# Would You Buy a House in Which a Murder Had Occurred? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 11, 2010, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785 "2010-06-11T12:54:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![sinusoidal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@sinusoidal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinusoidal)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785/61 "2010-06-12T16:35:51Z")
A murder of passion? No problem. Complications of a drug deal gone wrong? Don’t care. But serial killer… No thank you. I would be too afraid of finding bodies in the lawn while landscaping. ---
**Author:** ![In\_Winnipeg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a8b319/32.png) [@In\_Winnipeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/In_Winnipeg)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785/62 "2010-06-14T02:17:50Z")
> [@gwendee](#): > > I would not buy Karla Homolka’s house if I could get it for a sandwich bag full of nickels. Actually, I think it was torn down by the City. Anyway, sure, I would buy such a house, especially if this caused it to go cheaper. I would have to be sure it was totally cleaned out, though. It’s amazing what kind of mess can occur if there is a shotgun involved, and where pieces of flesh can end up. ---
**Author:** ![Ruffian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71e660/32.png) [@Ruffian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruffian)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785/63 "2010-06-14T03:57:38Z")
I would be uncomfortable with a home where a _murder_ occurred. Death? Meh. Several years ago, a disgruntled older adult man drove all the way from Utah to SoCal to his brother’s condo, located in the same complex as our own at the time. When the brother’s 80+yro wife answered the door, he shot and killed her, adding another bullet to be certain. He then shot her husband, who came running when he heard her scream. Leaving them both to their ends, he then set fire to their car in the garage (supposedly to cover up his crime), then drove all the way back to Utah…where he turned himself in to local police. Weird, and tragic. I saw all the ambulances and fire engines, but assumed it was for a sick neighbor. How I missed the fire is beyond me–I didn’t even smell it until the car was removed from the garage and placed on a flatbed. Those melted tires had quite a potent smell. I didn’t know the couple. Our realtor was given the charge of selling their property once it was ready (the garage had to be rebuilt). We asked if the condo would be discounted; he said some people would be turned off, yes, but the interested buyers who could look past it…would look past it. There was no need to discount the price. (And yes, he was required to disclose what had happened there.) The condo sold well enough and has had residents ever since. I’m more curious about the Ortega house that happens to be in my neighborhood. [A monster dressed up as Santa on Christmas Eve, murdered 9 people, then torched the house before driving off and killing himself elsewhere.](http://cbs2.com/local/Christmas.Massacre.Christmas.2.894808.html) The home was completely destroyed by fire and bulldozed. We pass it frequently on neighborhood walks–it’s just fenced off and eerily quiet. The empty pool is still back there, the slide visible from the fence. Ick. It’s a sick scar. I’d like to see someone rebuild on that lot, just to have…something there other than a reminder of the horror. I’m sure there’s a lot that has to happen before any construction could begin, however. I don’t even like to walk on that section of sidewalk. ---
**Author:** ![Acantha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@Acantha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acantha)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785/64 "2010-06-14T08:37:34Z")
> [@winterhawk11](#): > > I’d be okay with it as long as it didn’t attract gawkers (or worse yet, teenagers who got off on trying to scare the occupants). I don’t think I’d buy something like the Amityville house just because I don’t like notoriety–I like my house to fade into the background. But a garden-variety murder house (fit-of-passion thing, Mafia slaying or whatever?) Sure, why not? Especially if I could get a discount. > > I’m not completely convinced that ghosts don’t exist (my mother is a genuine non-fraud psychic, and I’ve seen a few strange things around her while growing up), but I’m not terribly afraid of them. I used to be when I was a kid, but now I think it would be kind of cool to see a ghost. Too much Harry Potter, I guess. 🙂 I have to answer hell to the no. We lived in a house where my husband’s previous wife died. Very weird things happened that made me start to doubt my sanity until he started a conversation one day with ‘I don’t want you to think I’m nuts, but…’ and told me about some of the odd things he’d been experiencing. You guys might laugh at me, but I’m not entirely convinced ghosts don’t exist either. ---
**Author:** ![Audrey\_Levins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Audrey\_Levins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Audrey_Levins)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785/65 "2010-06-14T09:53:23Z")
I’m with a lot of other Dopers…I dunno that I could deal with (for instance) a Manson-style murder scene having taken place in my new home. Maybe. I dunno. I just rent for now. But like others have also said…if the house is of a certain age, chances are good somebody died there. If not more than one person. A friend of mine rented a house wherein 3 elderly ladies lived; 2 of them died there, of natural causes. My friend swears weird shit happened all the time, to the point that she refused to go upstairs past dark. She slept on the sofa downstairs, with abundant lamps on all night. My friend is quite “suggestive,” IMHO…like would she think stuff is going on in her house if she didn’t know people died there? Kind of thing. The house was over 100 years old; it’s only natural that people died there. Would I live in that house? Sure. It’s a cool vintage house with a lot of charm and character. Do I think she’s lying? No…not really. I think she really did get freaked out by something; I just don’t think I would get freaked out also. I’m not afraid of the dark. I’m not afraid of things going “bump in the night.” If a spirit wanted to haunt that house, it would have to find somebody more superstitious than me to believe in it. I live in, according to one study, the “eighth most haunted city in America.” Have I seen odd stuff? Sure. Do I buy it? I’d like to, but I don’t. I find the idea rather fascinating, but I’m a confirmed skeptic who has never seen any reason to believe. If the house were on sale for the right price, sure I’d buy it. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785/66 "2010-06-14T11:49:07Z")
It generally wouldn’t bother me unless the murder were a really horrific one that I wouldn’t want to be reminded of on a daily basis. One example would be the house of [Fred and Rose West.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_West) Even then, I might be persuadable if the price were low enough - although I suspect that some gore-hunters would keep the price high. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785/67 "2010-06-14T12:02:28Z")
Of course, as you can see from that wiki entry, buying their house wouldn’t be possible anyway, as the house was demolished and every piece of it taken away and destroyed, which seems to me like the right thing to do. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785/68 "2010-06-14T15:37:38Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > I have a friend who is a semi-professional, hereditary spirit talker, and she told me that seeing hosts is something you are born with. And being born without that gift makes attending dinner parties extremely awkward. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785/69 "2010-06-14T17:20:42Z")
If it’s not a notorious story that brings an infestation of tourists to gawk, so what? ---
**Author:** ![SevenOfTeemingMillions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/76d3ee/32.png) [@SevenOfTeemingMillions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SevenOfTeemingMillions)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785/70 "2010-06-14T17:34:40Z")
> [@winterhawk11](#): > > I’m not completely convinced that ghosts don’t exist When asked if I believe in ghosts I always answered: I believe ghosts don’t exist but my subconscious disagrees with me. lol > [@needscoffee](#): > > The husband was okay with it, but the wife said she’d be creeped out every time she went to the basement. I’m a scaredy-cat. Basements creep me out even if nobody died there. So, no, I wouldn’t live in a house with a grisly history. I wouldn’t even live in an old house even if nobody died in it because I know my traitorous subconscious will one night see a glimpse of a pale old woman in the mirror or hear whispers coming from the attic. I currently live in an apartment. ---
**Author:** ![myskepticsight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@myskepticsight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myskepticsight)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785/71 "2010-06-15T00:09:08Z")
Here is a recent one from the greater St. Louis area: [http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/laworder/story/C6B66A2B396F73588625771700816ADB?OpenDocument](http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/laworder/story/C6B66A2B396F73588625771700816ADB?OpenDocument) The bank ended up buying the house back, BTW. No one wanted it. The murderer did kill his whole family and spray paint a bunch of weird shit on the walls, which you can see is still there. ---
**Author:** ![Maiira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Maiira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maiira)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785/72 "2010-06-15T07:02:19Z")
I’ma jump on the “sure, as long as it wasn’t notorious” bandwagon. I don’t want to be known as “the lady who lives in Sharon Tate’s house,” thanks. That being said, if typical, run-of-the-mill murders were _common_ in that area, then I might have to think twice about it…but it’s the neighborhood I’d have a problem with, not the house. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785/73 "2010-06-15T08:44:33Z")
Upon reading through the thread, it struck me that most people nowadays are way more mobile than in the past, where you lived in the same town and got to know the notorious houses [Billy said that his brother said that his dad said that someone got MURDERED in the old Simmons house] so I would be willing to bet that more people actually live in ‘death houses’ than would actually believe they do. Really, people used to go home to die up into the 60s - so if your house predates that it is almost guaranteed that someone dropped dead in it. I think it is the whole funeral home industry to sort of blame for people being uneasy around dead bodies - people used to lay them out in the house, and sit around with them for a couple of days. People in my moms town seem to happily live in what was a funeral home up until 1980, and I haven’t heard of any spooky stories from the people living there. They seem to all be mostly non-natives ranging in age from the young 20s to the late 40s. maybe next time I am at the post office in town [across the street from the place] and I see someone that lives there, I should ask them if anything creepy has gone on there for them and drop a hint it was the town funeral home for 35 years =) ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785/74 "2010-06-15T09:07:16Z")
Yeah, but aruvqan, there is a huge difference between someone peacefully dying in their sleep and a whole family being bludgeoned to death. Just because someone would be bothered by the latter doesn’t mean they’d be bothered by the former - you know, like lots of people in this thread have already said. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785/75 "2010-06-15T14:52:02Z")
> [@winterhawk11](#): > > Hey, normally I’d agree with you if I hadn’t seen my mom in action for many years. I’m not exactly the “believe in psychics” type. I’d love to have a scientific explanation for what she does. To the extent she does something that actually sounds like it’s “correct” in the real world, it’s just cold-reading, or your mother mentioning things she forgot she’d heard elsewhere, or just saying things that are so vague as to be meaningless - “I sense a lot of sorrow in this house …” To the extent your mom says things that _don’t_ correspond at all to anything in the real world - oh, she says your aura is purple or some such - she’s other joking or deluded. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785/76 "2010-06-15T14:59:15Z")
> [@Acantha](#): > > I have to answer hell to the no. > > We lived in a house where my husband’s previous wife died. Very weird things happened that made me start to doubt my sanity until he started a conversation one day with ‘I don’t want you to think I’m nuts, but…’ and told me about some of the odd things he’d been experiencing. > > You guys might laugh at me, but I’m not entirely convinced ghosts don’t exist either. I’m not laughing, but there is no scientific (that is to say, repeatable and verifiable) evidence that ghosts exist, and thus no reason to believe that they do. And there’s every reason to believe that they do not - consider the extraordinary complexity of the human brain, all of which is required to house a human mind. The idea that there is some alternative mechanism, capable of performing cognition, that persists after death and is wholly undetectable, is such an extraordinary claim as to need really compelling evidence - which does not exist. As to why weird things happened to you and your husband - they didn’t. Not in any greater numbers than they happen to me, anyway, or the dude in the cubicle next to me, anyway. The wind knocks things over in my apartment, items get misplaced, my cat freaks out for no reason, and so on. Most people, most of the time, just shrug and figure (correctly) that that’s life. But if you harbor some belief that magical floating things exist, and you’re in circumstances when you _expect_ to see evidence of them - then by golly, you will. It’s just confirmation bias. Normal, everyday random stuff - shadows, misplaced items, etc - takes on a whole new significance as signs that The House Is HAUNTED!!!OMG!!! ---
**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785/77 "2010-06-15T16:20:43Z")
A death from natural causes wouldn’t bother me at all. Nor would a grisly accident, so long as it was properly cleaned up and/ or repaired. A ‘plain’ murder wouldn’t bother me either, assuming that I otherwise like the house and neighborhood. Your typical crime of passion with one person shooting another, or a break-in gone wrong, or whatever – wouldn’t even slow me down. A notorious murder would probably be a deal-breaker, though. Not because of ghosts or any such nonsense. But I wouldn’t want to deal with the gawkers such a case would attract. And I _really_ wouldn’t want to deal with the possibility that some wacko would develop a crush on the killer and decide to treat my house as a shrine to his ‘hero.’ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-buy-a-house-in-which-a-murder-had-occurred/542785.md?page=3)