Readers Respond: Did your dream house turn into a nightmare?

Tell us your tale

Old house horror stories

My wife and I bought our "dream house" last year, an 1895 Queen Anne style. It was a beauty; everyone in the neighborhood knew it by name. The good feeling last for about a week after we signed the contract. That's when we found out that the soil pipe from the upstairs bathroom was cracked and had been depositing its contents inside the exterior wall. The plumber replaced the pipe for mere money but I was left with the job of cleaning all of the debris out of the inside of the wall. Then, the first time it rained, we discovered that the flashing around that old barn metal roof had the water shedding abilities of a colander. The next surprise was the heating, or lack thereof. For a combination of reasons including the total absense of insulation, 90 year old radiator pipes, inefficient furnace, and kludged design in the first place, we burnt 900 gallons trying to hold 55 degrees in the kitchen in a southern Maryland winter. Still, it's going to be a beautiful house when we're done.

—Guest Bill

And the list goes on.

So, here's the list. The builder didn't notify me when we hit rock during excavation, so the house sits too high and my yard is a sky slope. Walls were moved without my approval so they had to be rebuilt after I complained. A heat register had to be moved 3 times because nobody bothered to measure where the kitchen cabinets would go. None of the subcontractors ever "finished" their work. Everyone had to be called back when I pointed out that something was not done. The person fabricating the granite countertop didn't document the request for a granite backsplash and didn't purchase enough to finish the job. Despite an electrical plan, the electrician still got things wrong. I arrived on site one day to see them putting stone veneer on the wrong exterior wall. The construction supervisor was never around, and he never seemed to know what was going on. The final walkthru consisted of his standing in my kitchen listening to me complain about the builder, who was totally absent.

—10987B

The House of Horrors

My fiance and I wanted woodwork, two floors, and lots of charm. When you don't have a lot of money to spend, that means fixer upper. We thought we could handle it. Wrong! We've found out: -Hanging anything on plaster/stick walls is a major construction project. -We didn't have central air during the hottest summer on record, even though we both swore the Realtor said we did. -If a seller has ALL blinds closed during the open house, you should look behind them or risk being surprised by rotting windows. -Floors don't buckle over time, it happens in one giant cracking noise at 2am, followed by the popping up of ceramic tile. -A nice, peaceful neighborhood in the winter might be less so in the summer, especially if there is a bus stop at the corner of your yard. -Some owners will make quick fixes such as painting a basement floor to hide flooding issues. -Paint peels off a flooded basement floor very quickly. -Kitchen cabinets can fall if not hung properly. -We love each other, a lot!

—Guest Tiffini S.

Dreamhouse to Worse Nightmare

All of our lives my husband and I wanted to buy an old house and restore it. When he died,I needed a house, because he was a minister. I bought this beautiful house that WAS structurally sound. I had to take out a government loan & they said I had to have the piers under the house replaced. The front door stuck a little. The company I hired was supposedly good, but after one year I found out they weren't! I came home from work one day and the skirting on the west side of the porch had popped off. So I called them and they came out and just said it needed leveling again. Liars! So they leveled it, but then I noticed that my floors are splitting, porch roof is caving in, kitchen shakes when you walk. Refused fix it. Contacted a lawyer, too much to take to court, $15,000 in court costs. Being a widow and all savings was used on husbands medical bills, I have nothing to fix this.I have found a good guy but no money, so I am watching house sink into the ground and cry everyday.

—tatteredone3

Not always!

There is a lot to be said for doing something yourself. We have built our own first house (1700SF Chalet) and additions to two more (first a glassed-in porch and second a two story kitchen-master bath/bedroom) since then. We take our time, get it right and pay a lot less than others would by conventional contracting. This enables us to live very well for our moderate income level without over extending ourselves. Now that we are in our 50's and our girls are married, we take vacations (usually cruises) twice a year and still pay all the bills every month, plus extra principle on the home mortgage (that we never raided like a piggy bank). All this because we saved so much by building it ourselves! Here and there, we have made a few mistakes, but they were all correctable, as we knew the project intimately and were committed to getting it right. We have always found the city building inspectors to be highly supportive and often very complimentary on the fine quality of work.

—Terry1312