What's an absolute "No" in your house search?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I looked at a lot of homes as was almost a hobby over 20 years. Maybe I saw 100 homes a year.

My favorite bad house had everything all in one. I looked as it was really cheap. Bank listed it directly. Had every bad thing possible
1) mom was a chain smoker like three to four packs a day 20 years. It was overwhelming beyond belief and Sheetrock was black except behind pictures or coach as furniture was tossed and half front lawn.
2) flag lot where it was a long narrow driveway and then 60x100 plot surrounded by four homes staring into house.
3) super fixer upper
4) get ready. Remember foreclosure so everything tossed. Well one room and the connected bathroom had centerfolds from playgirl magazine all over walls and doors and even ceiling. The disturbed adult son put the nude male center folks up. I asked why did bank not remove them aren’t they just glued on? I get that’s not glue guy jerked off and used his sperm to paste it in wall. Workers refused to touch it. My wife already choking from smoke ran out!

Agh. This is TMI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I looked at a lot of homes as was almost a hobby over 20 years. Maybe I saw 100 homes a year.

My favorite bad house had everything all in one. I looked as it was really cheap. Bank listed it directly. Had every bad thing possible
1) mom was a chain smoker like three to four packs a day 20 years. It was overwhelming beyond belief and Sheetrock was black except behind pictures or coach as furniture was tossed and half front lawn.
2) flag lot where it was a long narrow driveway and then 60x100 plot surrounded by four homes staring into house.
3) super fixer upper
4) get ready. Remember foreclosure so everything tossed. Well one room and the connected bathroom had centerfolds from playgirl magazine all over walls and doors and even ceiling. The disturbed adult son put the nude male center folks up. I asked why did bank not remove them aren’t they just glued on? I get that’s not glue guy jerked off and used his sperm to paste it in wall. Workers refused to touch it. My wife already choking from smoke ran out!

I guess some people are just picky.

[Anonymous]

Lots of yard signs in the neighborhood, regardless of political or personal ideology.

[Anonymous]

low greatschools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I looked at a lot of homes as was almost a hobby over 20 years. Maybe I saw 100 homes a year.

My favorite bad house had everything all in one. I looked as it was really cheap. Bank listed it directly. Had every bad thing possible
1) mom was a chain smoker like three to four packs a day 20 years. It was overwhelming beyond belief and Sheetrock was black except behind pictures or coach as furniture was tossed and half front lawn.
2) flag lot where it was a long narrow driveway and then 60x100 plot surrounded by four homes staring into house.
3) super fixer upper
4) get ready. Remember foreclosure so everything tossed. Well one room and the connected bathroom had centerfolds from playgirl magazine all over walls and doors and even ceiling. The disturbed adult son put the nude male center folks up. I asked why did bank not remove them aren’t they just glued on? I get that’s not glue guy jerked off and used his sperm to paste it in wall. Workers refused to touch it. My wife already choking from smoke ran out!

I guess some people are just picky.

Only on second read did I notice it was male centerfolds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I looked at a lot of homes as was almost a hobby over 20 years. Maybe I saw 100 homes a year.

My favorite bad house had everything all in one. I looked as it was really cheap. Bank listed it directly. Had every bad thing possible
1) mom was a chain smoker like three to four packs a day 20 years. It was overwhelming beyond belief and Sheetrock was black except behind pictures or coach as furniture was tossed and half front lawn.
2) flag lot where it was a long narrow driveway and then 60x100 plot surrounded by four homes staring into house.
3) super fixer upper
4) get ready. Remember foreclosure so everything tossed. Well one room and the connected bathroom had centerfolds from playgirl magazine all over walls and doors and even ceiling. The disturbed adult son put the nude male center folks up. I asked why did bank not remove them aren’t they just glued on? I get that’s not glue guy jerked off and used his sperm to paste it in wall. Workers refused to touch it. My wife already choking from smoke ran out!

I guess some people are just picky.

Only on second read did I notice it was male centerfolds.

It was male and full frontal nudity. Never knew Fireman had such long hoses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I looked at a lot of homes as was almost a hobby over 20 years. Maybe I saw 100 homes a year.

My favorite bad house had everything all in one. I looked as it was really cheap. Bank listed it directly. Had every bad thing possible
1) mom was a chain smoker like three to four packs a day 20 years. It was overwhelming beyond belief and Sheetrock was black except behind pictures or coach as furniture was tossed and half front lawn.
2) flag lot where it was a long narrow driveway and then 60x100 plot surrounded by four homes staring into house.
3) super fixer upper
4) get ready. Remember foreclosure so everything tossed. Well one room and the connected bathroom had centerfolds from playgirl magazine all over walls and doors and even ceiling. The disturbed adult son put the nude male center folks up. I asked why did bank not remove them aren’t they just glued on? I get that’s not glue guy jerked off and used his sperm to paste it in wall. Workers refused to touch it. My wife already choking from smoke ran out!

Just wish your other hobby wasn't derailing threads. But flag lot was a nice embellishment connecting back to previous posts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Family room where the only place to put a TV is over the fireplace.

Hold on - THAT ^^^ is a deal breaker for you?

PP isn't the only one! I HATE TVs over the fireplace. And we watch enough TV that not having someplace else to put it would make this if not a dealbreaker, a real downside.

Lack of sidewalks and/or not walkable would be an actual dealbreaker for me. Walking is my main form of exercise and it's how I decompress, and not being able to step out my door and walk would make me miserable.

[Anonymous]

Bad schools.

Cracked sidewalks.

Trash in the street and/or rats in the alley.

Washer/dryer in the basement.

Inadequate closet space.

No mud room or media room.

Two-story living room.

Marble floors.

[Anonymous]

Giant trees that look like they are about to fall on the house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The benefit to step-downs is a higher overall ceiling height, so there is a benefit. It also provides a separation of space in cases where floor plans are open, which is probably why you see it more starting in the 70s into the 80s when floor plans opened up a lot.

Fair point about the ceiling height, though I'd argue that an extra foot is not really doing much. I'm short though, so maybe it's more of a benefit for tall people? As for separation, the ones I've seen are still pretty integrated with the rest of the house in a way that should just flow, but can't because of the step.

Then you haven’t had a sunken living room. Maybe it’s only a foot, but it feels like 3 or more somehow. If you don’t have an open floor plan (we don’t, I hate them, pandemic proved me right ), then the con isn’t there, and the pros are many: separates the space, elevates the height, allows for enormous christmas tree, allows for dramatic tall cabinets, and at least in our house, is set apart by a back way with three sets of custom french doors that wouldn’t work without the height. So…we like it.

Every sunken living room I've seen is next to a dining room and if it weren't sunken, you'd be able to expand a table into the living room for Thanksgiving and large dinner parties, but you can't, because there's a step.
Maybe I'd appreciate the extra height for the 3 weeks of the year I had a Christmas tree if I celebrated Christmas? I suppose we'll never know, because I'm still walking out of any house with a sunken room.

How many people have large dinner parties that involve making a single table much larger (and have the piece to do it) and don't already have a large enough dining room? I understand your concern, but I'm guessing it applies to maybe 100 people max.

Ugh. I do! (NP) We have a large extended family and we always host big holidays.
We have a sunken living room and I hate it. We can't expand our dining table, which yes, is expandable, so we have to get creative and ads smaller table in the living room. It sucks for other reasons too. This is our first home and we overlooked a few things we didn't realize we would come to hate.

We are casually looking for a newer, bigger house, so I hope someone will love our house enough to have have the sunken living room be a deal breaker.
Funny though, a lot of the things people have put on their list of deal breakers are actually things we are looking for.
To each their own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The benefit to step-downs is a higher overall ceiling height, so there is a benefit. It also provides a separation of space in cases where floor plans are open, which is probably why you see it more starting in the 70s into the 80s when floor plans opened up a lot.

Fair point about the ceiling height, though I'd argue that an extra foot is not really doing much. I'm short though, so maybe it's more of a benefit for tall people? As for separation, the ones I've seen are still pretty integrated with the rest of the house in a way that should just flow, but can't because of the step.

Then you haven’t had a sunken living room. Maybe it’s only a foot, but it feels like 3 or more somehow. If you don’t have an open floor plan (we don’t, I hate them, pandemic proved me right ), then the con isn’t there, and the pros are many: separates the space, elevates the height, allows for enormous christmas tree, allows for dramatic tall cabinets, and at least in our house, is set apart by a back way with three sets of custom french doors that wouldn’t work without the height. So…we like it.

Every sunken living room I've seen is next to a dining room and if it weren't sunken, you'd be able to expand a table into the living room for Thanksgiving and large dinner parties, but you can't, because there's a step.
Maybe I'd appreciate the extra height for the 3 weeks of the year I had a Christmas tree if I celebrated Christmas? I suppose we'll never know, because I'm still walking out of any house with a sunken room.

How many people have large dinner parties that involve making a single table much larger (and have the piece to do it) and don't already have a large enough dining room? I understand your concern, but I'm guessing it applies to maybe 100 people max.

Ugh. I do! (NP) We have a large extended family and we always host big holidays.
We have a sunken living room and I hate it. We can't expand our dining table, which yes, is expandable, so we have to get creative and ads smaller table in the living room. It sucks for other reasons too. This is our first home and we overlooked a few things we didn't realize we would come to hate.

We are casually looking for a newer, bigger house, so I hope someone will love our house enough to have have the sunken living room be a deal breaker.
Funny though, a lot of the things people have put on their list of deal breakers are actually things we are looking for.
To each their own.

Sunken living room NOT be a deal breaker

[Anonymous]

Can you just fill in a sunken living room? Obviously not ideal but is that very expensive or unfeasable?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I looked at a lot of homes as was almost a hobby over 20 years. Maybe I saw 100 homes a year.

My favorite bad house had everything all in one. I looked as it was really cheap. Bank listed it directly. Had every bad thing possible
1) mom was a chain smoker like three to four packs a day 20 years. It was overwhelming beyond belief and Sheetrock was black except behind pictures or coach as furniture was tossed and half front lawn.
2) flag lot where it was a long narrow driveway and then 60x100 plot surrounded by four homes staring into house.
3) super fixer upper
4) get ready. Remember foreclosure so everything tossed. Well one room and the connected bathroom had centerfolds from playgirl magazine all over walls and doors and even ceiling. The disturbed adult son put the nude male center folks up. I asked why did bank not remove them aren’t they just glued on? I get that’s not glue guy jerked off and used his sperm to paste it in wall. Workers refused to touch it. My wife already choking from smoke ran out!

Who told you all these details? Like mom was chain smoker for 20 years and adult son who put up the centerfolds with his own “glue”?

[Anonymous]

Backs up to an extremely noisy highway/road, which is common here.