We had our first showing on our house yesterday afternoon. I was at the grocery store with my boys when the real estate appointment desk called, telling me that a realtor was on my doorstep who wanted to show my house on the spot.
Fortunately, I had anticipated such events and had cleaned my house top to bottom before heading to the store.
I waited all day for feedback of the showing from my realtor. Finally Candy called.
"The prospective buyers really liked everything about the house," she said. I beamed and did a fist pump in the air.
"Except for the feces in the upstairs toilet," she continued. My face turned every shade of purple.
I hung up the phone and hunted down my sons, who were in the process of stripping a bush in my front yard of all of its leaves.
"Who didn't flush the toilet this morning?" I asked, trying to stifle my rage. Always loyal, the twins pointed at each other and ran in opposite directions.
*********
Any horror stories from trying to sell your house? I am mortified.
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I'm a realtor and that comment was uncalled for. We see things all the time like that and you don't comment, especially when the house is clean! IGNORE her, what a witch. My favorite comment when I sold my house, "it was dirty"...WTH, dirty?? It was freshly painted from basement to roof, steam cleaned from top to bottom, new carpet, my children weren't allowed to eat anywhere, fresh flowers, it smelled of cleaning products and sparkled. I made my realtor ask what exactly was dirty. "It just felt dirty to my buyer because of the age"...ummm, what? Why are you looking at houses built in 1910 if you think old houses are dirty! My advice...IGNORE the comment.
We walked into a couple house when looking that had the same gift in the toilet. Luckily for us when we sold our house all three kids where in diapers. If we sold today we probably would have the same situation with my two boys.
Well it could have been worse...at least the poopers were where they belonged!
wow. that is why i am always checking the toilets before we leave for a showing. i don't trust my husband or son. my little experience in now way compares to yours. i just had to deal with a messy bed. i left for Atl to look for homes and my hubby was supposed to prep the house. i left instructions and illustrations. came home to find he didn't make the bed properly. looked like he had slept in it and just threw the pillows in the correct postions. i was horrified. i really want to sell our home. it's been on the market over 3 wks and we have had 9 showings and one open house and NOTHING! and the good thing is that everybody has loved the house...so where are all the offers? good luck with your home sale and take care.
That's funny. I'm sure the buyers probably thought it was funny after the fact too. At least the rest of your house was clean.
When we were looking at houses several years back, our realtor had called some home owners and let them know we'd be stopping by (our realtor had given plenty of warning, like hours not minutes). When we got there the family was eating dinner on tv trays in their living room and just stared at us as we looked around their filthy, disgusting house. I mean dirty laundry on bedroom floors, dirty dishes on the floor in the teen boy's bedroom, no beds made in any of the rooms. I wondered if they really wanted to sell their house at all?
Well good luck and here's to no more surprises in the potty for future showings! :)
another poo story...
we were selling our home and my kid had pooped in the tub so i took him out and placed him on the bed wile i dealt with the tub and he pooped on the bed! right then someone called from the street asking to see the house! i told them to give me 15 minutes and i threw a baby just in a diaper and the pooped on comforter in the car and left.
What exactly were they doing looking in the toilets anyways? :)
JUST yesterday while my hubby was home for lunch, we had a man knock on our door and want to come in and look at the house (we're doing FSBO). Needless to say it was a wreck since we weren't expecting him and we just arrived home from the beach! However, he didn't seem bothered by it and (sadly, maybe) he has been our most promising lead. :)
When we bought our first house many years ago, I fell in love with everything! It was old, outdated but it felt like home the minute I walked into it. My only drawback was the pair of tighty whities laying on the floor of the master bedroom floor with skidmarks in them. Yeh, lovely.
I agree that 1. the comment was uncalled for and 2. Why were they looking IN the toilet.
We just signed on our house so I know exactly what you are going through.
We had people come look at the house then complain in was too small. HELLO? The square footage was printed on the listing. Why did you bother making me get five kids out and the house picked up??
What's wrong with a little poop?:-) We looked at a house yesterday and I was horrified by the nasty, sweaty skidmarked underwear all over the floor in the living room and the dirty litter boxes in all 5 bedrooms. I have 6 cats and 4 kids, so I understand litter boxes and underpants, but for heaven's sake, clean them when you know someone is coming. But poop in the toilet? Who cares? As long as it's not smeared on the wall, I'm cool.
When we bought this house, it was in foreclosure so the water had been shut off. Apparently a "squatter" used the downstairs bathroom and the whole house was pretty dirty, so it did not give a good impression... but as I said we bought it in the end. It did give us leverage in demanding a cleaning crew come through in the contract.
I guess the horror stories in selling our last house include the first realtor on the first day saying they couldn't get in the door because I had deadbolted it (not true) so she ripped my realtor a new one over the phone about professionalism and dragging her clients out to the small town for no reason, and then badmouthed us and the house in the surrounding 3 towns- having never seen it. Not a great way to start.
The middle was several very large headaches of changing realtors (our original was actually good but had to admit that selling in a small town demands a realtor who knows the area better) and pissing off the one who thought she owned the town, and the end went out with a bang. We left the house vacant so we could be with my already transferred husband, and a capacitor in the a/c unit broke. The house got very warm and the basement dehumidifier didn't switch off and leaked all over the basement carpet and it got moldy. So I had to arrange new carpet (and dehumidifier) in KS from RI to the tune of $2400. Fortunately by the end we had a great realtor who totally earned her commission!
awesome. i'm sorry your embarrassing moment caused me to giggle a much-needed giggle this morning.
I was a complete nut case when we had our house on the market. Thankfully all three of mine were all in diapers so no feces in the toilet for me. Our realtor mentioned that house hunters don't like "smells" so I quit using the diaper pail (all diapers were chucked out back and then gathered into the garbage at the end of the day), I would back out of the kitchen on my hands and knees with a swiffer wet cloth cleaning the floor before a showing. I did go to a showing once myself and there was dog urine on the basement floor which I scolded the realtor for. She whispered, "give him an offer he needs out of this place" I pray for you . . . it was a rough 16 days for me, thankfully.
Oh yes....we had our house up for sale 2 years a go. We had a vacation planned and were going to be gone for 12 days. I cleaned and cleaned before leaving. Every thing was perfect! We have a cat and had arranged for our neighbor to take care of the litter box and food situation. Plus my sister was supposed to come and check on things too. On day 11 of our trip, our Realtor called and said she was showing the house. We were so excited! I didn't hear back. We got home from our trip and there was a note on the counter. "The people really like the house. Except when they looked at the basement and saw cat feces in one of the rooms. It made them wonder where else the cat has "gone" ".
Dumb neighbor did not empty the cat box AT ALL. The cat had pooed in all four corners of one basement bedroom. yuck!
I came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel after showering. I let out a small yelp (but held onto the towel) as I faced the people standing in my living room! The agent had called when I was in the showerand when I didn't answer, they assumed I was gone and let themselves in. They didn't buy our house. I think they knew they would have had flashbacks and it just ruined it for them! After that, I took my clothes into the bathroom with me.
Oh, and that same week, an agent locked us out of our house on a 100 degree day. My husband was teaching and we had to just hang around until he could come and rescue us.
Fun times...
Why didn't she just FLUSH THE TOILET?!
You're realtor- that is.
That made me gasp and then laugh. Which is exactly why I read your blog...you always make me laugh!! I have also enjoyed reading the comments. I agree with why they were looking in the toilet, perhaps they aren't used to them...are they from a third world country maybe? Thought it was a dog bowl on a pedestal? Who knows, good luck on the next showing!
Hey, I just thought, these people may end up buying the house...their viewing was definitely memorable!
My boss's kids glued their windows shut with chewing gum and hid napkins of poop in their rooms.
It's been 3 years and they still haven't sold their house. I wonder what my boss hasn't found yet.
uuuugggh. Your realtor sounds like she has a good sense of humor though:)
We were building a new home and trying to sell our current one. Our deadline was near, so we didn't turn down any showings. The showing service called and said a Realtor was waiting outside with his clients. I had just come out of the toilet room. While rushing to get me and my 4 kids out of the door, I fumigated my bathroom with Lysol. The Realtor later commented that our House "had a foul odor of some sort." Guess the Lysol didn't work. :(
We were out of town and our realtor showed the house. Our cat pooped in the middle of EVERY SINGLE ROOM. Hmmm, nice selling point, no?
I once had a potential buyer complain that my house had stairs. They apparently had a special needs kid and my heart goes out to them, but it said a colonial on the listing and well those types of homes have STAIRS!
From what I've heard here, it sounds like your realtor was out of line.
I've never sold a house, but I have a couple of stories from our house buying experience.
This one house was lsted as "come anytime, lockbox on door," or something to that effect. Well, my realtor still tried to be classy and at least try and let someone know we were coming. She couldn't get ahold of anyone and when we got to the house there were a bunch of cars out front. She tried calling the homeowner and nobody answered. We knocked on the door and rang the doorbell, nobody answered. Ok then, guess nobody's home. Get the key out of the lockbox, open the front door to....a houseful of people! What the...?! They insisted we look at the place, while they just went about their business. I think that was the second fastest home tour we ever did. The first fastest was the house where the mom of the house sat on the couch with her two young children the whole time we were there. Which was about 5 minutes, because it was a tiny house and because that momma was just creepy.
Very funny! I am forwarding this to my friend who just put her house on the market. She may not laugh though as that is her biggest nightmare.
This is my first comment here, but I have a story that tops all others!! My husband and I were looking for houses and had already looked at 10 or so with the realtor we were with. He knew what we were looking for and was very good with us. My twin boys were about 6 months old and we would take them inside the houses in their carseats and leave them in the living room while we wondered around (never out of hearing). One house we went to was completely empty. No furniture nothing. We walked around and we were liking what we saw. Then we decided to go down to the basement. My husband was first, then me, and then the realtor. After a few steps down my husband turned around quickly and whispered loudly, "go back, go back!!!" wondering what would make him send us back up I looked down. There was a naked man laying on a couch!! I still have horrible images of this naked man on a couch. Never did find out why he was there, nor did I want to. Now I am scared of going into basements...
I am a Realtor also and that was just odd. Seriously, flush and move on, everyone poops! Now let me tell you some of the most embarassing things I have seen. Clients with a 16 year old son, we all walk into a walk in closet together only to find it is Mom and Dads toy closet..ya know the battery operated ones! On display like it is a store or something. Another home, diff client..a closet full of Porn. Another home in a very up scale community, the wife's nude portrat almost life size hanging in the master bedroom....so yeah, I will take poop anyday!
We are trying to sell our house too...got a showing tomorrow! We've had it on the market for a long time (FSBO). We left for church one morning and I forgot to check the boys bathroom-ofcourse one of my little ones had left a pull-up FULL of urine sitting on the floor of the bathroom soon as you walk in the door...it smelled awful! Never heard back from them...wonder why?
I was showing our house to a guy once, and while we were in my bedroom, my 3 year-old daughter walked in, dropped her pants, and jumped up on the toilet in our bathroom. It was number 2. I quickly shut the door on her but he just laughed and told me he had little girls too. She never used our bathroom because she has her own with a stool and those flushable wipes and everything, so I have no idea why she decided to use ours on that particular day. It was really funny.
Scary story: we had left a house we were selling empty while my husband was deployed. One day, the cops called our realtor and told her that the neighbors had seen someone break into our house. When she got there, it turned out that this guy had been living there for a week and using it as a place to stash stolen goods. He'd made a mess, but hadn't done any permanent damage. It was scary because the realtor would go early when she had a showing to make sure everything was okay and she totally could have walked in while this guy was there. Thank goodness it sold shortly afterwards.
I'm more interested in finding out from fellow readers WHY our boys won't flush their turds? Mine won't either. What gives?!
the night before our first showing {we had a bit of time to prepare...} our youngest colored on the only wall that wasn't painted with a washable paint.... then he blamed it on the dog.
Our search for our first home took us to some pretty small and very old properties. Our we would schedule outings with our realtor to see a few homes at a time, usually a day or two in advance, giving homeowners plenty of notice. We were growing accustomed to half tall basements that you had to stoop over to be in, limited space, etc.
One home blew our socks off. It was one of the smallest homes we considered, and upon entering the family was there, it was not at all tidy, and we couldn't see the bathroom because the wife was having a shower. Her husband assured us it was a tiny bathroom anyway and not worth our time. We were in and out of that place in under three minutes.
My goodness. They could have just flushed the toilet. It is not like it is going to stay there.
Aside from the fact that I have 20-month old twins and we have now shown our house 39, yes THIRTY NINE, times...no other horror stories. That's horrible enough.
Really people, what's wrong with clean wall to wall carpet and linoleum in the bathrooms? I love my linoleum. Don't even get me going about granite countertops. We own the only downscale house in an upscale neighborhood. 4 showings in 9 weeks. Uh, oh. Can you say "rental"?
well with no advanced warning of the showing they are lucky that is ALL they got!
Gee how hard would it have been for the agent to flush the toilet?
We were at an open inspection day once for a house we were considering purchasing. There were about 10 families there looking at the same time. The tenants had left their personal 'toys' on display in the master bedroom. We all nearly fell down the stairs laughing.
And no we didn't buy it but not because of that!
Too funny!
Yes, but what would Snowball have said?
We called our realtor on a Tuesday night to list our house. She said she would do the paper work and then call us when she was ready to put it on the MLS. I didn't clean anything on Tues night after she left and I mean my underwaear on the floor or the babies high chair with food dried to it... when I got home from work on Wed I found a pile of realtor cards on the table. I was mortified, but it got even worse when someone in my ward said they looked at it and didn't know that we were moving... I wanted to crawl under a rock. I wish it had only been poop. Anyway we got a great offer and they ended up buying it. Maybe poop is lucky.
PS I had a really good reason for not cleaning up. I just can't remember it right now. We're normally only mildly slobby.
When we were just newlyweds, without any kids of our own, we were "charity babysitting" for friends for a whole weekend. They had 6 kids, which was shock enough for a newleywed couple, but the kicker was, we had to keep their huge house presentable because they had showings scheduled while they were away. On the way out the door, they mentioned that the upstairs toilet was off limits, because the toilet was broken. So for 3 days I followed 6 wild kids around cleaning up every little mess...worrying that if the house didn't sell it would somehow be my fault. We did okay until I went in the upstairs bathroom to wash my hands and found a #2 not in the toilet, but in the SINK!!! One of the kids had forgotten & used the toilet, then panicked and tried to "clean it up". I cried the whole time I had to clean it up. Now I've got 4 kids, but to a newlywed, that experience was really good birth control for awhile!
If I went in a house knowing the owner had no idea I was coming and the only thing I found was poop IN the toilet I would be floored - in a good way!
We've seen some nasty places...
our apartment has been shown after my daughter's favorite snack: raisins. she's 2 and she can't sit still so I must have missed a couple before they came by and the broker pulled me aside and asked me if we had rats.
I've never been on the selling side of the fence, but something like that would not bother me, especially if I saw there were kids living there.
My husband and I were walking through a new construction home while the workers were still working on it. One man turned to the other and said something to him in Spanish. I understand enough Spanish to know he said that I had "giant breasts that he would like to rub his face in." It might have been our dream home, but I was so mortified I couldn't concentrate on the rest of the house and raced through it. It can be embarrassing on both ends.
Our realtor told us that one time, she was showing a house and opened the door to the master bedroom to find someone in the bed. She shut the door and knocked and said, "Realtor's here!" She didn't get an answer. She knocked louder and shouted, "Realtor's here!" She opened up the door and got closer and realized it was a blow-up doll.
oh my goodness! I would be mortified too! But, as the saying goes, "s**t happens" and I honestly don't think such a thing would make or break someone's impression of the house. Surely these people realized that you have more than one child and you cannot catch everything all the time.
My mom is in the process of selling her house and moving. Though she's sold her house and put an offer in on another home, everything has been a complete nightmare! We feel your pain!
That was hilarous! My 8 year old doesn't flush the toilet either. But my "House Showing" Story: I was in the middle of making Raspberry Jam. I ran out of sugar, so I dropped everything and went to the store. I was gone for no more than 30 minutes. During that 30 minutes, a realtor stopped by to show my house. The house was clean except the kitchen. It looked like a CSI crime scene with the Raspberry Jam on the countertops and on the floor. And guess what....the buyer put in an offer within 1 hour of seeing my house. It could have been worse. Good Luck!
How bout this one??
http://photosandcoffee.blogspot.com/2009/04/learn-from-my-mistake.html
I agree with the first commenter...that was rude to call out in the first place.
(been lurking for about a month now)
Love your wit!
Thanks for the smiles...
Emily
Well, we didn't have any bathroom issues. But, we did have an interesting request from our realtor. Our old house had a furnace in the long hallway. When the furnace would kick on, heat would blast out from the bottom. Ernie, our cat, would mosey over and lay against the wall and bake himself. Ernie was quite large for a cat, not in the fat sense, but very tall and muscular. He was 19 pounds. His claws were rather large and thick. Did I mention he loved the furnace?
Well apparantly some people were looking at the house and standing near the furnace when it kicked on. Ernie came out from wherever and lied down. Then he outstretched a paw, claws in full extension, snagging the mans pant leg and growled.
The realtor asked us to take the cat out of the house for showings.
Oh, no!
We will be listing our house soon, but I hope I don't have any of these sorts of stories to share!
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