When many investors embark on a flip and begin a rehab, they don’t expect too much to go wrong. Of course, there may be the contractors who rip you off and make you pay double the cost for a simple tile replacement. Or you may encounter a house with some grime and dirt inside, in need of some severe cleaning up.
But what about the unusual? What about that time you walked in to find your pet enclosed in the dry wall during the rehab? What about the piles of bugs you had to trudge through to simply get in the house for the first time?
You might be shaking your head, convinced that we’re making this all up. Sorry to break it to you…but these horror stories are all TRUE!
We scoured the web to find 5 of the most unimaginable, extraordinary rehab stories that people actually experienced.
1. The cat is….where?!
Pets get lost. Dogs may wander off into the neighbor’s backyard or traipse the neighborhood. But have you heard of a pet getting lost…in its own house?
Angela Misri had enough to worry about with her kitchen getting massively renovated. But suddenly…she couldn’t find her cat, Darwin. Like most owners, she assumed her cat was just hiding under the bed or found a cozy spot in a corner of the house. But her contractor, telling her about how common it is for pets to end up stuck in the drywall and die, Angela began to panic.
In a frenzy, Angela searched everywhere for her precious Darwin. When her husband, Jason, accidentally dropped an object and it rolled into the space between the kitchen floorboards and basement ceiling. They stopped and stared…could Darwin have also rolled down there?
Sure enough before too much time passed, they found little Darwin hiding in that exact spot. Relief washed over them…The lesson? Keep track of your pets during all repairs!
Want to read more about this from the source, Bankrate? Click here.
2. Roaches galore!
We pretty much all expect to see bugs in houses that are under repair—you may see a roach or two in the bathroom, or maybe some flies buzzing over old food. However…
You never expect to walk into a house for a home inspection to piles and piles of dead bugs…
In one home, a house-flipper found not hundreds, but thousands, of cockroaches throughout the rooms. There was literally a pile of roaches about a foot deep in one part of the house! Some were alive, some were dead, but nonetheless there were LOTS of them… If that doesn’t give you the heebie-jeebies, you’re pretty tough!
Don’t believe us? Click here to read the rest of this true story!
3. Dirty toilets & stinky refrigerators
Sometimes a house is cut off from water or electricity for long periods of time, which can have some big and smelly consequences…. You might come across a home with a toilet that people continued to use even though there hasn’t been any running water for a while. Or a fridge that’s no longer running, but still has food remaining in it from the last inhabitants.
Danny Johnson, a full-time real estate investor, said he once encountered a house with a fridge like this, and someone made a BIG mistake by opening it… The smell of rotting food filled up the entire house and they had to wrap the fridge up in duct tape to prevent any more odors from escaping.
What did he learn from this? Take appliances out before starting a remodel, and open the fridge somewhere outside of the house to prevent any stinky situations! To see the full story, click here.
4. Graveyard for pets
When pouring new concrete footings to stabilize a floor, these investors came across a pretty disturbing surprise…
The previous homeowners had buried their pets there, and the corpses remained. Imagine going about your business and renovating a home, then finding someone’s dead pets! Not one, not two, but THREE! The previous owners buried them there so “they would always be at home,” but these investors weren’t too keen on keeping them around.
Fun fact: burying your own pets like this is actually illegal in many places. Check out this unbelievable story here.
5. Trapped Raccoon
Lauren’s parents had a problem: their roof was badly damaged from a storm and they needed it repaired. But of course, one little mistake from their contractor left these homeowners with an even bigger problem…
A crew came to fix the roof, and everything seemed fine…until they realized a raccoon was sealed into it! How’d they know? The raccoon died while trapped between the roof and the ceiling, leaving the house with an awful smell. Can you imagine how frustrated they must have been? Just when they thought their troubles were over and their house was fixed, this little critter ruined it all. To make matters worse, the contractor claimed this wasn’t his fault and that the removal wasn’t his job!
See Lauren’s story from the source here.
As you can see, there’s a dark side to home repair…
Whether it’s creepy, smelly, illegal, or just straight up gross, there can be some pretty frightening moments. Sometimes things are just too weird to believe. You just never know what you might come across!
What are some of your most horrifying repair stories?
