Although very nicely painted, the house didn’t fool them.
When confronted with these concerns, the agent replied that they could always fix problems later. Although their gut told them not to move forward with making a purchase, they agreed to a $10,000 price reduction and took the house. Big mistake! The problems that they had noticed went much deeper. The weak basement doorway turned out to be a side effect of unfortified walls leading downstairs. The bouncy bathroom floor had been wet under the linoleum and about three inches up two of the walls. The flickering light switches were warning symptoms of an outdated wiring system which had to be completely replaced. In the end, their $10,000 savings only helped to give them a bit of consolation when they paid a $27,000 bill for all of the remodeling!
STORY 4
This horror story was so bad it actually made the news at one point: a house that doubled as an actual, literal snake pit. A five-bedroom house set on pastoral acreage in the American countryside, priced at less than $180,000, it seemed like a steal. But it was no bargain. Ben and Amber soon realized the dream home they had purchased for their growing family — a family including multiple small children — was infested with hundreds of garter snakes. Throngs of reptiles crawled beneath the outer walls. At night, the young couple said they would lie awake and listen to the rustle of their scales as they crawled about, slithering inside the walls. It
102
Powered by FlippingBook