Who knew you'd need a strong stomach to be a realtor?
Reddit user KBBB223 asked the Realtors of Reddit a question that got some seriously interesting, and sometimes disgusting, responses:
Realtors of Reddit: What's the most disturbing history you've learned about a house you were selling?
You're going to need more than steam for that.
The lady next door to me died, and wasn't found until she was....more liquid than solid on her living room carpet. The family couldn't pay something about back taxes or something, and the house went to HUD to auction. HUD paid for some cleanup, but not to replace the carpet, only steam clean it.
So it finally sold, and was talking to the guy who is flipping it, before I could mention the death, he asked if the house had a water leak under the foundation...... Because when they ripped up the carpet and pad to put down the laminate floor, it was really dirty and got all over them and their clothes...... Told him what happened and how HUD went cheap on what to fix before the auction, he got green as a pea and started puking right there on his side of the fence. tieberion
We bet the ladies loved that.
My grandma sells/rents houses in the Denver area. A few weeks ago I had to help her evict a few college bros from one of her properties. This is a cottage style home, no second floor, no basement. These guys literally dug a hole in the wood floor and made a basement where they've been throwing trash away for the last year. Like it's a living room... with a tv... and a couple arm chairs... and a giant hole in the ground filled with ice cream wrappers, pizza boxes, and cigarette butts. _old
Heartbreaking.
My parents were realtors, and also flipped houses. When I was growing up I used to help them a lot, usually by cleaning. When I was 12 I was helping with a house that was infested with roaches. I noticed the closets were smeared with sh*t and children's hand prints... there were fingernail scratches on the insides of the doors as well. I asked my parents why this was the case. They told me the old tenants used to lock their toddlers in the closets for days. JaytheFarmer
Definitely haunted.
When I was looking for my last house, I went with my wife and realtor to look at several houses. We went to look at one house in particular because it didn't seem like the price they were asking for could be real... huge house sitting on tons of land with outbuildings, going for millions under market value. We got there, and the realtor said "oh, I should mention, a serial killer lived here and when he was put away cops found 11 bodies on the property." Yup4545
We just found ourselves rooting for the zombies.
In Seattle there was a house just up the block from my work. This was probably around 2007/08 or so. There was a zombie themed rave and said house became the after party. Most of the club kids knew each other and the ages ranged from like 16 to 21. Unfortunately they invited this loner dude who came over and started unloading a shotgun around 6:30-7 in the morning.
Kids dressed like zombies were pouring out of the house jumping over fences, into the street, into the backyard. Nobody knew who was actually wounded and who wasn't because everybody looked f'd up due to their costume. I think like 6-7 died. It has always stuck with me. Probably because it was in my neighborhood in which I lived and worked.
Eventually the house went up for sale and I always wondered how much the prospective buyers knew about what happened there. Houses in Seattle don't stay long on the market so it had a lot of real estate agents and buyers coming and going. I also wondered if there was a little discount considering it's history. TheGhost206
Oh God.
Not a realtor, happened to some friends who bought a property, very old site, about 300 years old which had been part of a convent, the living room of the nuns exactly. The aforementioned place had been refurbished as small apartments/houses about 50 years ago.
They went to live there and there was some maintenance given to certain places of the property (the common areas) there was a wall which was slightly wider than the others, they began to give maintenance to that wall but the outer layer fell apart (due to the rain and age) while trying to fix that they found dozens of skeletons of babies, very little babies and very old little skeletons.
Well, authorities and historians came and went by, and they came to the conclusion that the nuns tossed their babies there right after giving birth to them, lord knows if they were alive or dead by then. Moonwarden666
Meow?
The house we are remodeling & selling now - the previous tenant legit owned almost 40 cats. They completely destroyed the house. She was found dead after seven days, and yes, they ate some of her. Some of the cats just roam the neighborhood now. Allofherhart
The smell gave it away.
I was a property manager who handled all the leasing and running of 126 privately owned houses. This tenant of ours, maybe early 50's, lived alone in one of our rural properties with her 4 dogs. She wasn't a well lady and had regular doctors appointments.
One day she missed her appointment and the doctor called us (small town, everyone knows everyone) to see if we can get a hold of her because it's unlike her to miss an appointment. We tried calling, texting etc, but didn't hear back. It wasn't unusual for her to take a few days to reply and it was summer, extremely hot and with her condition she didn't handle it very well.
Two weeks had passed and we still never heard anything from her, so we wrote a letter thinking that maybe her phone wasn't working. She paid her rent directly into the company trust account, so we rarely had her visit the office to pay and her house was always immaculate during inspections, so she was a good, trouble-free tenant.
A week after we sent the letter, we still didn't get a reply, so I went to visit her. I drove out to the house and noticed something wasn't right straight away.
Her dogs didn't greet me.
Gardens and lawn was a bit over grown.
Letter box was full of mail.
I timidly walked up the stairs to knock when I was greeted by a foul smell. I instantly knew she was dead.
I used my key to unlock the door and found her face down dead in the middle of the lounge room, dressed in her pyjamas. Her dogs were also dead in the kitchen, water and food bowls empty and the house was locked up. No windows open or doors. cadme
"Excuse me gentlemen, I'll just see myself out."
I work in property management on the rental side, and would frequently do post move out walks to assess damages from previous renters, and make ready lists for new ones.
There was a house on my list that had been vacant for a while in a semi seedy area, not a huge deal by any means as it's the middle of the day. I go to the front door, and it was stuck shut. Shoulder checked it a few times, and it would give a little but I couldn't get it open, like furniture or something was barring the way.
So I walk around back and completely ignore he broken storm door (oops) leading up to the other entry. The second I open the door I notice three guys standing in the living room around a table. One conveniently had a gun pointed directly at me.
I apologized, and politely let myself out. No more than ten seconds after I get into my car, our maintenance calls warning me that the property has been broken into half a dozen times already and I shouldn't go in alone.
Wasn't the worst I've seen, but certainly the scariest. Turkeyhuts
Nope, not sewing needles.
Not a realtor, but we learned a lot of dirt about our current house.
The most recent renter had moved in with his girlfriend, who immediately dumped him. He texted our property manager so much about his broken heart that she evicted him.
Before that was a middle-aged married couple. They got into a fight and the husband threatened to commit suicide. The wife left and took everything, both money and possessions.
For my SO, he learned the previous residents were junkies when they found needless on the floors and in the yard. breakfastburritotime
Freedom!
I recently had some buyers move into a house that was being sold due to a divorce. They had mentioned after a few days that it seemed a lot of the door hinges were slightly damaged/bent as well as other things that could point to excessive use.
A few weeks later, my clients call and tell me that they got a green card in the mail from one of the previous owners. I called the listing agent who said he would get in contact with the green card recipient. She turns up later that day unannounced at my clients new house and extremely excited.
YESTERDAY, my client was going through the garage and found a STACK of police reports detailing tons of domestic abuse charges that included threats of deporting the green card recipient if she told/did not stay. tenaciousd199
Like a makeshift prison cell?
Took a couple to see a house in my neighborhood. nice 50's bungalow. there was an add-on of 2 rooms and a bathroom. one room and the bathroom were really well done. one room had a 4x4 foot floor to ceiling cage made of 2x4 and chicken wire with dirt and shit all over the walls and floor, stained in and streaked with what looked like human hands. There was a plastic mop sink in the corner with a hose. Llama_fo_yo_mama
TV's and "love notes"
Creepiest house was the 'backwards TV house' as we called it.
It was easily $200,000 less then any neighboring house. It had some fixer-upper problems but otherwise a good house. Beautiful atrium, master bedroom was all windows looking at the mountains, and a pool overlooking the valley.
We walk in and no lights work. That is ok. Plenty of windows upstairs to give the living room and kitchen light. We walk into the kitchen and pictures of the family and children are spread out all over the dining room table. There is still food on the table. Dishes aren't done. All their medicine is still in the drawers.
It was as if they were abducted overnight by some government agency.
We go downstairs and it is very dark. Only a few windows. All of the TVs are turned backwards facing the wall. These aren't flat screen light-weight TVs either. These are the old school, giant TVs.
There are notes all over the house about how much they love and miss each other. Love notes to the woman of the house.
... and a bunch of notes which get more and more insane. It was very poltergeist.
'I can't believe you didn't show up'
'Does this sh*t even matter to you?'
A couple of ripped out pages.
A weird sketch of a woman with the eyes poked out.
Then a few pages of some weird writings that I didn't understand. They were English letters but it wasn't English. Very dark angry pencil lines.
It was a little psychotic. It was very much in contrast with the love notes all over the rest of the house.
It was top top notch creepy sh*t. We have no idea what happened there but we can only assume they had to flee the country or ghosts. pustulio18
Sisterly love
My sister is a realtor. About 12 or so years ago, there was a house down the street from me that two elderly sisters lived in together. The younger sister was more able bodied, and cared for the older sister. When she grew tired of it she beat her sister to death and left her on the back screened in porch to rot. My sister sold that house. etchedchampion
Ignore the jars, focus on the money.
My dad flips houses for a living. Back when I was in grade school he bought a duplex that was in foreclosure. One side was completely normal and the other side was disgusting. The guy who lived there before never paid his water bill and peed in jars that he kept literally all over the place. He had no furniture and it was like he never unpacked because there were boxes everywhere that were super unorganized. It was odd because we found out that he was a waiter at one of the oldest country clubs in CLT and made decent money. He left all of his money scattered between his piles of sh*t (literally and figuratively). My parents had my other siblings and I go on a scavenger hunt for all of the money and to help clean out it. Ew. dancing_butterfly
Imgur
That's a lot of years of bad luck.
I'm a contractor and recently dismantled what seemed to be a torture room in the basement of a house some clients were selling. Creepy broken mirror included. groel220
Getty Images/ Morsa Images
Almost 200 penises to choose from!
Lady wants me to list her house. I go over and do the routine. As I go to the bedroom closet, she yells, "Oh no! Don't go in there! It's a horrible mess! It's a walk in closet, but please don't go in there. It's such a mess and I'm embarrassed." She went on about it way too long for it to be "just a mess."
I leave it alone and that's that. House gets listed and two weeks later, I offer to do an open house. The lady has started packing already because I already helped her find a new house. She leaves, I get the open house going, and a nice couple comes in. They get to the master bedroom and there's a wall of boxes in front of the closet.
I explain that it's a walk in closet and last time I was here, the lady said it was just filled to the brim with stuff. The wife wants to see the closet. The husband starts moving boxes. I ask him not to and he keeps going saying, "if I'm going to buy a house, I want to see the whole thing." Well, he kind of had me there because I know they loved everything else about the house and the wife seemed super stoked about the kitchen and the master bath.
The last box is moved and the door is opened. Inside is a 10x10 foot room jam packed with sex toys. They're each standing up on very nice custom shelving units with glass doors on the front. The glass doors also have numbers made from a home label maker unit. On the inside of the door is a large sheet of paper. Each number has a corresponding name of some guy.
That's when we noticed two large boxes in the corner. Each box contained 36 unopened "Clone-A-Willy" making kits. We stared in amazement for awhile and then the husband just lost it. It took a good 20 minutes for him to stop laughing (or at least randomly bursting out in laughter). We put everything back the way it was and that was the end of me letting anyone check out the closet for the rest of the open house.
This couple actually ended up buying the house. And since I know everyone will ask, there were 183 home-made toys in the closet (and a few store-bought ones too). Myzyri
We'll be inspecting all mirrors from now on.
Not that I was buying but one I was visiting.
I went to visit my sister in California and once I flew in I wanted to shower. Well I took a long enough shower that the mirror was all steamy when I got out. Except one tiny dot in the middle of the mirror. My immediate thought process was "oh weird. I guess if you draw on a mirror with expo it won't steam around it". So I went to go investigate and upon looking right up to it I realized it was a camera lens.
Well I freaked and ran out to her room and dressed then went and told her. We went around our back and looked in a utility closet type thing that looked like it was in line with her room. Sure enough the drywall had been cut away and re patched at some point. We cut it open and while there was no camera there was a little lens still stuck to the mirror. It's real freaky to think whoever was getting actually spied on and if they ever actually knew. Eeeeeek. snapdragonflies
So, the house is kind of famous then?
An old friend of mine bought a nice house in a quiet neighborhood. The place is beautiful and has a really nice deck outback with a hot tub. About 3 weeks after closing he was cleaning out some previously owner junk in one of the closets and found an old DVD. It was a porno with a hot tub scene on the cover. His hot tub. It was epic. Grandmastrgusto
One, two Freddy's coming for you...
OK so when I was doing the rounds looking to buy my first house we had made an appointment to view this little cottage which was totally in our budget. We weren't familiar with the area so we got there about 45mins early. Instead of just waiting round for the agent to show up we decided to take a tour around the neighbourhood and found another property that had an open house. The one was so not in our budget but we decided to take a look anyway just for sh_ts and giggles. It was very fancy pants. White marble flooring, gym, it's own freaking hairdresser room. Anyway the property was split level and built on the side of a hill. So I'm super interested in looking at everything just to see how the other half live and I go into the laundry room which was at the back of the bottom level of the house. Off the laundry room there was another door which was smaller than a standard door way (lengthwise) and I thought 'oh cool, a secret passageway'. So I go through the doorway and it's a passage way that runs longways down the back of the house. One side is the dirt and the other is gyprock. So I follow the passageway to the end it's very dimly lit and at the end it opens up into a small room which the current owners were using for storage. I nearly sh_t myself when I spot it. There, standing amongst random boxes of god-knows-what, was a life freaking sized replica of Freddy freaking Krueger!!!!
I nope'd out of there and we left very quickly. Suffice to say that we looked at the other property but did not put an offer in. That house is still on the market 4 years later. Miss_Mel_Lives
Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.