Male. Depends on: how recently it happened, what sort of murder. If it happened 50 years ago in a 200 year old house, I doubt I’d care. I likely wouldn’t know the details.
A more recent murder, as someone mentioned, might have the cops coming around to search for evidence, gawkers, etc. And if it was a bloody murder, how could you be sure that when you pull up the carpets to install new flooring, you don’t find a nice spatter stain?
Someone dying in a house doesn’t bother me at all. Where are people supposed to die, anyway?
A better question is would you buy a car in which someone died? Think about someone doing a carbon monoxide job in a garage in a low mileage late model car. That feels a little more creepy to me.
If the price was right, the scene was cleaned, and the murder wasn’t of the variety that would attract tourists (e.g. cannibalism, mass murder, and so on), sure.
Friends of mine turned down a house where two people had been murdered in a double “ritualistic slayings with swords” in the basement. The husband was okay with it, but the wife said she’d be creeped out every time she went to the basement. I concur. The house had been on the market, then taken off the market, then put back on at a reduced price - turns out the owner had neglected to disclose the history to the first buyer, who then backed out of the deal.
This actually came up once for Mr. Ko and I. We learned that a house we were considering was being sold by someone who’s family member was killed by another family member who then killed himself. It happened while they lived there, not in the home, but it still really bothered me. I could not help but imagine the sorrow of the owner all over that house. We passed.
I’m fine with it. 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. It can’t be taught. I know, for a fact, that I am not able to see ghosts.
On the other hand, my wife can, so she’d probably hate it.
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.
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.
There are people who specialize in cleaning up crime scenes. They know how to get rid of blood, gunshot holes, etc. The police will normally refer the homeowner to these people, they don’t need to run ads. The ads would be pretty tacky anyway.
The first time I went to Vegas in 1992, I stayed in one of the bad hotels downtown, next to the greyhound station. In the room I stayed in, somebody had been murdered a few days previous. One morning, while I was sleeping, detectives came and took pictures of the blood splatters on the wall. I didn’t even wake up, my roommate told me what happened after.
Maybe ten years ago, I was in the market for a house but had a very strict budget and square footage requirements. There just weren’t many 2000 square footers priced at $100k, although there were a few, so whenever one popped up, my realtor would call me up and we’d run over to visit as soon as it was available for walk-throughs.
The suicide house. Apparently, it was some sort of situation where the husband had killed himself after a bout of depression, and his widow was anxious to sell it quickly so that she could move back home with her parents and not have a foreclosure on her record. The suicide had happened maybe 2 weeks previous. The wife had already left, apparently under duress, never to return.
There were still dishes sitting in the sink. Two week old dirty dishes. But the worst was the suicide scene (the master bathroom) where they’d made an effort to clean up so the house could be shown, but it was obvious the flooring would need to be redone before anyone would ever want to live there. A bullet had gone through the bathroom mirror, and the bathroom tile grout was stained rusty brown. Yikes.
The house had a fabulous floor plan, was fairly well kept, came with a $5,000 redecorating fund (bloodstained bathroom tile replacement fund?), and was priced at $100k even. Similar houses in the same neighborhood were selling for $135k. I really liked the house, and thought maybe I could overlook the suicide thing since the price was so good. I went home to thought about it overnight. Next morning it had already sold to someone else.
So apparently, if the price is right, this sort of thing doesn’t really bother people as much as you’d think.
As with most everybody above, another vote for “If it isn’t going to attract gawkers, I wouldn’t care a whit.”
I htink in fact it might be a n especially desirable purchase in some cases. Consider the post just above; a house being sold because of a recent death.
It’s going to have a big discount which it probably won’t have (as much?) when it changes hands again 10 years later. What’s not to like about extra price appreciation over the time of my ownership?
