I’ve always maintained and improved the homes I’ve owned, both because it’s the best way to preserve their value and because it’s made them especially marketable. Our last home had a contract after 3 days and we closed just a little over a month after listing. Our current home is especially nice looking and we have had several inquiries even though it’s not for sale.
I do most of the work, at least keeping a keen eye on the workings of everything inside and out and promptly fix anything that could deteriorate over time. If it’s something larger or requires a pro, like HVAC, roofing, pool equipment, large scale painting or the like we have trusted contractors we call. The rest of it, minor plumbing, electrical and all the landscaping and yard maintenance I prefer to do myself. I actually really enjoy that and am physically capable and certainly that’s not always the case for everyone.
I own and maintain my home pretty well. Frankly, I enjoy it except for the cleaning. As much as I don’t like to clean, I also refuse to live in a dirty home, or one that is falling apart.
I figure, I’m paying for the privilege to live there, so why would I want to pay good money to spend my life in a shithole? I can understand if you just don’t have the money or are infirm or something, but otherwise, why not maintain it? Cleaning is essentially free.
My home is an investment, and the most expensive single thing I will possess at any point in my life. I’d be doing myself a disservice not to protect my investment.
We rent a place that had burned out a year before we moved in, so had to be rebuilt from the studs up. Inside, it was essentially a new house the day we moved in. All flooring, fixtures, appliances, even the drywall. Brand new.
We take really good care of it because A) anything broken or dirty is obviously something we did, and we’d like at least most of our deposit back when we leave; and B) we’re just that way. I’m somewhat fastidious, my wife more so.
The home we own we maintain/improve. We’ve already had to re-roof it, which was our major project this year, but we have a list of landscape and upgrade fixes that we’ll be making to the house.
I grew up in owned homes and my parents were huge DIYers for the interior and also did a ton of landscaping and landscape design. They farm out the renovations now that they are older but they are still heavily focused on their landscape design and do it all themselves. My husband’s family, OTOH, are not particularly interested in improvement or too much upkeep on their owned home. This came out when they were super surprised that we wouldn’t just live with holes in our roof/ceiling.
The places I/we rented we just maintained in the same condition we got them in. However in NYC there is a trend towards making improvements to rentals (like major renovations to the kitchen and bathroom and fixtures). The landlords tend to approve them in exchange for rental cuts because they know that ultimately the improvements in the property value go to them.
My siblings live in the house we grew up in, having been left it by our grandparents and are letting it go to seed. They aren’t unique. Almost our whole block has fallen into the hands of the kids I grew up with and none of them are taking care of the homes. It’s sort of self-fulfilling - the more responsible kids already had homes of their own when their parents died, so they either sell it or move in the sibling that is struggling financially. Rather than taking advantage of getting a free house - a huge leg up - they seem to see it as freeing up more money for their vice of choice, and money spent on the house is done begrudgingly. (In our case, 3 employed people with a total of six college degrees between them grouse endlessly about paying $700/year in property tax. It’s insane.)
It’s actually pretty interesting. There were some lovely homes going to hell closer in to downtown when I was growing up and I didn’t get why people didn’t keep them nice. Now I’m seeing my old neighborhood go the same way while people build up the area further out, which was fields when we were kids.
My house was fairly new when I bought it, 8 or 9 years. Painted the exterior; put on new roof; replaced the decks. Inside, lick and a promise painting. Now it’s 14 years later and the outside still looks pretty good. My yard is an, ermmm, wildflower lawn. I mow or have it mowed a couple times a year. Inside, some of the vinyl tile is beginning to peel. The shower looks dirty no matter how I scrub. I don’t do windows and I seldom dust. The dog, long hair and short legs, tracks in half the driveway every day, but I don’t vacuum much. I’m so not house proud.
I do believe there is a township ordinance about lawn length, but my road is private with seasonal (unmowed lawns) homes in among the year-round residents. We’re pretty much off the radar, thank goodness. I have always believed that unless animals aren grazing on it, grass is a weed.
The only part of my home that seems to have truly fallen apart at the moment is the back and front garden. Just recently repainted my bedroom from a pale blue colour to a lime green colour!
I also live in a township where not mowing won’t get you in much trouble. And I personally think lawns are stupid, and “meadows” are prettier and certainly more ecologically friendly.
I’ve come up with a compromise (I have just shy of a half-acre.) Everything in the front yard and where the dogs go out is mowed every week or two. So I’m compliant, it’s easy to find the dog shit, and my neighbors won’t complain. I’m also in an edge-of-rural area where people don’t get anal about lawns and dandelions.
However I’ve asked that the guy who mows to leave a band of “natural” along the back fence, and on the edges of the side yard. I have wild raspberries and blackberries, something with big pink and purple flowers that the bees love, clover that will get a couple of feet tall with nice pink flowers, wood violets that bloom all summer, some really pretty frondy wild grass and ghetto palms which are incredibly fast-growing.
Obviously I do not live in a typical suburban neighborhood and nor would I want to. I do have several well-kept perennial beds and a vegetable garden every summer, but I really like to keep and encourage native and wild plants and the critters that find them useful.
My mother used to handle all the maintenance - doing it herself or hiring repairmen. She became terminally ill in 2009 and passed away two years ago and since then I live by myself. But nothing’s really broken since then, other than the garbage disposal which I had replaced. My older brother handles all the yardwork, for which I am eternally grateful since I hate strenuous exercise in heat and humidity. But since 2012, the only decline I’ve noticed is the accumulation of dust and cobwebs in areas that I don’t use normally; I do some wiping with a paper towel whenever things start to look too much like a haunted house.
I don’t fall in any category either. We rent. It’s in a Townhouse complex. The landlady is on the HOA board - any outside stuff that needs doing she takes care of - we just got new siding recnetly, and a new roof. Any inside stuff that goes wrong we call her and either she replaces whatever is broken - she has either my husband do the installation/repairs, or depending on what it is, hires someone (the heating and air for example.)
We’ve also upgraded a number of things (sinks, faucets, light fixtures, ceiling fans, etc.) that we’ll leave when we move - he gets them free from some of his jobs (the homeowner’s don’t want whatever it is anymore.)
We have a dog so we steam clean the carpet twice a year, he paints every couple of years - it’s not mine, so I try to take care of it as best as we can. Additionally, our village requires landlords to have their units inspected every 2 years - so we HAVE to keep it in the best condition possible. Her or her husband AND the village would have a cow if we let it fall to rack and ruin.
I have a legitimate excuse for not mowing/weeding/trimming one corner of my lot. It contains a couple of pink ladyslippers, which are a “do not disturb” plant. The one time I cleared that corner, before I knew how sensitive they were, the ladyslippers vanished. It’s taken years of neglect to re-create their habitat. I’m positively giddy when they bloom. Nature has provided violets, dogbane, clover, daisies, swamp milkweed (Monarch’s love it) wild strawberries, wild geranium, mullein, tansy, yarrow, Queen Anne’s Lace, wild blueberries, and a few other plants I haven’t identified yet. I have huge patches of moss, too.
I’m in a hippie dippie town where for many, the lack of property maintenance is intentional. It’s hard to explain - romanticism of things that are “natural”, a cultural preference for grit over polish, anti materialism (TV, nice car, etc) as a status symbol, etc.
I try to be tolerant and open-minded to different points of view but after reading this thread I am honestly glad most of you are not my neighbors.
Just moved into a “new” 120ish year old home. Like my previous old home, I keep up on maintenance, do improvements, and continually improve my investment both for my own aesthetic enjoyment and financial reasons as well as the general betterment of my neighborhood and neighbors.
I know this sounds judgmental but I honestly cannot understand some of the comments here. Financial hardships and disabilities aside, if you own a home and just don’t care to upkeep your home (or even do regular cleaning?!?)… well you might as well be from Mars.
But… to each their own. Just please don’t buy the home next door to mine!
I don’t get that myself. There’s a similar trend with vintage cars and bikes lately, where people find old ones and just get them running, but leave them rusty and beat up. I’m not one for restoring to showroom condition or keeping a house like a museum, but I like things well-maintained to capture the vision of the designer/architect, rather than the neglect of the owner.
I do have several well-kept perennial beds and a vegetable garden every summer, but I really like to keep and encourage native and wild plants and the critters that find them useful.