Would you buy a house that was a murder scene?

Seriously

30% discount to what you would expect to pay for the same place "untainted". No chalk marks or blood splatters, apparently.

K

how gruesome?

i think i would differentiate between a wife shooting her beating husband (or vice versa) and the slaughter of an entire family by the mafia. just as an example.

but probably no, no matter what, i think.

I think it adds character.

But I am a morbidly sick f***

I would want the whole back story, and details.

If the price is right, the location is good, and the place doesn't need much work then why not..
Your could always charge the locals for a "Murder Tour" and make a bit of money..

I'll bet that quite a few folks living in old apartment buildings in town, particularly those a few hundred+ years old, have a place that was a murder scene and don't even know it.

If the house is solid, well built, no major structural faults, and has a layout I like, then why not? The discount is just a bonus which I can use to decorate a bit more lavishly. I don't see any problem, unless it was particularly gruesome and nobody wants to come visit me. Hmm... though that might even be an added bonus if you're looking for peace and quiet.

Gives a whole new meaning to skeletons in the closet. Adds nicely to a Hallowe'en party atmosphere, too. As long as it is something you can make jokes about. But the places with really horrific murders tend to get torn down anyway or turned into museums, so it can't be that bad, I'd assume.

Can we get the backstory to add to the discussion?

My neighbor killed himself. I got the flat. True story

(though he didn't kill himself in the flat)

While not exactly a murder scene, many people live in buildings previously used as Judenhäuser, the Jewish Houses like these in Leipzig.
Most inhabitants were deported from such houses to concentration camps.

30% off? Wow, there are that many superstitious idiots to make it that much of a discount?

I need to keep an eye on the murders around here, maybe I can find a good deal..

If all else meets the criteria, take it! spend the 30% on a jacuzzi or some such
I once lived in an apartment where the previous tenent had OD-ed on crack. No one told me till I moved in. I kept searching for hidden stash. Never found any, but I did sleep quite peacefully

A friend of mine and her family lived in the apartment where the Jewish athletes were attacked and held hostage in 1972, two of them were shot and died right there. You can still see where a bullet nicked the window ledge. Every now and then, strangers would ring the bell and ask if they could take a walk around the apartment. Cate always let them in and listened to what they had to say. One woman said, with tears in her eyes, "The best thing that has happened since then is that now children play here and fill the rooms with laughter". Cate was ok with the apartment's history, her husband Joe sometimes got the creeps.

Considering how many silent tragedies take place in normal-looking houses (see the kid in Winnenden) the only way to prevent living in a house with a past is to build your own.

My first single apartment in New York was in a nice brownstone off Central Park West.

The real estate agent who found it for me was a late-30-something good-looking woman who it turned out happened to live three flights above me in the same building. I only bumped into her once or twice over the next few years, but one time she was walking in dressed for an evening that, well, let's just say didn't look like she'd just returned home from a cotillion.

Months later, I was awakened at 4:00 in the morning by a huge thump. I lived on the parlour floor, meaning that there was a basement apartment with a step-up ground-level back terrace below me. I looked out and there she was with her head through a pointed wrought iron fence in the back like a watermelon. It turned out that she'd discovered that she'd contracted AIDS through all her late night adventures, and she'd decided to off herself.

This being the mid-1990s, her apartment rented in about five minutes after the police tape went down.

I think about that all. the. time.

I live in a neubau so probably relatively few people have been slaughtered here, but it's a complex full of oldsters so it's not impossible that someone's died here.

Am I the only one who looks at empty lots in Berlin (or wherever you happen to be) and instantly visualizes a bomb crater? When you consider that the population of Berlin was greater at the turn of the century than it is now, you have to wonder what all those gaping holes in the concrete mass are for...

So not to lower the market price of your property it is best to kill your spouse at another location then.
"Accident" on holiday is best especially on a cruise ship maybe.
From what I understand the house in Grünwald of that showbiz faggot with the small dog, that got strangled by
a rental faggot that he hired, sold for a really good price.

I live in a house where an elderly couple lived and raised their family. They died here and the family rented it out, but barely cleaned up their belongings. They wanted us to use their left objects for ourselves to include books and left bathroom supplies. All had been neatly placed on shelving in the basement. I think there was too much memory for the family to deal with and they needed us to rent the place from them to see it is a house, a building, in addition to their memories.

Depends on how sensational the murder was. Not sure I'd want creepy people cruising by the place, checking out where famous murderer X killed victims 4-18. For your "average" 1-person murder, I don't think I'd be happy knowing it had happened, but 30% discount might go a fair ways to making me okay with it.

I was just thinking along similar lines. Pretty much any pre-1930's built place in Germany is quite likely to have seen its share of tragedy.

As for the house in the OP question, it wouldn't even slow me down if the place met my needs (location, size, location, value, location).

We're viewing the H o u s e o f D o o m tomorrow evening...will provide a full update after that...



K

Are you sure the killer is no longer on the premises?

The exact reasons we rented our house. Price, location and size all fit our needs. We were not too concerned with the buildings past. It is Germany after all.

Something similar to The Amityville Horror, where Ronald DeFeo, Jr. killed his entire family?

I rented a house where a kid had shot his Mother and Father. Nobody else would live there so it was cheap. A sash window came crashing down one night. Scared the crap out of me.
I came across a doubledecker busload of Hare Krishna dudes who were passing through, paid them $20 to exorsise the place, a bit of chanting,insense and all, it felt OK after that. So go see your local Krishna group. No kidding.

I am sure if the JW team passes by your door they would come in and do the same for you.

Munich had the shit bombed out of it - literally thousands of people died violent deaths around the town - far worse in Berlin or Dresden or Hamburg (or London) and often you wouldn't know. That said, a friend of mine lives on Wapping High St and you can see the repair done to his spare room wall where a Jerry bomb blew part of the wall out.

@ Kuzzer. It is a statistical fact that 99.99% of women believe in ghosts, premonitions, guardian angels, "funny feelings", tarot cards and horoscopes.

I therefore hope that the "we" you refer to is your gay boyfriend, otherwise I can guarantee that a few months from now you will be trying to resell the "haunted house".

Trust me - it ain't worth the risk. Even my wife who is tight as a gnat's chuff wouldn't swing for that to save money.

(actually we did once view a house here to buy, where the hubby had topped himself in the cellar, but wife only told me AFTER the viewing).

He's already run a mile; poof. The wife, however, is well 'ard.

K

Dude, the first time she "suddenly feels a bit chilly" you will be the proud owner of a large pile of unsellable bricks.

JE is correct - my aunt looked around a house, was told it was haunted, and refused to buy even though she loved the house. And she's no fool - been a doctor for years and seen it all, including her fair share of stiffs. But wouldn't buy a 'haunted' house. Silly cow.

What a wimp of a wife. A house is just a bunch of bricks anyway. No hocus pocus which is useless in life. Give me a break this is Germany if people believed this then there would be no where to live.

In China, a house is immediately devalued just by someone living in it. So be grateful you live here.

I consider myself logical and try not to be superstitious but I guess it just depends on where you draw your own line?

I reckon if you lived in a house where you knew the full details of some hideous crimes it would be very tricky to walk into the bathroom without thinking "so...this is where he chopped up the bodies" etc.

I live close to a house in which a student killed his girlfriend last year. I always feel sad and heavy in my stomach when walking past the house. The student got put in a mental clinic afterwards. I always find myself thinking about the events which must have led up to the killing and how sad it is that two young lives got destroyed. For this reason I would not feel comfortable living in such a house, I would always think back to the tragedy.

Nice to know we're on "Dude" terms now - I feel so accepted

K

Of course. Just be aware that if you invite me round for a beer to watch the footie - I'm not coming to the dungeon of doom.

Boo Hoo.

I wouldn't. However we once looked at a house where an old lady had died. We didn't know about this until the person who was showing us the house told us about the burnmark on the wooden kitchen floor.

It was an old forester's house and the old lady was allowed to stay there after her husband, the forester, had died. She got up one morning to put on the kettle on her gas stove and the sleeve of her nightgown caught fire. She fainted and fell on the floor and died. When we were told about this -standing right next to the burnmark on the wooden floor - I could see the old lady with the kettle in her hand and she was smiling at me. It may have only been my imagination, but I did feel that she was happy in that house all of her life and even though her way of dying may sound horrible, she had the chance to die at home in her lovely house and not in a hospital or nursing home.

I wouldn't have hesitated to buy the house, but we were out-bid by an investor who was going to tear down the house to build a block of apartments. A few months later however, he withdrew his bid and some lovely people from spain ended up buying the house. It is now beautifully renovated and painted in lovely bright colours and everytime I drive past it I am happy it is still there.

I'd buy the house in a heartbeat, especially if it was a really good deal. I'm not superstitious in any way, shape or form, and I'd be happy to benefit from everyone else's paranoia.

And Marie-Claire's comment.

See JE there are intelligent WOMEN in the world. 99.999999% intelligent.

I also doubt your wife would skip a bargain and it is you who is obviously spooked by nonsense.

I'd be a lot more surprised to find an intelligent woman than I would to discover that I lived in a murder scene.

I can't believe anyone (well, a majority) would even give a shit about this. It wouldn't bother me one bit.

This was an issue on: The Simpsons murder house

It would work better if you knew NONE of the murder details, but I still reckon it would be creepy if you kept thinking....this was exactly where he chopped her head off with the rusty axe etc.

He, her, chop, rusty axe. Wishful thinking JE?

Admittedly a pyschologist might raise an eyebrow having read my last post.

It is the justice system I would be worrying about. Wasn't it mentioned somewhere here that the authorities read this shit?

On the plus side, I could hold Murder Mystery Evenings.

K

Name it the "Murder house" or Killer cottage or something and get a name plate made up.
Blood bath View. Dun Slashin'. Killingsworth. CSI Friday. Ligatures Lodge. Mortuary Mews. Shallows Grave. The Cutting. The Slab. Bloodyside
Torso Towers. Dismembery Lane. Cherry Tree Noose. Headless Hamlets. Coronary Street. Pathology Place. Cold Case Place.

One day you will come across some innocent stain or smell or piece of evidence. And you will start wondering...

Ditto. Buy it!

Anyone who is fascinated by haunted houses and/or ghosts should read this very interesting thread from 2004.

There are a lot of haunted houses all over Germany, particular old ones with not so tightly fitting window frames. As boys we played now and then ghost on old ladies houses by attaching a long string to the window frame and playing it like a fiddle on certain anniversary dates. It worked like a charm to get the ghost stories going. Ill fitting wood connections and mice+rats helped too to make weird sounds.

What a coincidence that I'm reading this thread tonight, because I just found out this afternoon that my old family home might be haunted!

The rowhouse, built by my great grandfather in 1906, was owned by my family for over 100 years, and lived in by us for 86 years. When my mother died in 1992, I began renting it out. After years of constant repairs & non-paying tentants, I sold it to a man who spent 2-1/2 times the sale price restoring it to its original grandeur. The whole block is now a very trendy place with several cafes. The new owner has an antiques/consignment shop (See: http://www.curiousc.com/). He said that several customers reported sensing a ghost under the former steps to the basement. One even said she sensed that something bad had happened there. I personally never felt anything at that particular spot, but always had a fear (as a child) and sense of unease (as an adult) with the closet located on the third floor, which is in a direct vertical line to that spot. I always assumed it was because the closet didn't have a light, and was therefore very dark. My great grandfather died a natural death of old age in a bedroom on the second floor, but I'd slept in that room often & never sensed anything there. I always felt boundless love in that house. Anyway, some paranormal experts are coming on June 19 to check it. I would love to be there when they do, but unfortunately will be back in MUC by then. Because I can't recall anyone ever mentioning anything terrible having happened in the house, I'm really curious now!