You got my vote nlhome :))))

Me too nlhome! Painting the wood....of all the nerve!
And the mil living there! Wanna borrow my Peeps! :0) hehe

Oh and get this - the first paint was MAUVE! Imagine.Even in the '50s, who would think that was a good idea?

We had a busted pipe in our garage, so we cut out the sheetrock to repair. The next day we were going to finish by putting in more insulation and when we went into the garage to get started there was a 5 foot snake crawling into the hole. We knew the snake was not poisonous and by the time we had decided how to get it out the snake had already made its way into the hole, leaving only about 2 feet of tail sticking out. Non-poisonous snakes do not really freak me out so I decided to try to pull it out. I thought I was strong - that snake was so-o strong. It was determined not to be pulled out. We finally had to leave it there and wait for it to go out on its own, which it did after a couple days. We quickly sealed up the hole.

Mold, a toilet-full, and animal leavings. I have experienced other things, but I found these things to be the most distasteful.

I was confused on kitchen makeover
Yours is the one with gray subway tile
Backsplash that gas a sheen And granite
Picture?
And picture of stainless faucet?
Then yes I like your choices and could use info
Is granite blanco antico or blanco Romano?
Faucet? Name and company?
Backsplash so different is it as dark as picture?
Is floor color very dark or gray?
Thanks

Not a single closet, not one, zip, nada in our beautiful large true adobe home. That is what I was thinking was the worst thing until I read the comments and laughed my butt off and realized how lucky we are to live on the side of a mountain with forest for neighbors, no mold, or other icky stuff. But do have plenty of rodents. So I fight rodents and look for ways to store clothing and sundry items. Think that having awful neighbors was my worst experience and glad I'm not dealing with that now. This is such an entertaining comment stream…thanks, everyone!

Has anyone seen the remake of "The Money Pit", with Tom Hanks and Shelly Long, made in late 80's, I think.

It's been on HBO lately, and I laugh so hard every time I see the scene with him stuck in the floor. He was upstairs and stepped on an area rug, with a hole underneath. The rug wound up around him, and he stopped with his arms trapped so just his hands were exposed like little flippers.

He hung there for hours, before Shelly long got home. He started calling to her, and said he had started hallucinating that the "Care Bears" were there, she just gave a quick look in the room where he was stuck, but he was behind a chair, and only his head was sticking out from the floor, so she left.

He couldn't yell very loud because his chest was constricted, and that rubbery face of his trying to call out was hilarious.

When she finally found him, she couldn't stop laughing, and got down to try and get him out, and he immediately '"whooshed" through the hole to the floor below.

Also, I'm an animal lover, but I draw the line at any creature sharing my space...............The thought of finding something in my bed, or run across me freaks me out, and I would just go to a hotel.

I played a very bad joke on my sister years ago when we were kids. She had a room in the basement, which was brand new, but I had found an old fur collar of one of my grandmother's coats, so I put in in between the sheets at the end of the bed. I was about nine or ten, and she was about 15.

I had done it earlier in the day, and forgot about it, so when the household was turning in, there came a blood-curdling scream from the basement. It looked like my sister actually became airborne running up the stairs. I didn't get a great look because I was running for the bathroom. My mom thought she was being murdered. Actually I was the one who barely escaped death, and had to lock myself in until everyone got tired.

My older brother was rolling on the floor laughing, and my mom was yelling at me to come out of the bathroom, and at him to stop laughing, but she couldn't help laughing by that time.

My punishment was making her bed for a week, but that just kept my sister on high alert, and she would throw all the covers off, thinking there would be something else that would jump out at her.

I was the youngest and a girl, just my one sister, and 4 older brothers. They started at 5 years older and up.

A catholic school was at the end of the block, and in the late late 50's there were 35 kids on our block.

One new family moved in with 11 kids. The only way their dad could keep track of them at first was to not let any of the kids go out of the yard. It was like a corall.

With that many minds at work, and exhausted mothers, there was always something going on.

I remember some of the kids had an idea to dig a fish pond in our neighbors back yard. (They had 8 kids)

We excavated about a 3' X 2 ' deep hole in the lawn, and filled it up with water. One of the little kids was in the hole, and some dirt from the wall came down on him, and we dragged him out by his feet.

It was summertime, and we lived below them. We were having dinner with the back door open, and when the dad came home, and went out on their back porch to wind down, which was quite high above the yard, and saw the big hole, he used some pretty choice words.

My mom was a little annoyed with his language, and wondered what was bothering him. I just kept eating my dinner.

Smdrovetto, LOL!

Decorideas, and Erasistible!

OMG! I have to leave a disclaimer, that I can't exactly say I LIKED your stories! In fact, I'm not sure one or both of them aren't going to result in PTSD!

Decorideas, can you at least give me a hint of where you live, so I will be able to start therapy early, in the event I ever travel there? A FIVE FOOT SNAKE?!!! A FIVE FOOT SNAKE?!!! If you had shot a video, of you guys trying to pull it out of the wall, it would have won a prize!

Help needed with new TV show as envisioned by Margo, The Real Housewives of Houzz.
Details at

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/would-you-watch-houzztv-dsvw-vd~769181

Oh Boy! You can be the Real House Husband, ChookChook! Are we going to be famous and get hair extensions and collagen lips?!!

Black Mold
Termite damage with or without termites
cockroaches
brown recluse spiders
Black widow or brown widow spiders
wiring that it's a wonder the place hasn't burned down yet, but there's scorch marks
plumbing that's blatantly leaking after a home inspection
What I term 'drunk and stoned' carpentry
dry rot
Permanent pet smells (dog, dog or cat doo or urine soaked into subfloor)
Any spider big enough to be 'furry'
black carpenter ants
fire ants
hornets or wasps
Africanized bees
sewer is solid tree roots bigger than your thumb
Not a single faucet is dripless
Furnace bought it and it's the first good freeze
Water heater has just tendered it's resignation 4" deep
A/C or swamp cooler bought it and it's 110 and climbing
Stove will not light with a match even
Bats behind the chimney run or pouring out of a crack from your attic space at dark
Something living under the porch and you suspect skunk, raccoon, or possum
Rats or mice in basement, crawlspace, walls, kick splash area under cupboards, under fridge or washer/dryer...
Ounce of pot in baggie in coils in back of fridge
18/2 fabric covered extension cord with female end clipped off and direct wired to the outlet in floor of living room and barely reaches to a plugin in the basement to provide power to that outlet.
Oh, yeah. rattlesnake living in the juniper by the front step.

Gosh, and we thought we had it bad in Australia with the drop bears! Sue the home inspector!

Sorry Chookchook2, just a list of things I've encountered while growing up, then buying or renting since then. I rated them pretty much in the order they bother me.

water damages on the wood floors where the previous owner watered ther plants without having saucers or anything under the plants, Oh and claw/bites marks where her 140 lbs dog try to eat the window seat and woodwork.

I think I'll have to steal the phrase "drunk, stoned__________fill in the blank.! :) Drunk Stoned Plumbing, Drunk Stoned Ear Piercing, Drunk Stoned Haircut,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Hubby says. " Drunk stoned tattooing."

Ok I know this is not the worst thing to have in your home, but IMHO it is the most impossible to get rid of and that is silverfish. We have had thousands in house over the last seven years. They pop up unexpectedly all the time in any room in our house. We recently had our bathroom renovated and they have stopped appearing there, but for how long? Pretty trivial in comparison to everyone else stories, but I have a phobia of insects so its a pretty major issue for me.

@unwantedadvice my ghost stories are too numerous for this format. Doors opening and closing on their own, the smell of an old perfume that we would "run into" unexpectedly through out the house, a pair of ladies slippers showing up in various closets with no one owning up to putting them there…what really got me was when I was in high school and my younger sister and myself were going to stay in the house alone while my parents were out of town. We had a major snow storm with snow all the way up to the front and back doors on the porch. While watching tv we heard a knock on the door and both looked at each other and discussed which door, front or back. We went to both and there was absolutely no sign of anyone, not even foot prints in the snow. We called an older sis who lived close. She sent her husband up to check things out - no evidence of anyone being around or near the house. We went home with him! I never stayed there at night alone.

The worst thing i can envision inside our house ? Never allow a house appraiser inside your house. Don't let him inside to see your remodeling. He'll just jack up your houses' worth and thus your property tax will rise accordingly. Uugh!!!

Okdokegal! AAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!...............You had me at "black mold"...................................

My ex

Hilarious, Pauline!!!!!!!!!!!

My mother! rofl But seriously, I think it would have to be mould. (or is that mold? - well you know what I mean.)

Bad wiring that can lead to fires

@ Interiors Unleashed, will trade you stories, but not here...

Neighbors in the Tea Party!

My ex-husband. Seriously! He heard water dripping in the living room a couple times and didn't think to investigate (there's no plumbing there, the new roof was leaking onto the hardwoods.) He claimed there were no mice, then claimed Orkin would fix it, six mice later I threw out all the birdseed the last owners left, plugged every hole into the kitchen with steel wool and we never saw another mouse again. Broke the slider twice while mowing the lawn? But the worst was the night the carbon monoxide alarm went off. He beat me to it and said he was trying to turn it off because it was malfunctioning. Thank god some part of me didn't trust his statement because I opened some windows and turned off the furnace. The next day I asked how he knew it was malfunctioning. He just assumed it was. Turned out the old water heater combined with a remodel that drywalled over the stud wall separating the utilities from a downstairs bath, caused the furnace to pull carbon monoxide from the hot water heater and distribute through the house. The gas company came out immediately when I told them the reading and refused to leave the water heater running, it was so bad. If I hadn't shut things down and aired it out we might have been brain damaged or dead! I can fix structural issues, can't fix people.

There are just too many things to list for me. Here are a few....termites, mold, decor that doesn't match the age and style of the house, and filth.

The original owner.

A partially melted plastic toy fetus...in the fireplace. I kid you not. http://www.robiouscorridor.com/exit-laughing-the-fetus-in-my-fireplace/

We had snakes in our old house...until we found the crack in the foundation...that was pretty awful.
mdixon, funny blogpost! scary thing! we had a dessicated tree frog in our new fireplace and otherhalf and I played "hide it where the other will freak out!" for about two months before I finally pitched it. (He first put it on my bookcase, I found it, freaked, and put it on his tablesaw, etc...)

Indian burial ground

Which means they will knock your house down

omg...yes thadcopeland. You are right. That would be the worst!

I do have a horror story though that is similar but no Indian Burial Ground. I was at the building department checking permits on a property on the market for my buyer to make sure the addition was built with a permit. The house was a bank owned property and banks do some funny things these days. Turns out that no, the huge 1000 sf addition was never permitted. So naturally we passed on the property.

However, while there the building department official confided that they had just posted two condemned notices on houses in the area that had just sold and closed about ten days before the notice was posted. The banks had sold condemned properties to the buyers and they were not tear downs. The kicker is this: The banks had notices from the City prior to the sale. The banks ignored the notices. Sold the properties anyway. Buyers thought they were buying primary residences. Talk about a mess. Same effect as your Indian Burial Grounds.

Finding out that your house sits on top of a previously unknown earthquake fault line. Can't be fixed.

Had one neighbor who tried to encroach on our little 7500 sq ft lot by building his 18" thick decorative stone wall with 10" of it on our property. We stopped him in time, and he acted like we were the ones being jerks. New neighbor on the other side of us promised to kill our cat if it went in his yard again and picked a fight with his cat. Said right to my face that he would kill it and make it look like he got hit by a car, or borrow his friend's pitbull, or just beat my cat so bad he'd never come over again. He described to me how he did that to a stray cat before. Kept my cat inside for a year until we found a new house that we love with wonderful neighbors.

With jerks like that for neighbors, Becky, I would have moved too. What is wrong with people?!?!?

We had a rattlesnake and a Gila monster under our home. I actually love the desert creatures, but we had them relocated by a snake wrangler. The worst thing to find in your house? A serial killer- much more difficult to relocate.

Brown recluse spider...in the cat food/water dish!

In one of my childhood homes we opened a locked cupboard and hundreds of packets of contraceptive pills where tucked in there. Ok it used to be a doctor's home. No biggie there. My friend's home was an over 100 year old home built on bluestone blocks with barely any crawl space. We pulled up some floorboards which had become rotted and loose and discovered ONE long leg bone! What the heck??? His family had lived there the whole entire life of the house. How the heck did ONE LONG LEG BONE get under there? More worrisome; where's the rest of the body?....gulp.......>eyes shifting left and right covertly

I'm reporting you. Ha ha. No, just kidding. When we cleaned out my mother in law's house to move her, she had a half of a human jaw bone in a pile of junk in her garage, and no idea where it came from. I think, maybe it was ancient Indian remains, or a cremated relative.

Well, rotted joists is probably my homeowner fear.

But if we're telling horror stories, how's lifting the lid in your half bath and finding a wet rat in the bowl?? Happened in the first year we lived in the house. Panic attack followed by collaboration with spouse involving BBQ tongs, a trash bag, and a merciful killing. Not too much later we replaced the toilet and trap, but I think I wasn't relaxed in that bathroom for a long time . . .

Wow.....!

A skeleton !

A sleazy ho with my husband. And bugs.

A sleazy ho with my husband with bugs...

ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SPUTTER! GASP, choke, choke, choke..... Snorted my iced coffee. You peeps are truly funny.