Ah, the joys of being a first-time homebuyer.
The whole experience is exciting. Each step along the way can be exhilarating: deciding that you want to buy your own place, searching for the right neighborhood, touring homes for sale, making an offer on a home you like, and finding out that the offer was accepted.
Of course, when the offer is accepted, there are a few other details to go through. Among other things, you’ll want to get an inspection done and have a final walk-through before closing. By that point, there shouldn’t be any big surprises if you’ve gotten a good look, right?
Well, that’s what one couple apparently thought as they were in the process of closing a purchase of their first home. However, these first-time homebuyers were dealt a fun surprise, which I’ll share in this 23rd installment of the Squirreling Gone Wild Series.
So, the homebuyers were a classic couple: single in their late 20’s, living in the city as young professionals, they met each other and fell in love. After a few years, they got engaged, and then they got married. Soon after marriage, they decided to buy a home in the suburbs. I didn’t ask, but my guess was that this was in anticipation of starting a family.
Anyway, the wife wanted to live closer to her parents, and the guy agreed to it (or just dealt with it, which again wasn’t something I asked!). They picked a subdivision in this suburb which was a bit older, and a few miles from her parents’ house. Naturally, the home was a bit older as well, but appeared to be in good shape. Surprisingly good shape. They did note that the sellers had interesting choices in furniture and placement of furniture, but wrote that off as unimportant, since as buyers they of course would be having their own furniture.
After having their offer accepted, the couple had an inspection done on the house. The inspection revealed a few things that didn’t catch their eye originally, but could have if they looked carefully. I don’t recall what those were, from the original story, but I remember that it did make them wonder about the sellers. This was exacerbated by the sellers’ “nickel and dime” approach in dealing with the maintenance issues. However, the couple really liked the house, and they were so excited about it that they settled for what the sellers were willing to do. Besides, during these times, real estate had been steadily increasing in value.
Eventually, they were set to move in. They just had to go through the “formality” of the final walk-through before closing. Everything seemed taken care of, but it looked like the owners still hadn’t moved everything out. Some of the furniture was still in place, particularly in the family room. It was still in the same awkward layout that it had been before, though most of the rest of the house was empty. It seemed strange, but they were assured that it would be gone upon move in. They didn’t think anything more about it.
Then, they closed the sale, and got the keys. They got to their new home, their first home, and walked in to find…..a living room with massive stains all over the carpet.
The lightbulbs went on in their heads right away. These stains were the reason why the furniture was in such a strange layout, and was still present upon the home being sold.
Apparently, the stains were from pet urine. Lots of it. TONS of it.
As I recall the story, they eventually pulled out the carpet and found that the pet urine had seeped under the carpet into the floor boards. It was all over the room, right where the furniture was awkwardly placed. Messes were even elsewhere in the house, though apparently it was covered up in a less obtrusively. Now, I’m allergic to dogs and cats, and probably have less tolerance for pet disasters than the average person – so to me, this sounded disgusting. At least it didn’t smell, but that indicates that the stains were probably quite old. Maybe years old.
The prior homeowners were so cheap, that they couldn’t even replace the carpet when they lived there. Rather, they covered it up and dealt with it. Not only did they just deal with it, they stayed cheap as they strategically positioned furniture in such a way that the buyers had no idea that there were big problems.
Can you imagine being that sneaky, that shameless, just to save a few bucks up front? It reminded me of the people from Squirreling Gone Wild #10 who saved a few bucks by serving spoiled food.
From what I remember, the buyers thought that the sellers were moving up to a newer, bigger, more expensive house. So presumably they had some money….they just didn’t want to spend it, and weren’t transparent with the sellers.
I have to admit that I think it would have been kind of funny to see the looks on the couple’s faces when they saw the carpet. I can only imagine the wife’s face when she saw those stains J
Still, I did feel really bad for them, as they were jerked around by the bad cheapskate owners. One can be a good cheapskate, but they were bad cheapskates for sure!
Lesson learned: If anything seems suspicious in a home sale, then be suspicious and do your due diligence.
My questions for you:
- What would you have done in their situation?
- If you’ve ever had a home inspection done, have you encountered one where there have been red flags? Maybe you’ve heard of such situations as well.
That is beyond gross! Pee stains in the living room.
Our rescued boxer has had a few accidents upstairs in a storage room, and that carpet is heading on out this spring. Just thinking about it gags me a little. Bloody expensive dog, this one is.
101 Centavos – Yes, that must have been gross! The carpet has to go in cases like that. Who would live in those conditions? I’m guessing (hoping?) they must have done everything within reason to remove the smell while they were living there.
We have been writing about buying, selling, staging and a whole bunch of other things to come regarding real estate transactions (we bought a house together last summer).
When we did our inspection I noticed an oddly placed bench. I looked behind it to see a hole in the wall at the base of the floor where a vent used to exist (100 yr old home, super old vent system). No biggie as we could put another vent in or fill the hole w/ new drywall.
It is always smart, as a buyer, to look under carpets, beneath furniture and in the case of this story, in and around oddly placed furniture!
Sustainable PF – I totally agree! Best to do your due diligence and check things out, particularly if things seem odd.
Oh my, this reminds me of when my brother and sister in law bought their place. Looking, “Hey, that’s a strange spot to hang a picture”. Walk through “Oh, look that was nice of them to leave a few photos on the walls for us”. Reality “That’s why those pictures are there and they left them. There are big holes in the walls that the pictures covered up.”
I walked into some homes with pets. I could smell it and there’s no way I’d put an offer on the house no matter how many batches of cookies were baked and candles were on to mask the smell.
First Gen – being allergic to dogs and cats, I notice the evidence of pets (even if the owners try to hide it). I won’t buy a place with cats, and would only buy a place with a dog if I could replace all the carpets. This means I would have to get a really good deal.
I would have loved to have seen a picture of the unique furniture placement.
I don’t think there is anything you can do other than deal with it if the sale is done and over. That had to be so disgusting. We always replace all the carpeting when we move in anyway. I know I am kinda crazy that way, but living with someone else’s carpeting just creeps me out. Our first floor is almost all hardwood, and I would love to do that upstairs too.
This is a great post though. If we ever move again, I will definitely look more closely. (Maybe move the china cabinet around… 🙂 )
Everyday Tips – Except for the condo I bought new (not living there now), I’ve lived in places with existing carpet. The condo had no carpet, was just hardwood all around except marble tiled bathrooms. Thus, any place I’ve been in as an adult has had used carpet. Growing up, my parents had brand new carpet and replaced it after 10 years. So, seeing both new vs. old, I really like new better. But, as I mentioned, I haven’t ever changed carpet. I’ve been too frugal, but I’d do it in the future if I planned to stay long term. If a dog was there, I’d absolutely change carpets.
I am surprised that no one noticed an odor. When you walk through a house, you try to catch the big things because there is no way you can catch everything. A professional home inspection should have caught the urine in the sub floor if exposed. They generally are focusing on mechanical or structural issues. If this happened to me, I would contact my broker and press through him/her to rectify the situation. In California, everything must be in working order when you take the property over. This does not fall into that situation.
krantcents – I think that you hit the nail on the head when you describe the work of inspectors as focusing on mechanical or structural issues. I may be wrong, but I think that looking underneath furniture at carpeting – or even getting to the point of looking at the floorboards – would probably not be something they do and would be out of scope. As for the odor, who knows – maybe they owners had done everything possible to remove the odor but the horrendous stains were remaining? Or, maybe the old baking cookies gambit did the trick.
I’m not sure about this, but you can probably get some money back from the home inspector. They are the professional and they missed this huge pee stain on the carpet? Other than that, I don’t think there is much else you can do…
retirebyforty – I think they ultimately just ended up dealing with the situation as is.
If something looks funny (like odd placement of furniture!) it is funny!
What a horrible thing to do though! They could’ve atleast gotten the carpets professionally cleaned if not replace them entirely.
MoneyCone – I agree that it was a horrible thing for the owners to do. They really pulled a total cheapskate maneuver by tricking these naive first time buyers. So cheap that they made the SGW series 🙂
As I get older it seems like I’m the only person in the world who doesn’t let/have dogs go to the bathroom all over the house. If you have dogs or cats, please learn how to either 1) let them outside 2) get them a litterbox or 3) put in a doggy door. It’s not only disgusting to have them go everywhere, but equally unhealthy.
Heads would’ve rolled for something like that. Now that I think about it, every home I can remember purchasing was empty when we looked at it, so I guess we avoided a risk I hadn’t even imagined before. The nerve of some people…I don’t know how you can go about your day having known that you sold something a HOUSE of all things with the intention to deceive them.
JT – I think the whole thing so sick that it’s to the point of being kind of funny. Not in reality, but it’s so crazy that those people could sucker the first-time buyers. Basically, I’m guessing the existing owners were older and decided to school the youngsters. That they did, and it may be funny but they lost their integrity in the process!
Oh mann! I’m surprised it didn’t smell at all! That’s pretty foul. And very sneaky! Definitely squirreling gone to the extreme.
I guess they were so excited they got away with it! I’m surprised the home inspection didn’t reveal such a thing.
Y&T – Can you imagine, being a first time homebuyer, and having an older couple fool you like that in such a deceptive way? Pretty extreme.
That’s pretty gross and I’m surprised they didn’t notice the carpet in other areas – usually pet stains are smelly and I would think it would have affected surrounding areas of the carpet, not just underneath the oddly placed furniture.
However, my first upgrade to a newly purchased house would be to replace the carpet! You never know how old carpet is (renting or buying) and things can live in it. It’s also totally worth the cost.
Little House – I can understand the desire to replace carpeting. While I haven’t done so, I now see the value in it and the good feeling of having new carpet. It would seem like it would be hygenic issue too with older carpet. This, of course, is unrelated to the obvious problems the homebuyers in the post suffered. That’s off the charts nasty.
I was looking at a house where the homeowner had put cardboard on the ceiling and then plastered it over. There was a bit peeling back. When I questioned the selling Realtor about it she skipped over my question and tried to move on to another subject.
Molly – that sidestepping of the question would have alarmed me, that’s for sure!
I wish I had the picture; but my buddy moved into a new home and guess what he found when he got there and all the furniture and paintings were gone on closing day? They had painted around all the friggin furniture and pictures! It looked hilariously ridiculous.
Darwin – that’s funny stuff. Makes me wonder why the previous owners couldn’t have just taken down the paintings and furniture to make sure the whole place was consistent. Strange all around!
haha that’s funny! People are so lazy sometimes! 🙂
This is disgusting, and shouldn’t it be considered a form of misrepresentation i.e. fraud? I mean, the sellers were deliberately covering it up. It’s like selling a car that has a headgasket problem and you put some silly putty on it so it lasts a few days or something.
I am a bit surprised there was no odor as a tip off, then again — I think there are a lot of incompetent home inspectors out there. For example, I saw an edition of Verminators where a guy moved into a new house and found a piece of blue tape on the wall. He removed the tape and it revealed a hole. Within a minute, bees started coming out of the hole. It turns out that there was a massive bee hive in the walls that had been there for years and the previous owners never bothered to have them removed. How the inspector never caught this is beyond me.
All the best,
Len
Len Penzo dot Com
This happened to a friend of mine. Luckily, he caught it before the close and made the previous owner split the cost of new carpeting.
Didn’t they smell it? Unfortunately, we “lost” (got rid of a couch) because of an old cat with a bad habit (got rid of her too).