoarder house or was used as a meth lab. Regardless, it would need to be gutted at the very least. For $15K, the cost of reno couldn’t exceed $10K to make it worth flipping and I see far more than $10K of work that needs to be done here. It may take that much just to fix the flooding problem in the basement.
It’s kind of surprising selling something as intensely used and as contributory to one’s health as a house doesn’t automatically trigger a health department inspection. You know, to certify it isn’t crawling with black mold, rats, lead-based paint, crumbling staircases, etc. I suppose one can ask for an inspection, but that still leaves untold numbers of babies and kids subjected to potentially life-threatening conditions in a house their parents choose to buy or rent without an inspection. OSHA routinely inspects workplaces, so why not something similar for homes? I know… it would be another costly government intrusion and could easily become moribund, draconian, corrupt, or any combination thereof. Doesn’t mean it still isn’t a good core of an idea.
I’m still trying to figure out why houses in my town – and many others, I’m sure – have been allowed to fall into such disrepair, over decades, that they’re as bad as this place. Even further, the ones here, being wooden structures, look as bad outside as inside, where everyone including city inspectors can see the problem. And yet everyone seems to have had a collective blind spot, a willingness to totally ignore the situation. Now that a few officials are finally trying to alter local government’s approach to the problem, residential neglect is entrenched in many areas and folks are kicking and screaming about being forced to attend to the results of that neglect.
The suckiest part of the new attention to regs is that it isn’t being pursued for the sake of a healthy, stimulating place to live (not to mention a little dignity). It’s about – of course – money. When the town looks so bad you have trouble getting new businesses (and their employees) interested in moving here, it’s time to make a change. I wonder if the couple of good sized manufacturers that have moved in have done so contingent on there being better housing for their future employees. Whatever the sequence of events, it will likely take almost as long to overcome the legacy of neglect as it did to start it in the first place. Listings like today’s are just a depressing reminder of the whole big mess.
Well at least the realtor didn’t try to add fluff to the description: “Fixer Upper. All Brick. 3 Bedrooms.”