Before we moved into our last rental house (which we just moved out of this weekend to move to our own house. With a pool!), our landlord told us that the previous tenants, a husband and wife, were arguing when the husband grabbed a .22, shot his wife, and then himself. Fortunately, they both survived, though their marriage likely didn’t. Neither did their lease.
We were fascinated. We had no qualms about moving into an attempted murder house.
We got a perverted pleasure out of telling people what had happened in our house. My parents were horrified. My buddies laughed, and said that only a white guy would willingly move into a house where someone had tried to kill someone else. Then, since no one had actually died, interest waned.
But, if someone had actually died, it likely would’ve been more disturbing.
Would you move into a house where a grisly murder had occurred? How about just an attempted murder?
In 1992, a grisly murder happened in my house. We weren’t home when it happened. The insurance paid for the cleanup and the new carpets. We still live here, and the guy who did it is in the State Prison.
I think it would depend upon who did the killing. If it was a resident of the house or a relative of a resident, I don’t think it would bother me - more of an oddity about the house.
If it was random or perhaps a disgurntled neighbor, I might think twice.
The closest I can come wrt personal experience on this.
Some family members bought a condo in a very nice area. A creepy neighborhood boy started stalking their daughter. One day he came over, got in, and … she wasn’t home. But a friend of hers was. The friend was murdered instead. Oooh boy.
The family never set foot inside again. They just turned it over to a real estate agent to get rid of it. Movers packed up and took their stuff out. Someone bought it. They had to have known about the case.
So this issue has been discussed within the family: “Would you …”
Some people have different standards. After all, the creepy boy is spending the rest of his life in jail. No problem there. You can be like Garp and believe that the house has already had one disaster and what are the chances of second one happening? I’m not Garp.
I wouldn’t move into a house where a murder occurred… and I think it would depend on the facts surrounding the attempted murder, if I’d move into that house.
Related anecdote:
My dad lived in Germany for about 9 years in an appartment in which a man had hung himself in the garage, IIRC.
He moved back to the States for 2 years and then returned to Germany. This time he and his wife wanted to buy a house and one of the houses had a grisly tale. Apparently, the former owner had drowned his children in the bath tub which may or may not have been subsequently replaced.
An old friend of mine was getting divorced, and I let him stay in the guest room for a few weeks. One night, while my wife and I were at a meeting 35 miles away, his estranged wife came over. They got into an argument, which turned very bad when one of them picked up a chef’s knife. He ended up slashing her throat and stabbing her in the heart. He was cut, too, and he wandered, bleeding, up and down the hall before calling 911. A very ugly business, which is mostly behind us.
What happened at a house that I’m moving in to makes no difference to me at all.
Well, actually… if someone planted a bomb set to go off after I move in or kept plutonium in the basement, I probably would mind.
A man burned to death in the house in which I live right now. Coincidentally, a woman died in the daybed I keep on the sunporch and occasionally use for naps. Haven’t had any particular problems from either of the deceased.
I would have no problem renting the place unless it were an extremely notorious murder and you had to deal with idiot lookey-loos driving by and taking pictures at all hours.
I would think twice about buying the place though. When it is time to sell, you’d have to disclose the fact to all potential buyers. This would probably put off a significant percentage of them and make it harder to sell the place and therefore negatively affect the property values.
I don’t think I’d have a problem living in a house where a murder took place, but I’d likely not buy it, only because it might be more difficult to sell. It’s my understanding you must mention things like that to potential buyers, by law. At least my last real estate agent claimed so.
I have lived in a house where a horrible murder took place. Granted, it happened after I lived there, but I’m not at all perturbed by the idea of moving back (if I were going to move back to my hometown at all, which I do not ever plan to do). A house is a house, as far as I’m concerned.
Is this the house I’ve been waiting for my whole life? Do I love everything else about it? Am I getting it for a killer (no pun intended) price? If yes, then I probably would but only after having the house anointed and prayed over.
How bad was the murder is another thing I’d want to know. About 30 years ago there was a murder in Lexington, KY so gruesome that the cops were running out of the house throwing up. I don’t think I’d live in any house that had a Very Bad Murder happen in it, no matter what. A simple shooting, though, I could probably deal with. I can’t articulate why I feel this way but I think there are some houses that should just be knocked down after a murder takes place. OJ’s house would be a good example. Call it negative energy, call it demonic or whatever you want, but I think sometimes you’ll never get “IT” to leave if something particularly bad happened there.
If there were other things about the house that I didn’t like, finding out a murder had taken place would probably be a dealbreaker for me, though.
I’ve slept in a chair that somebody died in, though, and it didn’t bother me. And plus the first place me and the Mr. lived in had a kitchen that somebody had dropped dead in and we never had any “visitors” or anything.
Under California State Real Estate Law, it is required to disclose if someone died in a home that is on the market.
I used to work in real estate. Our office got the listing of a home in Whittier off the 605 freeway. Richard Ramirez had killed the former occupant and it went up for sale. The agent said that when she got there, she hadn’t been told of what happened. There were sheets laying everywhere, covering stuff up. She thought that there were doing remodelling.
I work for a local home inspection company. A few months back my boss did an inspection at a very beautiful home in Freehold, NJ. When he got to the master bedroom, he noticed one of the closets had been sheetrocked over. He asked the buyer if they knew why it was like that and the guy replied “yeah, the man that lived here shot his wife w/ a 20 gauge shotgun in that closet, then went outside and killed himself”. Turns out, the family that was selling the house was the dead womans mother and the dead couples 3 children. They were still living there years later!!! I almost fell over when I heard that. That’s creepy.
Oh, and the buyer thought it was one of the coolest things that this happened in the house he was buying - weirdo
