The gate into the backyard is too narrow for a wheelbarrow.
posted by Mark | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:34 am


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:56 am

There's a tree growing out of the kitchen floor that goes through the bedroom upstairs and sticks out the roof. It was there when we bought the place. Wanted to do something with it. Never managed to save up enough. Now it's rotting and when it rains everything gets wet, and stupid squirrels have sex all over the kitchen floor.
posted by kevin | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:57 am

Cracked stucco>leaky exterior walls>future water damage inside
posted by Chad | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:58 am

windstorm and flood insurance absurdly high
posted by Chad | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:01 am

I have a three bedroom apartment. normal heating in my area should be about $200 each month in the winter. I however paid close to $500/m. Since i moved in August i never would have known that. Nor did i think to ask how much typical heating is. grrrr
posted by Lior | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:13 am

built-in closet door is cracked
posted by Matt | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:14 am

Change the screen in the aerator -- it is possible that sedeiment has built up behind it and is causing flow restrictions...
posted by Frank | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:16 am

My kitchen sink has been leaking underneath since I moved in, and I have had the repair guy out six times to fix it. It still leaks.
posted by Mike | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:30 am

Bathroom sink is much too shallow. Even minimal water pressure causes tremendous splashback.
posted by Lex | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:40 am

Steep stairs!
posted by Matteo | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:45 am

1. Masonite siding. It doesn't last long and is expensive to replace. My next house will have vinyl siding, or brick if I can afford it. 2. The furnace is in the attic instead of in the crawlspace basement. This is awful in the winter. The first floor (kitchen, living room, dining room) is where we spend most of our awake hours. In order to keep it a comfortable temperature down here, we have to crank the furnace way up, which makes the second floor warmer than we'd like and costs money on our energy bills. 3. Chimney with no cap. This was only a problem when a squirrel came down into our living room. We spent $150 to have someone chase the squirrel away and $275 to have a cage put over the top of the chimney.
posted by Dan Bock | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:58 am


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:04 am

The plumbing in our house is abysmal- pretty much every water-related item in our house has broken at some point (sometimes several times). My shower stopped dispensing hot water for months, the cold water tank ruptured and ruined the carpet on the stairs, my parents' shower leaked through the floor for a long time and about three attempts were needed to fix it, the other shower broke twice, we have about three dripping taps, and a few taps have broken/completely come off and had to be replaced. The pipe in the utility room burst once. Two boiler pumps have been replaced. My dad sawed through a water pipe about a month ago. Phew! The decor was horrible, too- we've redecorated basically every room. Mine was the worst- it had a kind of roman theme, with marbled woodwork and ceilings, cream woodchip wallpaper and a sandy-coloured shag carpet. I wish I had pictures :)
posted by Tom | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:11 am

the faucet
posted by rob | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:17 am


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:20 am

The only building in the neighborhood without radiators...my winter electric bills are insane.
posted by Travis | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:41 am

A crack in the concrete foundation, under the carpet, allows ants free entry.
posted by T | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:44 am

It has a Celebrity CAPTCHA feature that makes it really hard to use reliably.
posted by T | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:45 am

It has a Celebrity CAPTCHA feature that makes it really hard to use reliably.
posted by T | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:45 am

The kitchen came with an innocent-looking vinyl carpet that turned out to have an asbestos backing.
posted by BG | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:49 am

I have no idea who the celeb is...perhaps Michael Moore?
posted by None | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:52 am

Wow this CAPTCHA thing sucks if you're not hooked into mass media.
posted by Judy | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:52 am

Can't shut off the water to the shower, though I need to do some plumbing work
posted by Pat | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:57 am

The light switch for the bathroom is on the wall outside of the bathroom, at the hinged side of the door. This means that whenever you open the bathroom door, you have to reach around it.
posted by BG | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:59 am

The traffic noises are horrendous -- I live much closer to a freeway than I thought. Try to visit your place during busy daytime hours so you can gauge the noise level!
posted by Becky | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:59 am

Floors falling in
posted by David S | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:03 am

The doors has been repainted too many times and a buildup of paint prevents the doors from closing properly.
posted by J. Noe | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:07 am

Not enough closets. Looked good on the surface, but you never know how much stuff you really have until you have no where to put it
posted by Marty Lane | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:08 am

Most of the blinds were faded on the outside.
posted by Jeremy | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:18 am


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:22 am


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:25 am

When we moved from Yuba City out to Texas we found THE house. Out in the country, but close to town. After a year we found that the closet & bedroom doors like to change position on the frames. Sometimes they are easy to open and sometimes you gotta give em the shoulder shove. Now here's the kicker. I figured there was some foundation issues that needed to be addressed. Nope. The explanations I get from contractors & the guys from the 4 foundation repair companies said its from the "humidity"
posted by Tony Midnite | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:27 am

The basement is incredibly cold, no matter what time of year and how many heaters are placed down there. Nice in the summer, horrible in the winter.
posted by Laur | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:31 am

Walls that looked square and level, until you try to mount anything to them.
posted by Luc | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:35 am

All the multi-switch light fixtures (two or more wall switches, one light or outlet) were wired wrong, creating bizarre binary logic problems throughout the house. The lesson is "Test All the Light Switches in Combination With Other Switches, Even If Only an Idiot Would Wire Them Together."
posted by Cujo Jojo | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:41 am

The house is so crooked that water will run off one side of the bathroom counter and a ball can get up some decent speed rolling across the floor. To turn off the kitchen faucet, you have to swivel the level thing two inches to the left. To get the heat to come on, you have to turn the thermostat to 70, to 50, then to 80. Eventually the house temperature will creep up to 63 and stay there. Also, the entire house shakes when the upstairs neighbors get amorous.
posted by Cindy | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:42 am

The water supply to the refrigerator is hooked to the HOT water pipe, not the COLD one. This means we make ice out of hot water, and hot water (after a few seconds) comes out of the in-door water dispenser thingy.
posted by Arch Puddington | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:45 am

My driveway is too steep. Elderly folks in my family do not want to visit because of the mountain climb it takes to get into my front door. By the way, who the hell is that celebrity? I had to refresh eight times before I found one I knew! Horrible idea.
posted by Amanda | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:50 am

Nothing. I just wanted to try the celebrity captcha.
posted by Pat | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:50 am

Our garage is actually *below* the gutters on the street, so whenever it rains, we get a little river flowing right to the garage door. If it's a little rain, no problem - if it's a lot of rain, it seeps in and the garage floods. Yay.
posted by Cap'n Curry | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:52 am

My house (or apartment, rather) is a pretty nice place - except for two things that we really didn't count on when moving in. First, the ceiling started leaking about two months ago after we had a snow storm. We've asked our neighbors in the apartment complex, and quite a few of them have experienced the same problem. The other thing is not a huge deal, but it bothers me sometimes. All of the apartments surrounding ours have the exact same layout, so there are three bathrooms touching the walls of my bathroom, three other kitchens touching the walls of my kitchen, etc. So, whenever I do my daily routine (shower, breakfast...) I can hear my neighbors going through the same routine with me. I hear them peeing and taking showers while I'm in the bathroom, getting dishes out of cupboards while I'm having breakfast, but also, when I go to sleep, I can hear my next door neighbors having sex. They're pretty loud, and to be honest, that guy can't last very long (which I'm thankful for because it means less noise for me). So that's my issue(s) with my house
posted by Ruth | Sunday 15th of April 2007 12:13 pm

The frat boys (I live in a dorm).
posted by Zack | Sunday 15th of April 2007 12:16 pm

Stand in all the shower enclosures and make sure they were installed correctly. Ours in our last house creaked when you stood in them or shifted your weight.
posted by Kathy | Sunday 15th of April 2007 12:17 pm

I wish I had a house...
posted by James Chuang | Sunday 15th of April 2007 12:20 pm

An onslaught of DEER MICE!
posted by NN | Sunday 15th of April 2007 12:20 pm

The temperature in one of the bathroom showers ranges crazy, if you put it all the way to cold, it'll be raging hot or something like that. It's pretty frustrating to take showers.
posted by Jenna | Sunday 15th of April 2007 12:25 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 12:29 pm

No water pressure, and the power always goes out.
posted by gfrommy | Sunday 15th of April 2007 12:36 pm

poor insulation
posted by RogerTheShrubber | Sunday 15th of April 2007 1:11 pm

holy crap that celb captcha is hard, and i'm human
posted by anon | Sunday 15th of April 2007 1:20 pm

Window flashing not installed behind stucco, so when it rains water seeps through Cabinets not fully screwed to wall Double-pane glass seal broken; windows look like fishtanks
posted by Grant | Sunday 15th of April 2007 1:21 pm

Only one phone jack works, and apparently landlords only need to supply one working jack, the rest you're out of luck, and the one jack that works is in the kitchen and really inconvenient.
posted by S | Sunday 15th of April 2007 1:29 pm

Crappy light switch placement. The light switches only go to the plugs directly next to them. It basically makes them useless, I could just switch it myself!
posted by Sheri | Sunday 15th of April 2007 1:30 pm

carpenter ants in the summer, so probably some water damage in the walls. nothing inspection picked up on and we bought it in winter, not ant season.
posted by kellie | Sunday 15th of April 2007 1:31 pm

The toilet ran for a long time until it cracked and had to be replaced. The floors are slanty.
posted by Brooklyn Brownstone | Sunday 15th of April 2007 1:31 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 1:39 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 1:39 pm

A few minutes before my furnace turns on, it makes strange noises that resemble a small child saying "woo!". What makes it even worse is that the noise can only be heard through the vents. It's very eerie. Perhaps a small child is trapped in my furnace.
posted by David | Sunday 15th of April 2007 1:42 pm

Nothing
posted by Colin | Sunday 15th of April 2007 1:44 pm

Noisy neighbors who cheat to answer the CAPTCHA by looking at the image properties
posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 1:55 pm

My bedroom door doesn't latch properly without reseating the latch. :(
posted by Amelia | Sunday 15th of April 2007 1:57 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 1:58 pm

There are two bathrooms but we can not use the back one because the tile shower's pan is rotted out and water leaks out from under the tile edges onto the floor....Not noticeable without taking a shower.
posted by derrickgott007 | Sunday 15th of April 2007 2:01 pm

basement floods.
posted by jake | Sunday 15th of April 2007 2:06 pm

The lightsitch for the bathroom light is not in the bathroom, so you are always at risk of the hilarious "lights-out-while-taking-a-dump" joke
posted by Ian | Sunday 15th of April 2007 2:07 pm

The bathtub leaks if you fill it past halfway and water comes out of a light fixture on the ceiling of the floor directly beneath it. =(
posted by Lili | Sunday 15th of April 2007 2:28 pm

Bathroom floor is rotted through
posted by Ed Cook | Sunday 15th of April 2007 2:38 pm

Water hammer-- that horrible banging noise whenever you turn on the hot water... or whenever your downstairs neighbor does the same. The downstairs neighbor's bathroom exhaust fan vents into MY bathroom.
posted by Mel | Sunday 15th of April 2007 2:46 pm

Location of electrical plugs controlled by light swtiches were designed by a crazy person who has never put lams in the most obvious place.
posted by Trevor | Sunday 15th of April 2007 2:52 pm

1. Concrete walls. We can't hear our neighbors (which is a plus), but we live with mold and extremely hot or cold walls year-round. 2. Old 1950s era space-heaters. They don't work properly so half the house is freezing, and the other half is 120 F. 3. Not enough plug-ins!!! The only one in the bathrrom is over top the light fixture and it gets so hot it melts any thing you plug in. 4. Old one-ply windows with no screens. 5. No space for a washer and dryer. 6. No central air.
posted by Ber | Sunday 15th of April 2007 2:59 pm

Detached garages are horribly inconvenient. I had no idea how inconvenient it was until I moved into this house.
posted by Will | Sunday 15th of April 2007 2:59 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 3:00 pm

the captcha thing is horrible. I refreshed many, many times to get someone I recognized, then mis-spelled him. WAY too much effort for me. I can't even remember what I was supposed to write in this box now. This idea really slants the poll in favor of celebrity watchers. Might be fine for People MAgazine but seems like a bad plan for Cockeyed.
posted by frustrated | Sunday 15th of April 2007 3:01 pm

There's a power outlet in a corner next to a drawer. You can't open the drawer if anything's plugged in!
posted by Max | Sunday 15th of April 2007 3:06 pm

inaccesible attic, improperly sealed windows, tiny bathrooms, fishbowl windows
posted by allysa | Sunday 15th of April 2007 3:10 pm

My pitbull keeps disappearing.
posted by Veronica Mars | Sunday 15th of April 2007 3:11 pm

My downstairs make a ton of noise when walking around their house... yes, I said WALKING. crazy.
posted by Bob | Sunday 15th of April 2007 3:13 pm

Our gas floor heater has not been used in over ten years. Despite vacuuming every nook and cranny, there was still tons of dust that just had to be burnt off by running the heater. Smoke filled the house, and it still stinks.
posted by Thomas | Sunday 15th of April 2007 3:14 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 3:16 pm

until they dug a ditch in the field behind our house the basemen would be flooded in the spring when the snow meleted. mice came in through the attached garrage. we had to mudjack th driveway.
posted by max | Sunday 15th of April 2007 3:20 pm

Three doors aren't level on their hinges and always swing closed.
posted by Amy | Sunday 15th of April 2007 3:36 pm

water gets too hot too quickly, the top of the oven gets extremely hot when cooking, the carpet has the tips of nails still sticking out where the carpet transitions from carpet to tile, incorrectly working blinds, yep that seems like it's about it also i dont like the celeb verifiers since i have no idea who the hell this guy is and if anyone who cant get in because they got a stupid celeb just refresh your message will stay but your celeb will change
posted by mike | Sunday 15th of April 2007 3:39 pm

Plently of water presure down stairs but no heat. No water presure up stairs but plenty heat.
posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 3:41 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 3:51 pm

My mother painted every room and hallway beige.
posted by Rachel | Sunday 15th of April 2007 3:56 pm

The toilet backs up, no matter how much or how little toilet paper used (or even if no paper has been used). Good times.
posted by Uncle Mike | Sunday 15th of April 2007 3:58 pm

The crappy interior doors are hollow and very light, so they will not close by simply shoving them and letting momentum finish the job. You have to manually shut the doors.
posted by John | Sunday 15th of April 2007 3:58 pm

There's a rapist that lives in the attic
posted by Kelly | Sunday 15th of April 2007 3:58 pm

Can't open the closet doors completely because there's a wall jutting out. It opens to about a 80 degree angle.
posted by Bethany M | Sunday 15th of April 2007 4:22 pm

Ants every winter.
posted by evan | Sunday 15th of April 2007 4:26 pm

Squeaky floors in the guest room. Horrendously squeaky - like "someone is murdering all of the mouse and rabbits in the world" squeaky.
posted by Dave | Sunday 15th of April 2007 4:28 pm

light switches - the kitchen has only a pull chain for the light, and the giant living room has only one switch but 2 doorways. -lots of walking the dark to find a light. (not a fan of the celeb thing)
posted by Kristin | Sunday 15th of April 2007 4:29 pm

Its always cold in here
posted by Wilson | Sunday 15th of April 2007 4:31 pm

The depth of our garage is exactly three inches too short to house my truck. d'oh!
posted by Raab | Sunday 15th of April 2007 4:35 pm

All of the electrical outlets are loose so plugs just fall right out of them unless you are using the three-prong.
posted by gloomy | Sunday 15th of April 2007 4:39 pm

The house was built on top of a sinkhole
posted by John S. | Sunday 15th of April 2007 4:41 pm

yeah rob, this celebrity captcha thing is kind of gay. It doesn't work very well and sometimes distorts the pictures beyond the point where they are recognizable.
posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 4:41 pm

Bad water pressure
posted by Amanda | Sunday 15th of April 2007 4:42 pm

you're a bitch.
posted by paul | Sunday 15th of April 2007 4:47 pm

Not a house, but a college apartment: a dishwasher that leaked, but only when the repair man was not there; having the entire floor flood twice in two weeks because of a faulty pipe under the kitchen sink and a faulty hot water heater; having a homeless man secretly live in the basement area and breaking into the apartments during winter break
posted by Marie | Sunday 15th of April 2007 4:48 pm

paint chipping on ceiling
posted by jack | Sunday 15th of April 2007 4:58 pm

The small double-wide sized house that I live in on my college campus has many ridiculous things wrong. I think the most obvious is the bathroom set-up. In the bathroom, off to one side, are two toilet stalls...that face each other. They don't have full doors on them, but instead they have short saloon-style doors that have an inch gap in the middle. Needless to say, this would make things awkward if two people were actually bold enough to use both stalls at the same time. And whenever I go to the bathroom, I have the urge to hum some wild west music whenever I push through those swinging doors.
posted by Jamie | Sunday 15th of April 2007 4:58 pm

The cable TV and installed cat5 jacks are on opposite sides of the room. The dishwasher only has a single water sprayer. one toilet runs constantly, and the other toilet never flushes correctly.
posted by Justin | Sunday 15th of April 2007 5:01 pm

back door is fifteen feet off the ground, with a staircase. Thus, a toddler can't safely go out on his own power.
posted by mark | Sunday 15th of April 2007 5:02 pm

At more than one place we've lived the cold water tap will sometimes produce warm or even hot water. Infuriating!
posted by gmd | Sunday 15th of April 2007 5:04 pm

does this work?
posted by Cory | Sunday 15th of April 2007 5:17 pm

Parking is atrocious in our neighbourhood at the best of times, but we live on a private lane at the end of a cul-de-sac which has a church on it. If the bible needs to be studied, it would be nice if it were studied by people who didn't drive to the church, you know?
posted by Steve Anderson | Sunday 15th of April 2007 5:18 pm

Older house, so slanting floors and wavy glass everywhere. Our (dirt floor, stone walled) cellar floods every spring. Ladybugs invade in the fall. Also, the upstaris isn't heated except for floor grates that are supposed to let heat rise from donwstairs. In the attics, nails from the roof shingles pretty much coat the ceiling, and in winter you can see frost on all those nails.
posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 5:18 pm

Check the doorbell. Mine was completely AWOL and needed to be replaced.
posted by Bryan | Sunday 15th of April 2007 5:22 pm

I can't even recognize 90% if the "celebriries" that appeear. I had to reload the page a hundred times to get one that I could identify.
posted by Bryan | Sunday 15th of April 2007 5:26 pm

THe central heat and air freezes up (pun!) if you turn it lower than 75 degrees.
posted by Granville P. | Sunday 15th of April 2007 5:36 pm

There is carpet almost everywhere and in my room it's this old sick moss-green berber that has no fiber definition anywhere.
posted by Rebecca | Sunday 15th of April 2007 5:36 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 5:36 pm

spammed, lol. Seriously though- dim lighting. It's terribly lit. drives me nuts.
posted by A really dedicated spammer | Sunday 15th of April 2007 5:42 pm

In Autumn, hundreds of dead bees fall onto my patio.
posted by Jo Thornely | Sunday 15th of April 2007 5:47 pm

Bad A/C to 2 bedrooms, the rooms get the A/C last, and have no returns, so warm air stays in the rooms when the doors are closed.
posted by Kevin | Sunday 15th of April 2007 5:49 pm

Windows appear to have locks on them, but the locks aren't actually functional.
posted by Jenny | Sunday 15th of April 2007 5:49 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 6:01 pm

The cocking for the bathtub was not totally sealed so water leaked down into the ceiling of the kitchen.
posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 6:01 pm

Everything
posted by Grant | Sunday 15th of April 2007 6:02 pm

The plumbing. The main pipe to the sewer is at a shallow angle and sometimes gets blocked when we use the dishwasher and will back up into our washer!
posted by Spinch | Sunday 15th of April 2007 6:14 pm

The water pressure cuts out completely in the mornings (I assume due to other people in the building using water at the same time). The floors aren't precisely level, so the fridge door takes more effort than a solid push to close all the way without swinging back with enough force to kill someone. The ceilings aren't level, either, but this is mostly a problem in the bathroom, where, when the steam from the shower rises to the ceiling and then collects and condenses and then goes to the low point and drips on you when you're drying off. There's a dumb space between the oven and the countertop. Things get lost forever down there. There aren't any toilet paper holders. The windows aren't at right-angles, and so leave diagonal gaps when they close. Holy crap there's panelling EVERYWHERE.
posted by Jen | Sunday 15th of April 2007 6:17 pm

1. The power pole is right next to the driveway making it hard to get a large vehicle in. 2. The water heater had a leaky pop-off valve 3. The water heater was filled with calcium 4. The house has galvanized pipe 5. The house has two-wire electrical outlets throughout - no grounds. 6. The washing machine drain is basically a pipe going out the basement into the ground with no drainage 7. The tree out front bears nuts, lots of them. 8. The windows are old. 9. The garage door is broken 10. The basement is not insulated well 11. The stairs to the basement look like a one-armed man installed them. 12. The HVAC unit is in the middle of the basement, rather than on one end. 13. Pine trees. 14. I'd like a better mortgage payment.
posted by Geoffrey | Sunday 15th of April 2007 6:22 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 6:29 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 6:30 pm

Nothing much, but the new validation thing is too hard.. i dont know any of the celebs, well from what i can make out from the picture.... I suppose this could make a fun new party game...
posted by Lee | Sunday 15th of April 2007 6:31 pm

Shower randomly assigns temperature each morning, squeals loudly when I try to find a middle ground (about 1 millimeter long on the knob) between scalding and freezing.
posted by Dan | Sunday 15th of April 2007 6:32 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 6:34 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 6:35 pm

i'm allergic to the carpet. Carpet usually iritates my feet, but the carpet in my new appartment gives me a runny nose, itchy ears, blistery toes and an occasional hive. but it's nice and the rent's good and i've signed a 6 month lease, so i'm dealing with it.
posted by bridge | Sunday 15th of April 2007 6:43 pm

If the door to the master bedroom isnt open or closed all the way, when you open the door to the walkin closet, they slam into each other. And there is a random light switch in the kitchen that controls a plug by the stairs, on the other side of the house...
posted by Samantha | Sunday 15th of April 2007 6:43 pm

windows that won't stay open, no screens on the windows, the space between the sink and tub is so narrow there is no way to clean between it, water heater that doesn't heat water fast of efficently, radiator that doesn't work and is the only source of heat, "walk in closet" that is too narrow to walk into, lack of walls without windows to put tall furniture against.
posted by Jamie | Sunday 15th of April 2007 6:49 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 7:04 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 7:05 pm

Don't hate me for protecting these comments...
posted by Capt. ChaCelebrity | Sunday 15th of April 2007 7:06 pm

drafty
posted by Paul | Sunday 15th of April 2007 7:10 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 7:13 pm

The celebrity generator-thing is impossible to use. I had to refresh the page like ten times. How about you distort the images less and use presidents instead?
posted by Ronald | Sunday 15th of April 2007 7:15 pm

Leaking Gutters (three stories up!!) Cracked sewer pipe UNDER the basement floor (roots)
posted by Tim | Sunday 15th of April 2007 7:17 pm

Celeb Captcha is ridiculous
posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 7:24 pm

In our last apartment we had no hot water in the kitchen and no cold water in the bathroom.
posted by Erin | Sunday 15th of April 2007 7:28 pm

The best one I heard was to fill the bathtub and empty it. Apparently in my friend's house the tup takes 15 minutes to fill then 30 minutes to empty due to the original water pipe sizes being too small.
posted by Harumph! | Sunday 15th of April 2007 7:39 pm

When you turn on the cold water in the kitchen, it starts out cool, then gets warmer and warmer until it's scalding hot, then eventually goes to cold and stays there. It takes about 45 seconds.
posted by Molly | Sunday 15th of April 2007 7:42 pm

Garage too small to get out of the car.
posted by Scott | Sunday 15th of April 2007 7:43 pm

THIS FEATURE IS SHIT!!!
posted by ME | Sunday 15th of April 2007 7:45 pm

The whole house looks tilted when driving toward it
posted by pneumonoultrs | Sunday 15th of April 2007 7:53 pm

The oven heat control is off by 125 degrees (too hot!)
posted by lauren | Sunday 15th of April 2007 7:54 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 7:54 pm

I bought a house with no kitchen. I gutted the kitchen and tore out a wall. I found that a radiator was in the way. I proceeded to call a company to have it removed, (it was beyond my skill set). Upon removing the radiator, they attempted to refill the radiator. They could not get water back into the system, and decided that the valve on the hot water heater must be broken. They cut out the old valve, revealing pipes that had only a pin hole worth of opening. So needless to say, I replaced all of the plumbing in the house. While running the new pipe, I happened to look at the sewage line and notice a hole. This was fortuitous, because closing up the wall with a hole in the sewage line would have inevitably been pain in the neck. The kitchen has been remodeled, the sewage has been replaced, and we have all new plumbing. (please note that during home inspection, the plumbing and sewage both passed) Two months later, we had three days of continuous rain. One day I came home from work to find that water was dripping from the ceiling of the master bedroom. As it turned out, there was a series of four nail sized holes in the roof of my house. They were invisible to the naked eye. With a normal rain, there was not enough moisture to soak through the insolation, and drip through the plaster. I managed to track the holes during a rain storm, mark them, and later patch them with lexel, one of the greatest inventions of modern time, as it saved me thousands of dollars on a new roof. Three weeks later, I noticed a sound in my porch roof. As it turned out, for the last few years, a raccoon had been making its home in the eve between my top roof and porch roof. Between these two was a small triangle which made a lovely cave for the wild animal. Upon calling local agencies to have the raccoon safely removed, I learned that it is much cheaper to kill the animal than to have it removed and re-released into the wild. My next learning curve occured about two months later. Suddenly, breakers began to trip randomly. I called my father, an electrician and learned that while the house was properly wired (as the home inspector assured me) the polarity on the outlets were backward. We installed an industrial pannel into the house. We also ran new electric to the second floor upon learning that while each room had plenty of visible outlets, only one worked in each room, zero in the guest room. I love my house. I got a great deal on it even with the money I have had to put into remodeling. I knew upon buying the house that I needed a new kitchen. I did all the work myself, except the removal of the radiator. New cabinets, floor, tearing out a wall, insulation, appliances, counters, drywall, electric. The plumbing and sewage proceeded to run the cost up. Not to mention the roof, and the raccoon. Plus new electric. Even with a great deal, it was all I could do to afford this house. The extra work ran up the bill. Now it is all I can do to keep from loosing the house due to the liquidation of my funds on additional repairs. Hey, if you are interested, feel free to help me out. My big tips for buying a home: visit the house during a rain to check the roof. ask about animals in the area check the plumbing, not just the water preasure bring a clock or something to check all outlets evaluate how much work the house will need (don't spread yourself too thin) check the yard for area, remember that they just cut the grass to make it pretty, analyze the amount of maintenance that will be required. Open every door and check the inside carefully, including closets. check the plaster. get a history of the house on line...I wish I would have known about this. think about how you will arrange rooms, we have one guest room that will need to be remodeled.
posted by Frazier caffinated79@verizon.net | Sunday 15th of April 2007 7:56 pm

My house has children living in it. Ugh.
posted by Mellicent | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:03 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:03 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:09 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:09 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:10 pm

A poorly ventilated bathroom can lead to some nasty mildew buildup in certain climates.
posted by Brian Wong | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:18 pm

The celebrity CAPTCHA function of my house sucks
posted by Jer Bear | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:18 pm

pigeons roosting on the roof. Damn neighbors feed them, and they crap all over our cars!
posted by Chris | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:20 pm

Bathtub but no shower, not enough storage space in the kitchen, cable hookup is in the wrong room, floors all slant towards the middle of the room
posted by Erik Teichmann | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:20 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:22 pm

siding rattles like a buzzsaw outside the babys room when its windy. This started out bad, of course, but now the kid can sleep through anything.
posted by spank | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:22 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:25 pm

The bathtub is extremely slippery, but only when wet. We scrubbed it, but finally gave up and just put in a bathmat thing. It was, needless to say, a surprise to fine a tub that get's slippery when wet.
posted by Sara | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:28 pm

It's my parent's.
posted by Patrick | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:28 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:28 pm

Windows that won't stay up. Extremely loud garage door. Cabinet opening for oven/range is 1/4" too narrow. Crappy mailbox / post mounting.
posted by Craig Holl | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:29 pm

Toilets have low flushing power - very annoying.
posted by Maddy | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:31 pm

It's often too warm. I have to open the window a lot until AC season, probably 11 of 12 months.
posted by J | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:44 pm

It's hot
posted by Fred | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:46 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:47 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 8:59 pm

Because it's next to a creek/storm drain, you can't sit out in the yard unless you want to be eaten alive by mosquitos.
posted by Deanna | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:06 pm

Massive amount of mummified dead rats in the basement
posted by Brendan | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:07 pm

extremely loud bathroom fan with no seperate switch!
posted by mason | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:07 pm

We wanted a very good gas stove for cooking, since we hated our old one. Our new rental house had a huge new 6 burner stove.. very exciting. After movein, we found within 1 day that the giant burners are all show, no power. Even the flames look big, but they take 20 minutes to boil water, and stirfry sucks. Lesson: to evaluate a stove, you have to use it, not look at it.
posted by Steve | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:12 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:17 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:27 pm

its tenant
posted by Chase notFreeman | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:28 pm

Drain vents don't leave house, they just end inside the attic leading to periodic horrific odors.
posted by Jim | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:34 pm

driveway subsidance
posted by Tim | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:35 pm

missing base board, leaking pipes, untaped and unmudded drywall. Countertops not being secured to the cabinets. Things not being level.
posted by Shane | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:36 pm

I finally got one, it's Bono!!
posted by It's Bono! | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:40 pm

...Everything.
posted by Sean R | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:41 pm

The stair risers are not all equal in height. SOOOOO easy to trip...
posted by crissy | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:44 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:48 pm

Not enough storage space.
posted by Robert Mast | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:49 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:50 pm

Cabnets too high to use top shelf unless you are 9 feet tall.
posted by maya | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:55 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 9:57 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:02 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:14 pm

There was an outlet in the garage that didn't seem to work. It tested as dead, the run to it tested dead as well. After some other rewiring, I traced the source back to a switch in the ensuite bathroom. Some previous owner wired it so he could turn his block heater on from the bedroom when he got up in the morning. Kind of novel, but LEAVE A NOTE TO THAT EFFECT!
posted by Bren | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:19 pm

The skylights all leaked even thought they had just put on a new roof. The first winter we lived in the house we had pots and pans everywhere and eventually had all of our views to the heavens covered by big blue tarps. We were pretty pissed off.
posted by Ann-Nona Mouse | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:21 pm

the caption thing stinks... tut.... how is that wrong, its his freking scarcophagus.... windows sweat, so we get mold. that againslt the law not to disclose... aparently they didnt....
posted by john | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:21 pm

Uneven stairs. Our dog kept falling down them until we got them fixed.
posted by dsfkbj | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:23 pm

It was filled with squatters.
posted by ersfhdnggn | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:25 pm

If you're leasing a house - MAKE SURE the landlord isn't the one who has "fixed" stuff or "installed" new stuff. Make sure he has hired professionals. We have massive water leakage problems in the bathroom and ant infestation in the kitchen because we didn't check this stuff.
posted by Frank | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:26 pm

lead paint
posted by tom | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:27 pm

Insufficient room between top of stove and bottom of built in microwave above.
posted by Marnie | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:31 pm

water pipes were routed through an uninsulated corner of the house's basement.. ugh! Took about 5 cans of spray foam to fix that issue.
posted by Chris | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:36 pm

My house had a patio cover that was built parallel to the ground. There is a HUGE pine tree over the patio. Over the years, pine needles built up to a dangerous level, causing the soffit to rot. The patio cover took me three days to tear down and cost me about $600 bucks to have the soffit fixed. I still love my house though.
posted by coffeegod | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:40 pm

The access to the cable is on the opposite wall from where any sensible person would put the TV
posted by Kate | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:48 pm

I once lived within 25 feet of one of those audible crosswalks; they even got stuck for hours on end at one point. BEE-BO BEE-BO BEE-BO... I always check the shower pressure.
posted by Rob | Sunday 15th of April 2007 10:56 pm

The former owners put contact paper on the walls in the kitchen and then painted the walls so we couldn't tell. It was HORRIBLE to remove it.
posted by Emily Stivers | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:00 pm

Water Pressure is one of the first things I check actually, I can't stand low water pressure in the shower, it feels like you're being pissed on. Also I like to see if the water is drinkable or if I'll be buying ice for the next year. Next I check the AC pressure, and last all the drawers.
posted by Mark | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:01 pm

the roof needs to be raised!
posted by tim brewer | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:02 pm

The stairs are really loud when you walk up and down them, no matter how quiet you try to be.
posted by "Suteki" | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:04 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:05 pm

The water pipe connection to the house broke right where it enters the house, so the ensuing flood damaged most of the stuff in the front bedroom. The so-called contractor who lived in the house prior to us did a lot of DIY "improvements," including rewiring the entire garage with substandard wiring amongst other things.
posted by Scott | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:06 pm

I once bought a house and it was such a nive little house...until the ghosts of dead hookers haunted my sleep and abducted my 4 daughters into the 4 dimension. i will certainly ask MORe questions on my next house.
posted by mr chow wow | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:17 pm

Celebrity CAPTCHAs is total BS.
posted by cockerham is BS | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:19 pm

Who knew that a pop-culture quiz would expell computer automated logins. What, is this GD site so popular that we need to play a game of pop culture trivial pursuit to be deemed worthy of posting. Your wife is Hot Cockerham. Dont' get cocky.
posted by cokerham | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:22 pm

Once I signed a lease in the daytime on what I thought was the perfect apartment. That first night I learned of its fatal flaw: an after-hours nightclub run out of the Elks Lodge next door. LOUD FROM MIDNIGHT TO 3AM EVERY NIGHT OF THE WEEK. Beware the wild Elks.
posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:22 pm

I'm an appraiser and could write a book about this stuff! From my personal experience, when looking for a house, 1) Ask to use the bathroom, watching for water pressure, fixture problems and weird water tastes/smells. 2) Inspect houses in the rain, watching for foundation problems, leaks, pooling or flooding of areas (found this one out the hard way!) 3) Visit home immediately after work, to determine if rush hour is hell. 4) Visit home at 2-3am, to determine if neighborhood is quiet, or if you have a partier next door. 5) Do a Sex Offender search. 6) Determine how much taxes and/or homeowner association fees are. 7) Seriously consider noises, like schools, street noises, factory noises, airport noises, train noises, and neighbor noises. And smells, too. Is there a dump or gas station nearby? 8) Check with the cops and see how often they're dispatched to your potential neighborhood. and lastly, 9) Look at the space, and not how the current occupant has it decorated. (You see this a lot on those HGTV cable shows!) The place you're buying doesn't come with their furniture or decorations, so be more objective about the structure. You're probably going to paint, so the color shouldn't even be a factor! Be more concerned with "flow" of the space and the layout of walls and rooms. And, Celebrity Captcha sucks. I finally got "Bono", although I recognized "Orville Reddenbocker", but I didn't know how to spell his name.
posted by Big Daddy DS | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:23 pm

The metal catch thing on the bathroom doorknob doesn't go all the way into it's space on the door frame. So even if you lock the door, you can still just push or pull it open.
posted by Brandi | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:28 pm


posted by | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:35 pm

The ceiling fans only have two settings: barely moving the air and arctic blast.
posted by Coleman | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:39 pm

Celebrity Captcha is so annoying!
posted by Bob McBob | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:41 pm

Squirrels in the attic if you know what I mean
posted by Bob Villa | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:51 pm

All kinds of things.
posted by Jim | Sunday 15th of April 2007 11:53 pm

the water pressure upstairs is horrible, and it takes ages for the hot water to come. This doesn't happen in the shower however, only the faucets.
posted by john | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:04 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:06 am

Matte-finish flattened-stucco walls which I have no idea how to clean. (and thank god for "Open image in new window)
posted by someToast | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:19 am

giant man eating bats...I didnt see that one coming
posted by brocktoon | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:28 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:39 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:40 am

Trolls in the closet
posted by Zooey Glass | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:46 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:49 am

bad tub drain that can't be fixed without serious work in a neighboring unit. ps. celebrity CAPTCHAs suxx0rz, just fyi.
posted by mr. sparkle | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:59 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:15 am

posted by Amazing Sex Pills WORK | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:19 am

The light switches are all wired backwards...up turns the lights off and down turns the lights on.
posted by Shanna | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:24 am

My house in Manzanita Village at UCSB has no outlets in the loft on the third floor. Also, the light switch for the lounge on the second floor is in the third floor loft.
posted by Tania | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:27 am

The previous owners of my parents house did really bad do-it-yourself repairs on various things in the house. One of the most annoying results of this is you have to use several different screwdrivers--phillips and flathead--to take anything one thing apart, because no matter how pre-manufactured it would appear (cabinet doors, screen door frame, oven...), there are inevitably 2 or 3 different types of screws holding the thing together.
posted by Jen | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:31 am

hillary clinton! got it! (after much refreshing of the page)
posted by mike | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:48 am

king Tut
posted by King Tut | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:52 am

Where to start! 1. If you use "enough" toilet paper, the toilet is sure to clog up. 2. It's a new house, so the woods are nearby. As a result, instead of getting tame ol' cockroaches, we have awesome things like centapedes, scorpions, silverfish, and all sorts of terrifying, unidentifiable vermin. 3. It's freaking falling down the hill.
posted by Matt from Birmingham | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:56 am


posted by adam sandler | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:09 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:16 am

The plumbing is properly connected to the sewer system. I saw a house where, while the plumbing worked properly, it didn't connect to the sewer system and just dumped underneath the house.
posted by Anonymous | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:31 am

I had to refresh 5 times for the captcha code... just use a real on... some people aren't into movies that much... i only knew "Mel Gibson" because he was in the news... why not a shape or color captcha code... "what shape is this". or "what color is this"
posted by Bobby | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:32 am

Built on ancient Indian burial ground
posted by Ed | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:38 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:40 am

Neighbors don't appreciate rock and roll.
posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:41 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:59 am

There's no TV antenna on the roof. Never thought to check to see if I could plug my TV in and actually have it work, but there it is. What really confuses me is that there are wall outlets, just no antenna.
posted by Splunge | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:10 am

The frame around my bathroom door isn't square so the door doesn't close properly. The boiler behind the gas fire in the front room is so loud that I have to turn the TV volume up when the central heating is on.
posted by Alan | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:24 am

The 2nd step to the front door is a larger step up than the first, so you lose your rhythm heading up the steps!
posted by Craig McDonald | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:42 am

same problem with the tap...and the extractor fan in the bathroom makes a relally loud banging noise now. and we have no window so its all steamy all the time.
posted by Laura | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:46 am

It took 12 goes before I saw someone I recognised, this captcha thing sucks. The worst thing about my house is my neighbours
posted by Tom | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:52 am

You have to get through a Celebrity CAPTCHA anti-spam security system in order to enter my house.
posted by Thomas | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:54 am

I have bats living in my attic. No, seriously!
posted by Aza | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:57 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 5:01 am

The plumbing leaks. All of it. Also, our carpet smells not unlike cat urine. Our cats swear they have no idea what caused it.
posted by Katie | Monday 16th of April 2007 5:31 am

It's going to be bulldozed to put in a new road. It's 6 years old. The road was going to be put behind my property and the existing roads were obviously constucted to accomodate that, but some people didn't want the extra traffic on their road and lobbied to have it come through my house instead. I didn't see that one coming.
posted by Shawn Wilson | Monday 16th of April 2007 5:37 am

Stupid owners before me didn't know how to screw things together properly, install furnace filters, vaccuum or paint correctly.
posted by not mel gibson | Monday 16th of April 2007 5:43 am

There is a huge hole in the roof from a chunk of blue ice that crashed through it.
posted by Scienkoptic | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:18 am

Our house... is in the middle of our street.
posted by Jason | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:30 am

nothing's wrong with my house, but I had to go through like 5 celebrities to find one whose face didn't look like it had gone through a blender.
posted by Justin | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:34 am

Oh, man. What's *right* with my house? I bought my house--my first house--about a year ago, after a (small) bidding war (hooray, housing bubble!). A ~110-year-old bungalow: bad carpets, bad walls, bad ceilings, bad mechanicals, but excellent bones and a cool location. I was gonna fix it up myself. (waiting for the laughter to subside) (still waiting, guys) After the demolition, and the new framing (which I did get done myself), and the teardown and replacement of a bathroom which turned out to be a wallboarded *shack*, and the roughed-in new electrical and plumbing, I'm living there. The walls are all open studs, with no insulation. Electrical consists of three emergency circuits and a few extension cords. The only running water is from the hose outside, I shower at the gym, and my bathroom is an extensive knowledge of every public restroom within a three-minute drive.
posted by Michael | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:38 am

Rob, what if I don't know how to spell Regis Philbin? Or what if I don't know who the famous person is? Anyway, the problem with my house is the three young girls who live in it don't put their dishes in the dishwasher!
posted by Kenny | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:38 am

It sucks. P.S. Who are half of these Celebrity CAPTCHAs? They're too distorted to see.
posted by Bob Fleming | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:43 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:44 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:50 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:50 am

The zombies in the basement--if they would just keep it down at night when I am trying to sleep, there wouldn't be any problems, but they throw these loud zombie parties, with lots of shuffling and moaning. Oh yeah, and they try to eat my brains.
posted by Inay Mo | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:51 am

Either I'm just not cool enough to know celebrities' names (especially when the picture is distorted), or Celebrity CAPTCHAs really really really really really really SUCK!
posted by Celebrity CAPTCHA SUCKS!!! | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:57 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:05 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:20 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:21 am

The pantry is too deep. I can hardly reach things at the back, let alone see them.
posted by Lazy | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:25 am

creaky pipes i don;t mind anyway :p nice spam filter thingo anyhoo... i can figure out who it is by viewing the image properties/link :p
posted by zhang | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:28 am

Cloth insulated wireing, only one outlet per room, bathroom exhaust fan was never vented to the outside it just empties into the attic, causes rafters to rot and mold.
posted by Corey M | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:42 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:43 am

Goober
posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:46 am

My 3 year old Tarmac Driveway (new house) has somehow gone a bleached light-grey colour? how the heck do you bleach tarmac? Why aren't all our roads an insipid grey colour...
posted by Ben Arthur, Wrexham, U.K. | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:50 am

Carpet tacks at edge of the carpet leading to kitchen and front hallway stick through and are painful when you step on them barefooted.
posted by Baron vonKlyff | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:57 am

My dads house - where do I start?! Let's see... side wall on angle, back room floor not level, rotted electrical wiring, holes in roof and ceiling so that you could see out from inside, huge piles of garbage in backyard, basically no work had been done on it in decades. 20 years later, it's much better! PS - it's a shame that "celeb captcha" thing is necessary
posted by Milton | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:07 am

The cover of the light fixture in the shower is not removeable.
posted by Audra Lincoln | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:18 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:21 am

The water heater takes forever to heat up. If you want to wash your hands in warm water, start the faucet two minutes before you intend to do so.
posted by Derek | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:21 am

Almost everything, but the worst problems are the plumbing never working properly, the crumbling foundation, few of the windows can open, and there is asbestos in the siding. Yay asbestos!
posted by Verity | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:21 am

When we purchased our home a couple of years ago, we had to have the city perform an occupancy inspection. Upon completion of the inspection we were told by the city that an expansion to enlarge the garage from 2 to four cars was, which was done almost 10 years, would need to be inspected as though it was new construction. this would include digging a 3' wide by 3' deep trench along the out side wall to inspect the foundation. it would also include removing all of the drywall in the garage t allow inspection of the electrical wiring. Needless to say I was rather P.O.'ed considering that the house was bought and sold between the original owner who did the garage and myself. After some back and forth with the city building department and a little investigation throughout the neighborhood I was able to secure the proof I needed to get the city off my back. One of the neighbors still talked to the original owner and being a habitual pack rat he had all of the inspection records form when he sold the home in the late 90's. I was able to obtain copies and show the city that they were wrong... In closing, whenever possible check with the city building department for any permits that were taken out, completed or incomplete and ensure that the porper inspections were done. Also talking with people in the neighborhood can give you allot of insight into whether the previous owners were good caretakers of the home in question.
posted by Rob in Detroit | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:22 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:22 am

When we purchased our home a couple of years ago, we had to have the city perform an occupancy inspection. Upon completion of the inspection we were told by the city that an expansion to enlarge the garage from 2 to four cars, which was done almost 10 years, would need to be inspected as though it was new construction. this would include digging a 3' wide by 3' deep trench along the out side wall to inspect the foundation. it would also include removing all of the drywall in the garage t allow inspection of the electrical wiring. Needless to say I was rather P.O.'ed considering that the house was bought and sold between the original owner who did the garage and myself. After some back and forth with the city building department and a little investigation throughout the neighborhood I was able to secure the proof I needed to get the city off my back. One of the neighbors still talked to the original owner and being a habitual pack rat he had all of the inspection records form when he sold the home in the late 90's. I was able to obtain copies and show the city that they were wrong... In closing, whenever possible check with the city building department for any permits that were taken out, completed or incomplete and ensure that the proper inspections were done. Also talking with people in the neighborhood can give you allot of insight into whether the previous owners were good caretakers of the home in question.
posted by Rob in Detroit | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:23 am

When we purchased our home a couple of years ago, we had to have the city perform an occupancy inspection. Upon completion of the inspection we were told by the city that an expansion to enlarge the garage from 2 to four cars, which was done almost 10 years prior, would need to be inspected as though it was new construction. this would include digging a 3' wide by 3' deep trench along the out side wall to inspect the foundation. it would also include removing all of the drywall in the garage t allow inspection of the electrical wiring. Needless to say I was rather P.O.'ed considering that the house was bought and sold between the original owner who did the garage and myself. After some back and forth with the city building department and a little investigation throughout the neighborhood I was able to secure the proof I needed to get the city off my back. One of the neighbors still talked to the original owner and being a habitual pack rat he had all of the inspection records form when he sold the home in the late 90's. I was able to obtain copies and show the city that they were wrong... In closing, whenever possible check with the city building department for any permits that were taken out, completed or incomplete and ensure that the proper inspections were done. Also talking with people in the neighborhood can give you allot of insight into whether the previous owners were good caretakers of the home in question.
posted by Rob in Detroit | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:23 am

Mold... you can't just paint over it and expect it to go away.
posted by Daniel | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:23 am

No garage, flood-prone yard, tiny kitchen, no gutters, no front porch, one side is in shade all the time and prone to mildew, tiny attic.
posted by Phil | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:30 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:37 am

One bedroom is freezing while the other is sweltering hot.
posted by Amy | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:37 am

It's a mobile home. The end.
posted by Soy un perdedor | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:42 am

My brother's house is an older house, and the stairs are too narrow to move a couch or a boxspring up the stairs. He had to hire a furniture specialist to CUT THE WOOD so that the things could be moved up, and then the furniture was repaired. In my house, the basement stairs curve so that anything longer than five feet (if it has any width at all) can't be taken down to the basement. We learned that moving in when our couch wouldn't go down. Also, one side of the garage is about one foot too short. Our compact car fits, but a mid-sized or larger car would only fit in the other side of the garage.
posted by Johnnylaw | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:44 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:46 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:47 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:51 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:52 am

My downstairs bathroom sink's faucet water gets boiling hot instantly no matter what setting the water heater is at. The rest of the sinks take a while to get the water warm.
posted by Keith | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:56 am

The house has settled and there are now gaps between the newest pieces of drywall. Also, whoever put the new roof on 5 years ago used the wrong materials and the slope is too small too allow proper water runoff. I have to replace part of it.
posted by stuart | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:01 am

When we were looking at our house, the lovely owners always had fresh baked cookies on the table for us. We thought it was a nice touch from some kindly elderly lady who had to sell her home. After we bought the house and the cookies were gone, we figured out quickly that the cookie smell served another purpose - to cover up the intense musty odor that invaded the entire house! Those cookies were a great cover-up. No one noticed before - not even our parents that we brought along to check for crazy things just as those! Beware of fresh-baked cookies!
posted by April | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:11 am

If it rains really hard water will rise up through several cracks in the basement floor. its not a big deal but a little annoying.
posted by Pete | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:15 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:20 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:27 am

300 years old, permanently flooded basement.
posted by Pete | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:27 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:31 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:33 am

There are no outdoor electrical outlets, so when I am trying to enjoy the nice weather I have to run a cord out the window to power my tanning bed. P.S. I had to hit refresh 12 times to find a celeb I could identify. That game sucks, Rob.
posted by Adam | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:36 am

Roof needed repaired, basement leaked more than claimed by previous owner, and wallpaper is ugly in some rooms. Plus wiring is old (no ground wire in more applications).
posted by Big JC | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:40 am

Seriously, Rob - the Celebrity CAPTCHAs is a neat idea, but it sucks 'cause there are many that are too swiggled to tell who it is (or too unknown to me).
posted by Seriously | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:43 am

Extremely windy. Garbage cans have to be tied to the side of the house so they won't blow away.
posted by Nick | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:44 am

A 3-acre front yard that requires ten hours a week to mow... It looked so nice to somebody who had live in an apartment, until I realized that *I* was the one who had to take care of it.
posted by Sharon | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:45 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:48 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:55 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:01 am

Upstairs neighbours seem to play a lot of indoor basketball. I should've asked whether the apartment above me featured a basketball net. Or a grow-op.
posted by Grad Ghetto Girl | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:03 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:04 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:09 am

In my apartment the bathrooms are to close and I think my neighbor is either an alcoholic or a bulmic or just sick with some disease b/c I can hear him throwing up in the middle of the night EVERY NIGHT. Haven't heard it in a few weeks I hope he moved.
posted by Roe | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:10 am

sdfgsdfg
posted by sdf | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:13 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:23 am

No linen closet or coat closet. Also, it takes a couple of minutes to get hot water in the master bathroom.
posted by Jared | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:24 am

A Crappy Roommate
posted by Dustin | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:25 am

Nothing, but your articles suck more and more every month.
posted by John Q. | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:30 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:34 am

The asphalt roof is old. It needs to be replaced. The well doesn't supply enough water. I think the screen is clogged with sand. A new well will cost over three thousand dollars. Ugh. Other than that, I'm a happy camper!
posted by jim | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:36 am

I have to admit, some of these celebrity images are way too skewed. Because I saw what the images looked like originally, I overestimated the ease with which they could be identifed.
posted by Rob Cockerham | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:41 am

The showerheads are so low that the water shoots out at sternum-level on a six-foot-tall person. Makes rinsing out shampoo feel like a prison experience.
posted by Fred | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:41 am

House was Haunted, every sinle room was infested with roaches, and it was not wired for cable.
posted by J. | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:43 am

When you enter the house from the deck (which is overhung by lots of trees), you step immediately onto white carpeting in the family room. Stains!!
posted by Fred | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:45 am

The cupboard doors in the kitchen are warped and won't shut all the way. This is really not surprising, though, because the house is over 100 years old, and all hardware is original. In addition, a family of mice live in the crawlspace and will not move out, no matter how hard we try to 'persuade' them.
posted by Monica | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:47 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:48 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:54 am

Something breaks every month. Without fail. And it's always something expensive.
posted by Anthony Garone | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:55 am

We moved from New Mexico to Florida with two dogs, so we had to sign a lease without actually visiting the house in order to have it when we got here. Overall, we lucked out, but there are a few issues. * Light fixture in the kitchen has two settings: "off" and "nightlight." It doesn't matter what capacity bulb I use. I have to turn on the range hood light and the dining room chandelier in addition to the kitchen light in order to really see what I'm cooking. * Water in the guest bathroom goes from zero to scalding in 1 second. Inversely, the hot water tap in the kitchen takes somewhere on the order of 30 seconds to reach "tepid." * Normal ovens fluctuate within 20 degrees or so of the target temperature. This one? 75. I wish I was kidding. I set it for 400, the pre-heater clicks off at 370, and it coasts up to about 450 before it starts cooling off again. Plus I can't set it to "warm," because the coolest it'll get is 250. * There are sockets to attach ceiling light fixtures in all the rooms. It was my plan to put fans in each. (This is Florida, after all, and it gets HOT without moving air.) However, there are no wires leading to these sockets. Rather, the light switch in each room controls the top half of the nearest outlet. Moreover, there are at least three switches in the house that don't seem to power anything. * Interior floor tile outside the front door. I have no idea what made somebody think this was a good idea. Now when it rains, our front step is a perfect place to slip and strain your groin.
posted by Mo | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:56 am

Bad circuitry so that we cannot run multiple electric appliances simultaneously.
posted by Christine | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:56 am

TBBH, it's not a very good CAPTCHA since the answer is readily-available by right-clicking on the pic to view the URL. (case in point, Avril Lavigne below). I do appreciate it though, cause who the hell could spell Lavigne, or Sanjaya (sp?) for that matter. http://www.cockeyed.com/personal/house/hat2.php?star=avrillavigne
posted by Steve C | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:58 am

The ho0use is fine, but I don't know who any of your celebrities are.
posted by Justin | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:00 am

We're currently redoing the badly neglected landscaping at our new house, and while digging trenches for an irrigation system, we have uncovered an astounding array of strange debris buried in the yard. Chunks of concrete, large pieces of asphalt, sections of galvanized pipe, a length of exhaust pipe, old tires, plastic bags... the list goes on. Thankfully no bodies yet. Our previous home had a strange issue where every year, during the winter, we would suddenly be infested with tiny little flies. We were never able to figure out how they got into the house.
posted by Jordan | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:00 am

I hate CAPTCHA!!
posted by Ricky | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:02 am

Our house doesn't have vent fans in the bathrooms, so when one is using the toilet and making ghastly splurting noises, there's no fan to mask the noise (or the smell)!
posted by James | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:04 am

Sound insulation is great, except for from the basement. Somebody on the 2nd floor can easily hear every word of a conversation spoken in the basement. Not easily caught when shopping for a home, because normally, everybody travels in a group, going to all the rooms together.
posted by Kristin | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:14 am

Proximity to boiler room results in massive noise at all times.
posted by nause | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:17 am

We get water in the basement when it rains a lot. Like today. Also, the previous owner painted over wallpaper throughout the entire house.
posted by Miguel | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:21 am

Low water volume. It's not the pressure, but the actual size of the pipes that's the problem... if we turn on a faucet in one room while someone's using a faucet in another room, the volume of water drops to nothing.
posted by Ken Miller | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:24 am

My oven will only open all the way if I open the fridge door first.
posted by Shauvon | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:24 am

Things I shoulda checked when I bought it. 1. The front door didnt shut flush with frame. There was a 1/4 inch gap between door & frame. 2. Faucet in garage wouldnt turn at all. 3. Minor repaining issues. 4. The drain hose for the central ac/heater wasnt installed properly, causing water to leak onto floor. Everything has been fixed, due to this being a brand new house & therefore still under warranty.
posted by Eric S. | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:26 am


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:26 am

Mice get into the kitchen from the dropped ceiling in the beasement below. Also, we discovered that only about half of the bays are properly insulated in the exterior facing walls. We were putting in a sliding door and the contractor found it was only insultated between every OTHER set of studs. Ugh.
posted by Sangfroid | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:26 am

Our house is on a hill without many trees, and the wind is occasionally so strong that it will take down our privacy fence and snap full grown pear trees at the base. Plus our roof has been struck by lightning roughly 8 times in 10 years. I still haven't put a lightning rod up yet >
posted by Joshua | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:27 am

Only one working phone jack in a 2 story house.... and it's in the basement. That's why I never answer the phone.
posted by Kristin | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:29 am

Door to cupboard under attic stairs does not fully close.
posted by JMH | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:31 am

Upstairs neighbors have squeaky floors. I know where they are in their apartment at any moment - and they wake me up at 4:30 am every morning!!!!
posted by Q | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:33 am

Upstairs neighbors recycle cans for a living. Can-washing apparatus overflows and floods their apartment and yours.
posted by Christopher Cox | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:39 am

Light Switches to nowhere. We have 3 of them. We don't know what they control. Our old house had even worse problems, bad wiring, bad HVAC etc... ALWAYS have a home inspected before you buy it.
posted by Brian Taylor | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:45 am

The number of outlets. When we rented one apartment, we didn't notice the obscenely low number of outlets. It didn't help that at least one set of outlets didn't work. In subsequent houses, we at least noted the number. In our current house, we've added several and updated some wiring. Windows. We had to replace all the windows on the third floor of our house. We first started looking at the house in early fall. We knew the windows were old, but we didn't realize how drafty they were. When we were looking, a breeze felt nice. When we moved in, a breeze wasn't so good. Heating. In our house, there are only two radiators on the second floor, and none on the third. We realized it before we bought, but didn't realize how cold those areas were going to get. Replacing windows and adding low energy panel heaters has helped. Also, moisture problems aren't always obvious depending upon the time of year. Looking for prior evidence is good, but you don't know what the current tenants or owners might have cosmetically fixed.
posted by Mark | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:45 am

The "lock" into the basement really isn't a lock because you can unlock it from either side. It's not really a lock; it's more like a delayer. It just slows people down from coming into the basement.
posted by Tom Anderson | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:08 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:08 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:16 pm

Mold in the bathroom
posted by Kabuthunk | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:19 pm

Interior walls are plaster skimcoat over homosote board (3/8 inch thick cardboard).
posted by Henry | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:19 pm

The landlord replaced all the two-prong electrical outlets with 3-prong ones, but they're not grounded at all.
posted by Matt | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:21 pm

wife lives there.
posted by Paul | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:30 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:36 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:39 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:44 pm

The doors don't latch. No hot water pressure in the bathroom sink (hooray for brushing teeth & washing face in with the tub faucet!) Closet smells like cat.
posted by Sam I am not. | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:46 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:46 pm

All the sewage lines are perfectly level, so all the poop just comes right back. It smells like Tacoma in here most of the time.
posted by Sarah | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:47 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:47 pm

There were no kitchen drawers. Just cabinets under the counter.
posted by Dan | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:47 pm

Previous owners let cats and dogs use the family room as a litter box, and failed to mention this before we moved in. The smell alerted us...they must have used a lot of air freshener during the tours...
posted by Kathryn | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:48 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:48 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:49 pm

No roof.
posted by d | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:52 pm

It faces West. Brutal for Arizona summers.
posted by Hodge | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:53 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:53 pm

Wiring in basement was terrible. Light switches with no wires. Junction boxes to no where. Bare telephone wires coming out of the drywall ceiling.
posted by Jim | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:53 pm

Wiring in basement was terrible. Light switches with no wires. Junction boxes to no where. Bare telephone wires coming out of the drywall ceiling.
posted by Jim | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:53 pm

make sure all the windows slide fully open, and more importantly, fully closed!
posted by Jeff Boulier | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:55 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:55 pm

3 little kids living in the upstairs apartment.
posted by Theresa | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:56 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:57 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:58 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 12:59 pm

I live in an apartment where I had the SAME EXACT problem with my cold water. It was either a gently flowing trickle or a torrential rush. Sometimes I would be standing there doing dishes or whatever and suddenly Torrential Rush would come out of nowhere and spew water all over the place. I used to amuse guests with my faucet during parties and gatherings. It was a great hit. I believe all of the units in our building had this problem and finally the landlords attempted to fix the problem. Sometimes a pounding noise sounding like a loud jack hammer would eminate from the walls near my bathroom, supposedly from the pipes from what my neighbors said. I have no idea what caused this or what my landlords were doing, but it was weird, and soon afterwards the Torrential Rush no longer existed. From then on it was gentle flow all the way.
posted by Christine | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:00 pm

Outlets! Outlets are oddly placed. There are not enough of them and they seem to be either 2 feet out of reach or not there at all.
posted by John Cannon | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:00 pm

I just remembered another problem. The guy who lived here before me redid the bathroom. He put in a new toilet and didn't do it right, so the toilet would leak into the bathroom below mine. Had to get a new wax seel put in and fix the downstairs ceiling.
posted by Theresa | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:01 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:05 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:05 pm

test
posted by test | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:05 pm

Dreadlocked roommate can't figure out the concept of paying rent.
posted by Daryl | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:08 pm

It's full of celebrities with distorted faces.
posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:12 pm

The double pane windows are all in need of replacement
posted by Buddy | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:13 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:14 pm

Fan above kitchen stove does not vent outside.
posted by JT | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:15 pm

your capcha is broken, because the result is part of the image url. Any script-kiddie will be able to write a spider to spam your comments if all they have to do is get it out of the star=xxxx url...
posted by hacker | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:21 pm

Electricity is not regulated well.
posted by davedave | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:22 pm

Indoor paint on the outside of the house. You can't really check for this I don't think, but it means you'll have to do a lot of re-painting.
posted by Dan | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:26 pm

Once we removed the wallpaper in the bathroom, we saw why it was wallpapered in the first place. All the walls were smudgy and pockmarked like a 50-year-old man's ass. So we also had to scrub and spackle and sand the walls before painting. D'oh.
posted by Holly | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:28 pm

Leaky dishwasher, faulty thermostat
posted by Martha | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:29 pm

Only two elevators.
posted by Ringo Starr | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:32 pm

Too much cat hair.
posted by Annette | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:39 pm

window that makes a screaming noise in the wind
posted by Joel | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:39 pm

Like a lot of people, i just wanted to see if i could guess the celebrity
posted by James Hannan | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:42 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:42 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:47 pm

It's right next to work so I get disturbed even on my day off. Boo.
posted by Nick | Monday 16th of April 2007 1:51 pm

The first house I "bought" had so many problems, that we began to say we purchased it from "Mr. Wonderful." That's because each time we peeled back a layer of surface material, we would find the underpinnings to be done wrong. For example, we removed the cheap wood paneling in the dining room to find Mr. Wonderful had "improved" the exterior wall by punching basketball-size holes in it and loosely stuffing insulation between the 2x4x -- but he didn't patch/seal the holes! Swiss cheese wall. By the way, your Celebrity Captcha required several refreshes before a recognizable face appeared. Most images had way too much distortion. Considering the human mind's keen and primary ability to recognize faces, that's a lot of distortion.
posted by Tim | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:07 pm

Fungus
posted by Steve | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:10 pm

The previous owners apparently wanted a clothes chute from the upstairs bathroom to the basement. To accomplish this, they cut a rough (and not at all square!) hole in the floor of the upstairs bathroom closet that a small child could fall through and attached a carboard VCR box to it to "direct" the flow of clothing from the hole to a spot in the middle of the basement floor.
posted by Danielle | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:10 pm

No coat closet and a teeny-tiny linen closet!
posted by Linda | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:19 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:20 pm

Curly shingles.
posted by Eric | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:21 pm

leaking roof
posted by rnew | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:29 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:30 pm

When refrigerator door is open, you cannot walk through kitchen (door hits island...)
posted by Lolo | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:33 pm

I have a missing fuse box. I have a room that when the light is on and you unscrew all the fuses in the fuse box in the basement it never goes out. it's a mystery circut.
posted by Chris | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:37 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:38 pm

4 levels means basement is always cold and upstairs is always warm. Two a/c units pretty much doubles your power bill.
posted by Dan | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:40 pm

Pay for your own termite inspection. Seller is motivated to hire an inspector that will sign off on the house being free from termites. Even if it's not.
posted by madmusiciansgirl | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:41 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:46 pm

The kitchen in my first house had 2 drawers in it. My mom's had umpteen thousand, and it never occurred to me to check for that. In my 5 subsequent houses, I have counted drawers.
posted by Phillip B. | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:48 pm

Things.
posted by j2 | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:52 pm

sanjaya
posted by sanjaya | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:57 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:57 pm

Took a 12 month rental on a house with heating supplied through a floor vent/duct work system (uncommon in the UK) Moved in at the end of August so I didn't use the heating straight away. Come October when I switched the heating on, I found that a rabbit had somehow got into the ductworking under the floor and died so when I switched the heating on my whole house was filled with the delightful aroma of hot rotted rabbit carcus.
posted by Rob Powell | Monday 16th of April 2007 2:58 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:00 pm

It doesnt have a 10 lane bowling ally.
posted by Tony Hawk | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:01 pm

that took 25 'refreshes'. the hole in the road outside my bedroom window that some lorries fall into and that then shakes the earth...normally waking me up!!!! About 3.5 on the Richter scale.
posted by mark | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:06 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:11 pm

In addition to the VCR-box-as-clothes-chute thing, the previous owner used floor vents (the drop-in style) as ceiling vents in the basement. I'm not really sure how they stay up there. Sometimes they start to sag out of the hole (again, not square!), and we have to push them back in. We also have several light switches that don't seem to be for anything.
posted by Danielle | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:14 pm

This celebrity CAPTCHA security protocol is horribly inefficient. It requires trivial and irrelevant knowledge on behalf of the commenter in order to engage in communication.
posted by Brandon | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:15 pm

The neighborhood - never move anywhere that won't let you grow tomatoes in your yard.
posted by Frances | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:19 pm

My sister and parents live in it!
posted by Phillip | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:22 pm

(My apartment is the first floor of a house; there's another apartment on the second floor.) Water drains from the roof in front of our entrance. The doorbell at our entrance doesn't work. There are too few electrical outlets. Water leaks into bathroom from the upstairs apartment. Two of the bedrooms don't have built-in closets. The living room is poorly configured; it's difficult to arrange the furniture to be useful without blocking the route through the room. There's a kitchen and a living room, but no dining room, and the kitchen isn't quite big enough for a table. P.S. Your celebrity captcha is easy to defeat, as the name of the celebrity appears in the HTML. :)
posted by Ronald | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:38 pm

Heating Vents are 6 feet off the floor. The top 2 feet of every room are toasty, the rest not so much.
posted by Ian Stubbs | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:46 pm

The deck screen door keeps sliding off the rails.
posted by Jeremy | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:47 pm

there is a 'mail slot' by the front door that lets in on a little grate that looks like a heating grate, inside. It seems nice but in the winter it lets in a lot of cold air and there is no way to seal it. Also, there is only a single gas heater in the middle of the house. Which means either the middle of the house will be too hot, or the exremeties will be too cold. Also the fan in the living room is not enough to keep the house from going above 90 degrees during the summer when you are not home. Oh and the fridge periodically makes a repetetive gronching noise all night long, but isn't actually broken.
posted by Leperflesh | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:51 pm

We have a carport, but the driveway is only one lane. I leave for work before my wife but she gets home later than I do so 90% of the time she is behind me when I leave in the morning. Jockeying the cars around every day really sucks.
posted by Bill B. | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:54 pm

Kitchen is way to small, not enough counter space, and the line of travel goes through the work triangle.
posted by Matt | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:55 pm

Carpet is hard to clean.
posted by Matt | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:55 pm

There are box elder beatles everywhere
posted by Matt | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:56 pm

Nothing during Fall, Winter and Spring...but in Summer, THE CENTIPEDES COME OUT!!! They're huge, fast, and horrible. Its like living in an episode of Man vs. Wild! Well, not really THAT bad, but they always come when you least expect it, and that means increases in laundry expenditures.
posted by Mike | Monday 16th of April 2007 3:57 pm

It has nothing to do with water pressure, but I guess there is sediment in the pipes so we don't get a lot of water at once and you can't do two things with water at the same time like wash dishes and laundry, or flush the toilet and wash your hands. It sucks. Also, somewhere in the disclosure for my house it said something about the basement getting "damp" during heavy rains. I wish I knew that this person's definition of "damp" and my definition of "flooded" were the same thing.
posted by special k | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:08 pm

Light to the bathroom is outside the room itself. My brother likes to turn it off in the middle of the night whilst I'm occupying it.
posted by Fanny | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:11 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:15 pm

My room in the winter is extremely cold, and in the summer it never cools down. Nothing I've done has solved the problem.
posted by Will | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:17 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:17 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:17 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:19 pm

The previoue owner of the house refinished the hardwood floors, but only the floor that was not covered by rugs! Needless to say, we didn't think to lift up the rugs and check the floor underneath when we looked at the house. We haven't been able to buy a carpet yet for one upstiars bedroom, so there is still a big ugly square of un-refinished floor that is a lot darker and not as shiny as the refinished floor.
posted by Annie | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:19 pm

Not enough electrical outlets. And some that are there are not grounded! Oh, and the CAPTCHAs idea sucks.
posted by Robot B9 | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:20 pm

Landlord put a timed thermostat inside the wall, so the heat turns off from 10AM to 5PM then again from 11PM to 6AM. Needless to say, it gets very very cold.
posted by Mikey | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:24 pm

Woke up with my sock frozen to the wall. There's no insulation in the exterior walls.
posted by Mikey | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:27 pm

Every in the house is on motion sensors. we have to use cardboard over the sensors, or when you roll around in your sleep the lights turn on.
posted by Mikey | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:28 pm

The back porch fell off
posted by Mikey | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:28 pm

The power in half of the house blows if you run the toaster and the microwave, and sometimes just when the refrigerator turns on. Wouldn't be terrible if we could get to the breaker, but the basement is locked. we have to remove the door everytime we need to reset the breaker, or call the landlord and wait for up to a week for a response.
posted by Mikey | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:32 pm

Mushrooms growing in the bathroom when we got there. by the way, if you use the back button, the stupid CAPTCHA thing doesn't reset. you can find someone you recognize and just go back and keep posting
posted by Mikey | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:35 pm

There's a body buried under the floorboards and I can still hear its heart beating. Also, the toilet seat hinge is broken.
posted by Edgar Allen P. | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:35 pm

Small, narrow deep shelves in the kitchen leading to pan stacking crisis', swearing at the inability to see past more than one bowl at a time, complete disemboweling and reboweling whenever we want to get something that isn't at the very front, missing items that only get found during said disemboweling and a lot of very loud and very annoying pot and pan banging noises accompanying all that.
posted by Eleanor | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:36 pm

landlords suck. they own about 30 houses, 15 of which haven't been reported as unliveable yet. I live in one of those 15. If I report it, I can get kicked out by city housing authority. Just waiting out my sentence. Only 3 months left!!!
posted by Mikey | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:37 pm

I could write a novel about what is wrong with my house. The driveway needs to be replaced. The wood deck needs to be replaced, the rear patio and retaining wall needs to be replaces, loose bricks and morter in the front, moles in the yard, spotty grass, treestumps that have proven impossible to remove 5 years running, leak around the chimney, tacky wall paneling downstairs, partially unfinished downstairs, old and cracked patio door, no deadbolt on front door, window trim and garage doors need to be painted, garage door opener sticks, water heater leaks and needs to be replaced, downstairs shower does not drain fast enough, leading to occasional leakage all over bathroom floor, ants, sticky toilet handle downstairs, cracked windows (multiple), leaky grout upstairs means no showering in that bathroom, upstairs bathroom needs to be redone, kitchen cabinets, countertop, flooring needs to be replaces, no dishwasher, hardwood floors needs to be refinished, attic fan needs work, all rooms (with the exception of by bedroom) need to be repainted, dated light fixtures, new front screen door for front door, no handle on rear screen door, landscaping issues (broken/lopsided pavers, need to get the ducts cleaned (dust bunny galore) replace most window treatments, repair chimney cap, improve drainage around house/plant grass in those areas, die a somewhat peaceful death before I will ever have a shot at attacking most of these issues.
posted by Monday 16th of April 2007 2:37 pm | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:37 pm

the fact that there's only one, circa 1950, bathroom, with only yea* space between the door, sink, and tub. (*where 'yea'= 20 inches)
posted by nina | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:39 pm

1.5 square feet of counter space in the kitchen. No room for anything
posted by Mikey | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:40 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:43 pm

squirrels and mice coexisting in the walls
posted by Mikey | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:44 pm

toilet clogs at least once a month
posted by Mikey | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:45 pm

I died in it, and am still dead to this day.
posted by Fear | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:46 pm

only one bathroom, and that one is attached to the kitchen.
posted by Mikey | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:46 pm

Some outlets float at 20-70 volts instead of 120v. After moving up the bathroom mirror so I could see my head, I found the sponge-paint didn't cover where the mirror was. Oh, and Celebrity Captcha is a terrible idea, just terrible.
posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:51 pm

The outlets in all but one room arent three pronged, or grounded. Didnt notice until I tried to plug things in when moving in.
posted by Delia | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:54 pm

Behind the siding, layers of plastic sheets to keep rain out were overlapped backwards. So, instead, they trapped rain in the walls and against the house to mold.
posted by Ken | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:56 pm

I'm seriously just testing your new feature....
posted by Testah | Monday 16th of April 2007 4:59 pm

The faucets in the middle floor bathroom are too far away from the drain; it is hard to wash your hands.
posted by You | Monday 16th of April 2007 5:19 pm

We've lived here for almost 2 years now and there are still glow-in-the dark stars on the ceiling from the previous owners.
posted by Emily | Monday 16th of April 2007 5:28 pm

Only 2 windows...tiny doorways...Extensive unnecessary hallways
posted by Miriah | Monday 16th of April 2007 5:28 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 5:35 pm

I swear the previous owners switched the fridge / stove. When we looked at the house, it all looked fine, but after we moved in, I discovered that 3 burners didn't work and the fridge was missing the railings that hold the food on the door. Plus I could actually see the cold air from the freezer pouring into the fridge part. We had to buy new appliances right away. One more: Before my husband and I got married, he rented a garage apartment and shared the garage space below with the people renting the house. The people in the house stored stacks and stacks of grain in the garage. This attracted mice. The mice got brave and ventured upstairs to the apartment. Why did these people have stacks and stacks of grain? Because they were preparing for armeggedon. Seriously.
posted by emby | Monday 16th of April 2007 5:44 pm

the toilet doesn't flush everything down. what a pain.
posted by zappa | Monday 16th of April 2007 5:47 pm

No outside water spicket to attach a hose to.
posted by Brad Berard | Monday 16th of April 2007 5:52 pm

Rob, sounds like you're dealing with water hammer at mid valve. Try adjusting your supply line valve, assuming you've got one.
posted by Rick | Monday 16th of April 2007 5:56 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 5:57 pm

Love the Captchas, baby! Good to see Telly Savalas again....
posted by Kojak | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:01 pm

the front door doesn't close all the way.
posted by Paul | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:15 pm

It's impossible to make a left turn out of the parking lot.
posted by Dustin | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:20 pm

The main floor is lower than the grade, so it floods when it rains too much.
posted by Cranky | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:24 pm

Also, the file location isn't very obfuscatory, though I don't recognise any of these retards. http://www.cockeyed.com/personal/house/hat2.php?star=michaelmoore
posted by Cranky | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:29 pm

No shower water pressure, scalding hot sink, no window insulation.
posted by 7b | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:44 pm

Our apartment shares a wall with the garbage shoot and the elevator, there is constant noise all hours of the day and night.
posted by Sarah | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:48 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:51 pm

Your faucet is so FAKE FAKE FAKE
posted by Jake | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:52 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:55 pm

i live with one hell of a bitch-ass roommate. P.S. these celebrity captchas are too hard to deduce.
posted by goldscott | Monday 16th of April 2007 6:58 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:18 pm

as well as the carpet allergy, my appartment has mostly 2 prong outlets, and the toilet seat slides fairly far to the right with the slightest movement or if you don't sit down completely level. it surprises me every time it happens. i'd tighten the screws, but the cooties involved in opening the flaps that cover the screws creeps me out too much. There are little slits at the hinges, and i can SEE the dirt!!! so gross.
posted by bridge | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:19 pm

The cable is hooked up on the wall directly across from a wall of floor to ceiling windows. There is a glare on the TV for about 12 hours per day.
posted by Sarah | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:20 pm

The walls of my apartment have slowly filled up with black mold.
posted by Stu | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:22 pm

Incredibly rude noisey neighbors who blast bass, or better yet, screa obscenities at each other all night. Mold, terrible parking, retarded landlord, faulty electrical outlets, leaky shower....... I am moving in two weeks
posted by Cara in Ma | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:22 pm

You should just buy a place instead of leasing, leasing/renting = dead money whereas paying a mortgage is essentially paying yourself. that said, the market sucks right now but so does throwing money away.
posted by Larry | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:24 pm

My plaster walls are falling apart. My basement floods.
posted by Beth | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:28 pm

Leaky windows. Baseboard heating.
posted by Jay Silcox | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:30 pm

its old
posted by joseph | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:32 pm

its old
posted by joseph | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:32 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:33 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:33 pm

Spider Cricket infestation.
posted by Katie | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:38 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:47 pm

skunks!
posted by Bobbo | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:47 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:49 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:50 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 7:52 pm

water temp alternates between boiling and freezing in 6-second increments while showering.
posted by squid | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:12 pm

Be sure and look for shoddy workmanship. Especially in a case where someone bought the house and fixed it up themselves. We have a lot of areas in our bathrooms that have peeling tape that should have never been there in the first place. If the kind of tape that people put up to protect corners when painting. It should have been taken down before the jobs were finished, but instead were painted over and are now peeling, reveling ugly lines that need to be painted over *again*.
posted by Chris | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:17 pm

Some poor sap who buys my house in 3 years when I'm off to medical school will have to figure out what the hell to do with a 800Lbs (empty) soda vending machine. Thank you E-bay. Don't know how the hell I managed to get it into the middle of my house, but I sure as hell cant get it out.
posted by EMSBrian | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:32 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:38 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:48 pm

I wouldn't know who the celebrities were even if they WEREN'T scrambled. Could you use the numbers and letters that everybody else uses?? My house has a chinaberry tree. I HATE IT. There is no season free of crap raining down on my patio from this tree. No season free of tracking in nasty little mushberries or hard bits that you always find barefooted.
posted by Holly | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:51 pm

Our livingroom floor is uneven. From the front windows to the back wall there are three distinct areas with a "dip" at each join, and each section is itself subtley sloping. Always bring a marble or something to test floors -- it's not only annoying, it points out foundation problems.
posted by AngiePen | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:53 pm

the doorbell is broken, the oven is broken, the bidet was broken (it's fixed now), I have racoons, and the front porch is falling off. Fortunately the rent is quite inexpensive.
posted by Jody | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:54 pm

Wow. That captcha is almost impossible with the wavy effects crap in it.
posted by we4tgrbhtrfher | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:54 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:55 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:57 pm

Have you checked that the valve for the cold water on the faucet is opened all the way. It could also have an obstruction in it. The problem is called a water hammer and can be fixed. Ask your landlord. Now for the problems: -A fireplace that is HORRIBLY drafty during the winter when temps get below 30 degrees. Hard to check this when you buy the house in the spring. It was one of the main reasons we sold the house. -A roofline that holds snow and ice in an area an creates ice dams. The ice dams then cause water to back up into the house. I made sure to look carefully at the roof design on our new house. -Don't live too close to a creek that has the potential for flooding. We didn't have any problems in the four years I lived there but I was very nervous the whole time. And remember, sometime, some day, there will be a horrible rain and it is going to flood. Its not a a question of IF, its a question of WHEN. I could probably go on but I'll leave it at that. Good luck with the faucet
posted by Stangbat | Monday 16th of April 2007 8:59 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:15 pm

My parents live in it!!!
posted by nichelson | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:22 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:25 pm

Front door locks from the inside but doesn't unlock.
posted by Alex | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:26 pm

Whenever it rains, water leaks out from under the baseboard in the living room.
posted by Butterbeans Murphy | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:32 pm

This guy Rob Cockerham used to live in it before me and now it smells like whiny mangina.
posted by The Insultor | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:37 pm

When it's cold outside, it's cold upstairs but comfortable downstairs. When it's hot outside, it's way too hot upstairs, but comfortable downstairs. Of course my room is upstairs...
posted by Aylon | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:38 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:39 pm

Roots in the sewer pipes--leads to clogging and frequent roto-rooter visits. You have to have a plumber run a video camera through the pipes to find the problem, and that's expensive. Outdoor ciruit breaker box for AC, dryer and main house power--the breakers themselves age faster from the outdoor heat/cold, and start to trip long before maximum load is reached, requiring replacement. Property line surprise--turns out we own the alley behind our fence, so I have to keep the grass mowed and trees trimmed so the power company has 'unrestricted access'.
posted by Zzakk | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:40 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:40 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:41 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:42 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:46 pm

the house we're renting how is next to a creek and the basement has flooded (though not while we've been here) and is unfinished.. the porch was added on half-assed. it slants pretty badly and the windows are junk. the windows in the rest of the house are very old and very drafty. insulation isn't good. central heat and air don't work that well. my room is cut off from the rest of the hvac and there's an electric heater in here. good for winter, bad for summer. the doors are old and most don't shut or lock well or at all. some doors stick. creeky stairs and floors. oven and some drawers can't be open at the same time. circuits blow when using the dishwasher and space heater. mostly two-pronged electrical outlets. dumb spots for light switches (on the wrong side of the door). upstairs shower has leaked down into the kitchen. water takes too long to get hot. windows have been painted and won't open. overhead heater doesn't work in the bathroom. roommates can't do dishes for some reason. garage is unattached. toilet runs a lot. someone put a pigeon feeder on the top of the house at one point and they are still around, making noise you can hear through the roof. and rent is too high. all of which I don't have to worry about anymore in two months.
posted by derek | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:46 pm

Water heater on far side of house means takes a couple minutes to get hot water at the other end. Would be nice if it was more centrally located. I would also make sure the central A/C unit and blower is not near the bedrooms. Tends to be noisy and wakes up light sleepers when it kicks on and off. The kitchen seems to be 'left handed' The counterspace doesn't flow correctly from the fridge to the range to the sink. Would help if the garbage disposal was in the right basin of the sink as well.
posted by Bill M. | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:52 pm

The foundation of the house has a crack in it, causing water to be able to seep up into the house and into the carpet, causing a less-than-desireable smell when it gets hot outside.
posted by Brian | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:55 pm

okay, seriously, I have no idea who that cowboy hat guy is
posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 9:59 pm

Not enough closet space!
posted by Spike | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:08 pm

testing captcha
posted by lindsay lohan | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:30 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:31 pm

Theres a small half bath on the first floor between the kitchen and the living room. It's convenient if you're running in and need to pee, however when entertaining, no one needs to loudly hear grandpa squeezing out one.
posted by Alex | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:46 pm

It's much harder to keep it clean than I thought it would be.
posted by Spike | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:46 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 10:47 pm

Master bedroom light switch controls outlet, not light... VCR is plugged into outlet, so don't flip the switch when we're recording something!
posted by Gerad | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:05 pm

back door is an irregular size, so to get a screen for it we would have to have it custom built. also the 2 windows in our front room do not open. i could keep going.
posted by michelle | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:10 pm

Its only a rental, but our driveway & garage flood whenever it rains (we're in New England, so yesterday was fun.)
posted by Mike | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:15 pm

Captcha has GOT to be a joke
posted by Bubba | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:15 pm

No gold bricks hidden in the walls. Contractor could not be bothered to add 1" to his miserable guess as to what a clothes dryer should measure.
posted by Travis | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:23 pm

Horrible sheetrock patches, and 1/2 water lines = no pressure.
posted by KZ | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:34 pm

One room is very very obviously crooked. At first I thought the window frame was crooked. And then I realized the entire wall was slanting off to the left. Shoddy workmanship, blah!
posted by Alyssa | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:50 pm

One room is very very obviously crooked. At first I thought the window frame was crooked. And then I realized the entire wall was slanting off to the left. Shoddy workmanship, blah!
posted by Alyssa | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:50 pm

The grating on my heating vent refuses to close all the way, so my dorm room gets enough heat to supply approximately half of the residence hall. Also, my window has a bizarre sliding configuration that prevents me from opening more than a six-inch gap. Yes, it's a bit warm in here.
posted by Amy | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:51 pm


posted by | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:53 pm

The stupid baseboard heater in the bathroom doesn't work. I moved in on the 4th of July... who would've thought to check the bathroom heater? But in the winter, that's the one room I WANT to be warm. Cold toilet seats suck.
posted by Dustin Dopps | Monday 16th of April 2007 11:53 pm

The Apartment I live in now has a funky floor plan and there is no where to put a dinner table. We eat at the breakfast bar or at out coffee table for all meals. Also our heat is louder than a hughey helicopter. You can't hear anything when it goes on.
posted by Cody | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 12:00 am

Painted over wallpaper in the bathroom, no doorstops.
posted by Tahamaki | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 12:26 am

The water pressure is fine except for the shower I checket the tap pressure but not the shower. The house is semi detatched. The previous neigbour was great but it is what we call a state-house (owned by the government and rented to peopel who have no home) so it has a fairly high turnover and the current resident is a rough bloke (he kicked a hole in the fence). I upgraded from a little to a large car and now the drive is a tight fit.
posted by Paul | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 12:30 am

the kids below
posted by Jimmy Pop | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 12:46 am

light switch roulette, 5 light switches control the hall light, but if one is out of sync, you can't turn on the lights at all til you figure out which one is wrong.
posted by Heather | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 12:54 am

It is haunted by an old lady, that keeps grabbing my boobs D:
posted by Zira | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 1:02 am

The over-stove "exhaust" vent isn't actually connected to the outdoors-- It just blows smokey air back in my face.
posted by Porkchop | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 1:02 am

The main thing wrong with my house is that it is full with my family..... In all seriousness, the doors creak and the slightest wind makes them move. The door jams aren't quite right and the toliet paper holder in the bathroom is coming apart from the wall. Plus there is not enough walls (its a very open plan house) and sound travels to well so there is no privacy. The images in the Celebrity CAPTCHAs is too hard to intrepret sometimes, it took me forever to find one that I recongnized and knew the names of.
posted by Koeniou | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 1:10 am

My old house had a water problem like you described. Your banging noise might be a 'water hammer' caused from the air chambers being full of water. If so, it is absurdly easy to fix. You just have to drain the water from the pipes and let them refill. First turn off the hot water feed above the hot water heater. You do not need to drain the hot water tank, just the pipes. Turn off the water to the house and open all the taps. Reverse the procedure then check each tap. House problem: Ants in the summer, mice in the winter, and once, porcupines in the basement. The bear was not really a house problem but a car problem (scratched the paint.) Lose the Celebrity CAPTCHAs thing. It does not serve you. I had to do five reloads to recognize one. (King Tut, I got lucky.)
posted by Gary | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 1:34 am

Nine outlets. Eight rooms.
posted by damon | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 1:36 am

leaky windows
posted by sean | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 1:44 am

bathroom window (the only one) is rusted shut. my cabinets literally have clover growing in them from all the moisture. that, and it smells like a sock even after a gallon of bleach.
posted by michelle | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 1:46 am

WLAN black hole
posted by pops | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 2:13 am

No circulation
posted by Johno | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 2:43 am

Shallow cabinets lack of storage space hot water doesn't last..
posted by VodkaB | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 3:48 am

There are several things wrong with my apartment, but I'd actually just like to say that the celebrity thing is waaaay too distorted, and as someone who doesn't have an encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture it's a real drag to have to refresh five or ten times before you get one you think you might know. Plus, if you get it wrong even a little bit, your comment goes away! Two thumbs down, Rob.
posted by Superman. | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 4:57 am

The celebrity captchas are clearly a clever lampoon of those ubiquitous image-based spam filters that provide the average internet-goer with so many minutes of frustration. Kudos to Rob for his droll wit.
posted by Smarter than Superman | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 5:04 am

Yeah, well...ZAP!
posted by Superman | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 5:04 am

AAAAGGGHH THE HEAT VISION IS MELTING MY SKIN SUCH THAT I RESEMBLE THE CELEBRITIES IN CELEBRITY CAPTCHAASDKJHASDLKJHSADKJHDL.
posted by Smarter than Superman | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 5:06 am

B*tches betta reckanize.
posted by Superman | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 5:07 am

Erm... are your captchas for real? It doesn't really work if I can just look at the image source. I have to agree with the idea of scribbling all over pictures of Paris Hilton though.
posted by Josh | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 5:41 am

when i first started renting my current accommodations, i neglected to ask the previous tenants how much heating and other utilities were. little did i know the low rent was offset by very high utility costs. if i had known this i would have chosen another accommodation with a higher rent but with utilities included, which would result in a lower cost per month regardless. but, alas, i am stuck here for the remainder of my lease, which is fortunately not too much longer. i have definitly learned my lesson
posted by Don | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 5:53 am

not enough kitchen counter space; not enough phone jacks
posted by Kitty | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 7:00 am

Copious amounts of lead paint.
posted by Christina | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 7:12 am

It's in the middle of nowhere.
posted by Adam | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 7:18 am


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 7:19 am

My (very small) apartment and the one on the side share the same vents for kitchen ventilation. This makes so that when the next door neighbour smokes, my apartment smells like an ashtray.
posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 7:42 am

The built-in microwave freaks out and starts beeping randomly. Recognizing some of the celebrities in the CAPTCHA thing is very difficult. It would be trivial for me to write a script that would scrape the celeb name from your HTML source and send you spam. You should encode the name or something.
posted by Don Spidell | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 7:52 am

Upstairs floor/ our ceiling is very very very very SQUEAKY!!!! PS I'm not liking the celeb CAPTCHAs. I had to refresh till I saw Jesus before I recognized anyone.
posted by Rage | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 8:09 am

One of the kitchen lights will randomly turn on and off every 20-30 minutes if left on too long.
posted by Toni | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 8:11 am

Our bathroom door makes farting noises as it closes.
posted by jed | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 8:24 am

god the celebrity capthca is pretty much the gayest invention since gay anal sex
posted by talby | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 8:27 am

It lacks grounded electrical outlets in some of the rooms, and some of the wiring wasn't up to code. Wiring was fixed fairly easily, but running a ground wire through walls to existing outlets is not going to be pretty.
posted by Palad | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 8:31 am

banging water pipes...damn trapped air
posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:03 am

I live in a one bedroom apartment. The complex is about 5 years old and very nice, but the one bedrooms are poorly designed. It seems when they planned them, they forgot to put in room for a washer and dryer, so instead of forcing the residents to use the laundry room at the club house, they decided to extend the closet in the bathroom back a few feet to accommodate one of those stand up washer/dryer combo things. Unfortunately, now I don't have a logical place to put things like towels. Also, the loss of space in the bedroom because of extending out the "laundry closet", and the funky angled wall on the other side of the bedroom for the built in entertainment center, I have about a foot on either side of a queen sized bed to get into the bedroom (Glad I don't have a king). They also put a 4 plug electric socket BEHIND where the bathroom door opens (on the outside of the laundry closet). There really isn't anything that can be plugged in there because the door would open into it. The light switch for the spacious walk in closet is behind the door when it is open, outside of the closet. It's not a big deal, but with all of the other bad placement of electrical outlets it's just something else that pisses me off every time I gotta reach behind the door to get to it.
posted by Notme | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:08 am

just wanna play the captcha game
posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:11 am


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:21 am


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:27 am


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:28 am

I do NOT understand the heating/cooling system. There are radiators throughout (some seem to work some of the time, but I was told they were all disabled), central air and forced hot air installed, two sets of baseboard heaters in the master with two separate thermostats, a thermostat upstairs that I have been unable to connect to anything, and a thermostat downstairs that controls the central air system which has NO on/off switch or AC/HEAT switch.
posted by the girl | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:34 am

There is no main shut off at the well tank. So when your parents back over a hose bib in your yard, you have 300 gallons of water surrounding your "white trash" themed party and no flushing toilets.
posted by scott holden | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:38 am

When we run the central air, condensation from the air conditioner causes a drip inside a wall. A drip that cannot be stopped unless we tear out dry wall. And we live in Phoenix, so the air runs 9 months out of the year. Try sleeping with a constant, unreachable drip, drip, drip.
posted by david w | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:49 am

The shower pressure is awful, about the same as your tap (sorry, faucet) on the low setting. Other than that, there's nothing much I can think of.
posted by Adam | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:49 am


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:50 am

Wasp nests in the heating system kept it from kicking on. Not discovered until winter, of course.
posted by B R | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:53 am

Big piles of bat guano on the floor.
posted by Vlad | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 11:04 am


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 11:04 am

There was a leak in the shower at the base of the tile, which caused water to run under the wall into the next bathroom. Nobody knew this until I started replacing the flooring in the other bathroom, and tried to find out why the subflooring was rotten. Also, there were micro-cracks inside of the chimney. We can't light a fire without replacing the chimney or putting a chimney pipe in through the existing chimney.
posted by Nat | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 11:06 am

Your CAPTCHAs suck! I don't know nothing about those "celebrities".
posted by Man! | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 11:07 am

Sewage Backup
posted by Vintage Caveman | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 11:21 am

Chuds.
posted by www.DaddyZero.Com | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 11:28 am

Fire!
posted by Bjorn Mandersohn | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 11:40 am

I have the same exact problem with the hot water in my house.
posted by Sam | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 11:48 am


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 11:59 am

The glass door in the front wont close all the way, so we can never leave the front door open to let in the natural light
posted by Kasey | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 12:01 pm

My sister, my parents in I, live in a townhouse complex. The people directly behind us leave their dog out for almost an hour at a time, so it is out there barking for about 45 minutes until someone lets it in. Also, we live near an elemenatry school, so all day we hear little kids yelling and screaming. Plus, the many children that live near us, use my parent's cars to play hide and seek behind and ride their little bicycles beside them, which leaves really big scratches.
posted by Chris | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 12:06 pm

Front porch was built on cinderblocks with no foundation. NO insulation at all in the entire house- we live in Michigan!!!!
posted by Susan | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 12:08 pm

My water heater is in my bedroom closet
posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 12:13 pm

New windows that only look good but are REALLY drafty in the winter. The Celebrity Captcha thing is much easier after you view the image properties.
posted by Steve | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 12:17 pm

Ants
posted by Mike | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 12:18 pm

- The light switches are about two feet in from the doorway, making one have to reach for them, but more annoyingly, making it impossible to hang artwork on center. One switch is smack in the middle of the wall. - CHECK HOW YOUR YARD IS GRADED!!! Because I'm at the bottom of the street, and how mine and everyone else's yards are graded, when it rains, all that water rushes down through my yard. I barely looked at the yard before I bought it, and now i'll spend thousands to get a retaining wall built. Good idea, Rob.
posted by Tim - Richmond, VA | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 12:34 pm

I have newspaper in the walls for insulation -- old house. By the way, you might want to check the gasket on that faucet.
posted by B | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 12:49 pm

seriously, wtf is up with these pics? could you pick more random people?
posted by your mom | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 12:52 pm

The celebrity list features Tom Cruise, Oprah, Cher, Bono and Madonna.
posted by Rob Cockerham | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 12:56 pm

Every now and again, my shower head will give off this high-pitched scream that makes my head feel like it'll explode. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to when it happens, but it's never a pleasant surprise. Also, in the winter months, the temperature will fluctuate from scalding to ice cold, with seemingly no middle ground.
posted by Zach | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 12:58 pm

Rotten exterior wood molding around the windows
posted by Chris Fitzgerald | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 1:06 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 1:14 pm

The water pressure is just too high. Running the garden hose makes the walls rattle. However, I can admit that a drenching shower feels great.
posted by David Pecenco | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 1:17 pm

My neighbor's trees drop pine cones and mullberries all over my lawn, leaving his own lawn untouched. He's a really nice guy and I don't have the heart to tell him.
posted by Phil | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 1:25 pm

My deck smells like dog pee
posted by J | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 1:30 pm

House was previously owned by an electrician, who did a 3 room addition without pulling permits! Many of the features he added are cool, like outside lights that automatically turn on. But there are a lot of things that are totally lame, like doors that are not plumb and will not stay open on their own. There is also a light switch that for the life of me I can't figure out what it does - probably makes the neighbor's garage door go up and down.
posted by Cory | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 1:34 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 1:37 pm

Rented a house with what we thought was a closet in the damp old unfurnished basement. Seemed kinda funny to have a closet in a basement that would be used primarily for storage, but we really didn't care because we weren't going to use the basement anyway. Opened the door on move in day to find it had a brand new toilet installed in it. There was no sink down here or anything that would indicate this being turned into a full bathroom at some point... the walls didn't even go up to the ceiling. Awkward.
posted by Dr. Brian | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 1:39 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 1:49 pm

Gerbil infestation. Admittedly, this is partly my fault.
posted by haha | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 2:19 pm

During the building process a part of our lawn was contaminated with spilt chemicals from a porta-potty, therefore no grass grows there despite many soil changes and tilling. The lawn is technically part of the house anyway.
posted by Kevin Kochan | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 2:19 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 2:20 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 2:20 pm

1. Began Leasing in Winter, bushes grew exponentially during summer and became entangled with the service line running to the house. 2. Dead bodies in attic 3. Pothead neighbors planted marijuana in wifes garden
posted by Nathan | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 2:24 pm

Not too much. Slanty floors in the only decent places to put bookshelves, which mean the bookshelves are in weird places (like the kitchen) while there's vast areas that you can't put furniture in. Landlord put a lucite box over our thermostat so we can't touch it. Stairs very narrow (I still don't know how we got the couches in.) Also possibly haunted.
posted by Mirj | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 2:35 pm

Freezing cold tile in the bathroom, regardless of the temperature outside
posted by Marc | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 2:36 pm

We lived in a late 1880's house in Colorado. The chimney was not up to code and cost several hundred dollars to have it lined, capped and have a flue custom built. Also the walls were plaster instead of sheet rock, so hanging pictures created a huge mess and big holes in the walls.
posted by Trint | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 2:41 pm

P.S. I had to google the spelling of "telly savalas"
posted by Trint | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 2:41 pm

P.P.S. Once you get the right celeb, you can use the back button to spam comments.
posted by Trint | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 2:42 pm

Air conditioner is way too loud, and not very effective.
posted by Joe | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 2:48 pm

The bedroom window is horribly bent and takes several minutes to coax open. I hope I don't die in a fire...
posted by Kathy | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 2:50 pm

When we first moved in our house, our sink had no u-bend.
posted by samantha | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 2:51 pm

Our house attracts wildlife. Squirrels have gotten in and died on a bed, birds have fluttered around petrified until we can shoo them out, and mice! Oh the MICE! A professional company came out to seal up entry points and set traps and the mice *ate* their way back through some of the sealed entry points!
posted by Lisa Hart | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 2:58 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 2:59 pm

No doorknobs...you would think we'd notice that when we looked at the house!
posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 3:12 pm

When we moved in, one of the basement walls was caving in, and 2 of the others had massive cracks in them. The previous owner drywalled over everything to cover it up. We didn't find out until the basement flooded after a weekend of heavy rain.
posted by Marc | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 3:47 pm

In my house there are two rooms that face the west, it is unbelivably cold in those two rooms in the winter in comparison to other rooms in the house.
posted by Ariel Dotan | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 4:06 pm

Ugly roomates
posted by Russ | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 4:07 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 4:09 pm

Nothing... I just like the CAPTCHAs. I think this is the first one I have been able to actually get out of about 10.
posted by Jim | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 4:11 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 4:14 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 4:19 pm

The washing machine sucks out more water than the line can hold, so I have to lift and lower the lid during spin cycles or else my garage floods.
posted by Kathie | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 4:36 pm

Crazy taps that just spin round and around you try and turn them on.
posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 4:36 pm

Well the landlord's probably my biggest problem... one of the creepiest men I've seen in awhile.. but we've got the works: potholes in the floor, sloping ceilings, gaps around outside doors.. it's a utility trap.
posted by Lindsay | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 4:40 pm

Not enough water pressure
posted by Scott | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 4:46 pm

Cold water pressure WAY higher than hot water pressure due to decades of mineralization in hot water pipes.
posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 4:50 pm

Other people, who happen to be chainsmokers, live in it for another month before we (finally) get to closing.
posted by Tbone | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 4:58 pm

Crazy landlord who builds random partial fences.
posted by Charlie | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 5:04 pm

Thought I'd add a few from the house I rented with some friends in college. The place must have been at least 80-100 years old. The landlord proudly pointed out that it was the house he grew up in, and that he did all the "maintenance" and "upgrades" himself. I put those in quotes for good reason. The single, tiny bathroom (for 4 bedrooms) was clearly added on next to the kitchen as an afterthought. The drain under the kitchen sink constantly leaked despite the landlord coming out to "fix" it several times. The kitchen floor had some major sagging. The windows were all original, single panes, that were either painted shut or didn't fit flush when closed. He had thankfully replaced the old fusebox with a modern circuit breaker box. Unfortunately, there weren't enough circuits for the house, and none of the outlets were grounded. So, for instance, if I was using my computer in my bedroom and someone tried to use the microwave in the kitchen, it would trip a breaker and cut power to half the house. I eventually worked around this by running my computer to an outlet in the living room with an extension cord. Still, I was always afraid that a surge would fry my equipment. There was very little insulation, combined with the drafty windows, meaning we had to keep the heat on full blast during winter months to keep from freezing. Unfortunately, that didn't stop the drain in the shower from freezing shut and backing up.
posted by Jordan | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 5:06 pm

The outside is on the inside. Causes all sorts of trouble and privacy issues.
posted by Manky | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 5:25 pm

I refreshed a few times just to try to guess the celebrity!
posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 5:27 pm

Finally! I recognized one of the celebrities! Oh, yeah, and I don't live in a house.
posted by Bono | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 5:46 pm

The cupboards all have fence hinges on the outside of the doors because the wood is non-existent due to all the screws that have previously been in and out. The knuckle head before us refused to replace the rotted out wood and simply ruined everything with cheap generic hardware found in the local grocery store. Causing us to replace everything!
posted by ryan | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 5:47 pm

our house is on a low spot in the block, and every year when the snow melts our front sidewalk and much of the lawn are submerged up to 4 inches.
posted by jesse | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 5:47 pm

Just wanted to see how it worked
posted by Captcha | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 6:05 pm

No mailbox. None. Not in the entry way, not on a post in the front yard. Nothing.
posted by Sandow | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 6:35 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 6:46 pm

testing captcha... the name on the properties is tomcruz, it's actually tom cruise... is this a trick to throw people off ? Tom Cruise doesn't work, but Tom Cruz does. No wonder people are having a hard time !
posted by testing | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 6:50 pm

Bats decided to roost under my wood deck. They weren't around when I bought the house in the winter.
posted by Alex | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 6:50 pm

When the living room heater is on, it smells like socks!
posted by dave | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 6:50 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 7:06 pm

The little shit that lived in the house before us broke the door handle on the spare bedroom so you could only turn the knob from the inside, not the out. We found this out the night we put our puppy in the spare bedroom because he wouldn't stop whining. At 1:30 in the morning my boyfriend was banging at the door frame because we couldn't get in... That was fun Also, the people took their appliances with them. When we went to hook up the water to the washer, one of the faucet's was leaking from the handle. The faucet was soddered to the pipe which made for another fun project and added another week to us not having a washer after a month. They previous owners left us 15 sandbags, 2 tires, a box full of garbage on our back patio, a field of dog crap in the back yard and a BUNCH of old paint that we had to dispose of.
posted by Julia | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 7:07 pm

everything
posted by thomas | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 7:10 pm

Having just bought my first house, having only lived in apartments since I moved out, I didn't know exactly what to look for. I do now, after having to do some fairly expensive upgrades. Structurally, the house is excellent, but since it was built mid 60s, it lacked much insulation. I'm in Columbus, and we have some pretty cold winters. My attic had about 1-2 inches of insulation (you're supposed to have roughly a foot or more), and 9 single pane, aluminum frame, 40 year old windows. $800 for insulation, $4,500 for windows (double-paned, low-E, argon filled), and we're looking at around $250 or so to replace the hollow-core front door with no weather stripping. Don't be put off by simple cosmetic stuff. The house had all original electric outlets and switches, dingy, and very clunky. Extremely easy (and cheap) to change out yourself. You'd be surprised how new outlets, switches, and plate covers "modernize" an old house. Old houses often don't have overhead lighting in the rooms, so be aware that it could be a real pain to run new wire. Despite all that, I love my new house and it's getting home-ier all the time!
posted by Joshua Wells | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 7:14 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 7:29 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 7:32 pm

There is almost zero closet space. When I moved in I didn't bother to look in one of my closets. It is filled with a water heater and there is no room for anything else.
posted by Chrystal | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 7:57 pm

Similar banging noise with water faucets
posted by Jake | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 8:03 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 8:18 pm

Our kitchen is small, but I didn't notice it only had two drawers until after we moved in. Most people have at least three or four, so we had to come up with some creative ways to store stuff that would normally go in a drawer. We also have a faucet in the kitchen that changes pressure not by handle turning but by position over the sink, three light switches on a wall that only operate two outlets, and two bathrooms with light switches in different locations- one outside the room and one inside. Try to remember that when you've had a few...
posted by Rachel Barnes | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 8:22 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 8:34 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 8:42 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 8:43 pm

the breaker box in our house is a fire hazard. it's going to cost me a cool $2K to replace,...
posted by John | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 9:16 pm

The way the house is built, my room has the weakest wireless internet connection and no air conditioning circulation. And I'm the geek.
posted by Ben N. | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 9:36 pm

my radiator has gotten so hot over the past 40 years that its feet melted into the vinyl flooring.
posted by dah chunch! | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 9:39 pm

my radiator has gotten so hot over the past 40 years that its feet melted into the vinyl flooring.
posted by dah chunch! | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 9:39 pm

Celebrity CAPTCHAs are the funniest idea I've evar heard of. This is a goldmine! There is mold growing in my basement.
posted by Chauncey McDuff | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:19 pm

First apartment had no insulation other than in the bedrooms so to use the kitchen or living room in the winter we had to all wear our coats inside, also we didn't control the heat (which only heated the bedrooms) and the people downstairs liked to wear shorts and tanktops so the bedrooms were uncomfortably hot and in the winter the windows froze either shut or open, the second place I lived had house centipedes, and huge windows which in seems like a great idea except they didn't open... so in the summer we boiled to death, the third place I lived the wiring was crazy and lights only worked half the time, as well there was no insulation so you could hear everything, there was also a crazy lady who lived upstairs who frequently visited- like 7 to 10 times a day!
posted by Kathleen | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:29 pm

Oh, and my current apartment has a stall shower, which is conveniently so small that I can't bend down if I drop soap or shave my legs :)
posted by Kathleen | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:31 pm

bad plumbing, unfinished basement, bad electrical system, every ceiling fan is broken, no central air and a furnace that is about 3244534 years old.
posted by erin | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:35 pm

What isn't wrong with my house? The current problem is tree roots in the sewer lines... On any given day the kitchen sink, washing machine, toilet, bathtub or a combination between 2 and all will back up- usually into the bathtub. I have rented a power auger and dug a ditch to expose the sewer line, tried root killer in the sewer. Today it was just the washing machine backing up.
posted by Gary | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:46 pm

An air exchange duct system was removed from the basement and the person selling the house to us hid a hole in the wall behind a grate hidden by a chest of drawers.
posted by Dan L | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:52 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 10:59 pm


posted by | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 11:28 pm

Water heater tank built during a period of time where the dip tube was made of a material that disintegrates over time. There was a recall, but not all owners replaced them.
posted by Liana Ottaviano | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 11:38 pm

The toilet in the master bathroom is too short!
posted by Jordan | Tuesday 17th of April 2007 11:58 pm

lightswitches are backwards.
posted by steph | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 12:16 am

the circuit/electrical box is out in the garage.
posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 1:18 am

Very teensy pantry! I have FOUR growing hungry SONS to keep groceries for, and no place to put the food.
posted by Julie | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 1:57 am

Raccoons. Who knew? The little bastards run up and down the roof, chattering and squealing, fighting with their freaky human-like hands, throwing things, peeling back roof tiles, and causing general mayhem directly over my bed, roughly between the hours of midnight and 4 a.m. They tried wolf urine, exterminators, loud noises, the housecat, cutting back vines, you name it. It's been three years.
posted by Tara | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 2:07 am

Dead Bodies. Hundreds of them.
posted by Hank Hill | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 3:32 am

The doors don't shut properly. On the bathroom door, the tongue doesn't actually slip into the hole, so the door can just be pushed open without touching the knob. In my bedroom, the house has shifted and the door jamb sticks.
posted by Richard Neilsen | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 4:57 am

The toilets flood really, really easily and keep ruining the tiles on the basement ceiling.
posted by Zac | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 5:32 am

My ex-wife lives in it.
posted by Bill L | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 6:22 am

We don't own one. :( Is it just e or did you guys have to refresh many times to find someone you actually can identify or spell their name?
posted by Nancy | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 6:44 am

The house is at least 100 years old and has settled quite a bit. As a result, the hardwood floors are warped and listing. Our 15 month old girl actually learned to walk faster and more gracefully because of the bizarre floors at home. When we go to Grammy's house, she positively flies across the nice level even floors. Also, the bathroom sink hot water faucet only goes on when it wants to. Occasionally, I'll try to turn the faucet to the on position and nothing will happen. Then when I turn the faucet back to the off position the water will come on. The housing around the bathtub/shower area doesn't meet the tub exactly, so water goes down to the second floor back bedroom. The bedrooms have no heat so everyone has to keep their doors open or freeze to death in the winter. The closets in the master bedroom have no insulation so we really REALLY have to keep our bedroom door open or we will actually wake up with frost on the windows. Oh, and our heat is provided by what we call "fireboxes". The technology is rather simple. Natural gas is ignited and a flame is blasted against a big piece of metal. ...that's it. There are three of these hazards in our apartment; one in the back storage room, a slightly larger one (that doesn't turn off unless you cut the gas) in the kitchen, and the GIANT one that takes up nearly half of our tiny living room and sounds like a siege on a small Vietnamese village when it powers up. The oven in the kitchen is off by 100 degrees. If you want to cook something at 375, you have to put it somewhere around 275. Oh, and because the house is so old, the wiring is really wonky and pretty shite. There are only three breakers for the whole apartment, but they're split up in the worst possible manner. There are two breakers in our back storage room (in our apartment on the third floor), and one breaker down IN THE BASEMENT! One breaker in the back room powers the microwave and on outlet. That’s it. The other breaker in the back room powers the hallway light outside our front door. That’s it. The one in the basement powers EVERYTHING ELSE! Washer, dryer, refrigerator, freezer, computer, A/C’s in the summer, TV, video games, lights, F-ING EVERYTHING ELSE! When we run the A/C’s in the summer time, my wife or I have to run all the way down to the basement from the third floor no less than 3 times a week. When we run the washing machine, the lights in the whole apartment pulse with the beat of the agitator. We’ve considered putting on some techno music and charging a cover at the door whenever we do laundry so we can afford to move.
posted by Dan | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 7:15 am

Water in basement, bad pantry in kitchen, electric all 14 gauge - blow fuses.
posted by Garry | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 7:33 am


posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 8:37 am

Running spring beneath the basement.
posted by me | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 9:44 am

On many of our walls, only the bottom half of the electrical outlet works. The house is only 10 years old and we are the 2nd owners. It's pretty annoying.
posted by Michelle | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 9:50 am

what a farked up system! AC fan won't come back on after house heats up. need to leave the fan on 24/7
posted by JJ | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 10:03 am


posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 10:07 am

The radiator makes really loud clanging noises when its on.
posted by Jeff | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 10:53 am

Well, I don't have the house anymore, but the electrical in my last place was a nightmare. Seemed OK when I moved in, but after a few weeks discovered that the bathroom light switches were hooked up wrong. The GFI outlet was hooked to the switch so you could only dry your hair if the light was on. The bathroom fan light was always "hot". Whoever did the electric must have got lost and hooked the outlet lines to the fan light and the out let to the fan line. Majorly annoying. Also the refrigerator was set in a cubbyhole right next to the wall, so you couldn't open the freezer door all the way because the wall would stop the door before you could get it open. Just look for code violations -- be safe!
posted by Joan | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 10:55 am

I'm not american and I couldn't recognise most of the "celebrities". This idea sucks beyond imagination.
posted by Captchas Hater | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 10:56 am

Hey, nevermind about my last comment!!! You just need to copy the image URL and the "celebrity"'s name is in plain text. Way to stop spammers... NOT!
posted by Captchas Hater | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 10:58 am

I can also go back to the last page and the celebrity is still the same...
posted by Captchas Hater | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 11:00 am

I'll reload to pick the next "celebrity"... I got "caveman" this time.
posted by Captchas Hater | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 11:00 am

Hey, I got Madonna this time... way to easy!
posted by Captchas Hater | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 11:01 am

Now I'm trying the image URL parameter literally. If it works, I think I'll write a bot to flood the answers with spam.
posted by Captchas Hater | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 11:03 am

Yay!!! It works!!! This system sucks ass!!!!
posted by Captchas Hater | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 11:03 am

There were no heating ducts to bring heat to the upstairs--only the ground floor! This was a house in MAINE--Needless to say it was a could winter, with many space heaters.
posted by Ezra | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 11:24 am

Our closets are TINY because out house was built in the 20s. When, apparently, all peolpe had to have, clothes wise, was a pair of over-alls and their "Sunday best"
posted by Neil | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 11:26 am

my house has everything wrong with it
posted by samwise | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 12:13 pm

Upstairs shower leaks to downstairs living room; puddles ensue. Even further downstairs garage has serious water damage on ceiling.
posted by Gangsta | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 12:14 pm

This Celebrity Captcha thing blows.
posted by Drew | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 12:17 pm

The wooden floor is loose, the pool drains itself, NO MIRROR IN THE BATHROOM!
posted by Randy | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 12:32 pm

didn't realize the water heater is in the crawl space, which means it's only two or three feet tall, but the normal diameter. this means it holds MAYBE 20 gallons. not nearly enough for 4 people to shower and have hot water, especially in the winter. not so much the best solution for a three BR house without access to natural gas (for inline heaters).
posted by Josh | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 12:43 pm


posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 12:59 pm


posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 1:33 pm

the floor of the cabinet under the kitchen sink is nearly rotted out.
posted by KB | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 1:53 pm


posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 1:54 pm

the hot water not lasting very long
posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 1:55 pm

The wrong type of drywall was used behind the shower enclosure. The wall is now rotting!!
posted by Adam | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 1:57 pm

charlestonheston
posted by charlestonheston | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 1:57 pm

cock-fighting is illegal
posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 2:02 pm

en you turn the knob on the bathroom door, the tongue or whatever that is called, goes in and stays in. Another turn will bring the tongue out. Sometimes people who don't know better get stuck in there. Also, the light switch in the kitchen is across the room from where you typically enter OR to your 5 feet to your left, 6 feet high, and slightly above the refrigerator. I usually stumble across the room as going for the refrigerator light is too much work.
posted by Melissa | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 2:05 pm

testing gandalf
posted by test | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 2:37 pm

Beautiful, antique window panes not compatible with window air conditioners.
posted by Jessen | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 2:51 pm

We had a brand new house built. Brand freakin' new. One month after we moved in, the sewer line backed up into the basement. As you can guess, we still had a ton of things in boxes and stuffed them all into the basement. We could never get the builder to acknowledge it was their fault, but that is certainly something to check. Get a plumber, a real one, not those Roto-Rooter guys, to run a snake through the lines to break up any blockages.
posted by Chris | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 2:53 pm

What's Wrong with my house? The temperature. (Caused, I think, by poor insulation. Some rooms get quite warm while others remain very chilly. What's wrong with the celebrity captchas idea? a) some of them are so "warped" that I can't recognize them. b) many of the ones I do recognize, I don't know who they are. c) Even if I so know the face and can put a name to it, my spelling is poor. (Go ahead: just try to spell "Schwarzenegger" correctly without looking it up!) I had to hit refresh about 14 times before I got a celebrity I could correctly identify.
posted by Rich | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 2:53 pm


posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 2:57 pm

The finish on the bathtub is peeling off. Plus, no dishwasher. The Celebrity CAPTCHA this is really hard, I had to refresh like 10 times, and I kept confusing Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton.
posted by Oren | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 3:15 pm

My last house, a condo actually, had very nice cathedral ceilings. And the master bath was connected to the bedroom in a very pleasing layout forming a "master suite" with no door, just an open aclove sort of thing. It all looked very nice and lovely. That is until we realized it was impossible to take a warm shower in the wintertime. The water would get as hot as you like, but because of this vast open volume of air from the high ceilings and massive open suite, the air never warmed up. The air in the shower would warm slightly, then rise up the ceiling to be replaced by cool room air in a huge thermal-siphon. The only way to get a comfortable shower was to crank up the thermostat for the entire house to unreasonable levels.
posted by Rich | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 3:15 pm


posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 3:17 pm

It is haunted.
posted by Jeremy | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 3:19 pm

everything
posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 4:12 pm

There is a draft in just about every place possible.
posted by Sarah | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 4:27 pm

It was built in 1906 and the pipes are too small to accomodate a dishwasher unless I replace every waste pipe from the house to the street. No dishwasher. Ever. I didn't recognize the first five celebrities, thank God for the media overexposure of "celebrity" Paris Hilton.
posted by Leanne | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 4:48 pm

Narrow stairway, bathroom, and kitchen entry; this house was not built with the husky in mind.
posted by Woody | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 4:57 pm

Woo! I recognize that dude!
posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 4:58 pm

Hmm, can't tell if it's Bill Maher or Bill Murray. Let's try Bill Murray.
posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 4:59 pm

Yes! I'm on a roll! Two-for-two!!!
posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 5:00 pm

The oven cooks unevenly. I think the left side of the oven is about 25 degrees hotter than the right side, so cooking a pizza involves rotation about 9.5 minutes in.
posted by Austin | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 5:00 pm

Come on, Martha Stewart? CHALLENGE me!
posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 5:01 pm

Maddonna is easy, but I missed a few there of some dude (? chick?) I had no clue on.
posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 5:02 pm

This is a tough one, I know it's Jack-in-the-box but there's those tricky spelling variations! Ooo I love this game!
posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 5:04 pm

All the snukes snuck in my sniz piss me off.
posted by Hildog | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 5:29 pm

The name of the celebrity pictured is listed in plaintext in the image properties. This makes the captcha utterly useless, a bot writer could find and exploit that in about 3 minutes. Try using something else besides the name to identify the pictures.
posted by Found a HUGE vulnerability. | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 5:36 pm


posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 5:50 pm

Another older farmhouse, so we've got mice or other rodents living in the walls, attics, and basement. Not really much of a problem anymore once we stocked up on cats. One corner of my bedroom must have been a squirrel highway or something because I could always hear something running up and down in the wall there. When we remodeled the kitchen and took down all the old horsehair plaster from one wall, we could see tunnels that the mice had dug through the ancient blown-in shredded newspaper insulation. They even had a little store of grain on top of one of the window frames. It was like looking at an ant farm, but for mice. We probably still have mice (we do have bats in the walls of our attic) but they don't bother us. We never see them inside the house, and again the cats are pretty useful.
posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 5:51 pm

The people who built our house made the steps themselves, which resulted in risers that are not the same height, along with none of the actual steps being the same length. It causes lots of falls, even when we're not drinking! :o)
posted by Sabrina | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 7:06 pm


posted by | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 7:48 pm

Well, the carpet is 20 years old, the kitchen is showing it's age in the cabinetry, the vinyl siding is stained, porches need painting, we never painted the master bedroom after buying it 11 years ago, there are termites in an old stump out back, needs a roof, crown moulding is obviously a weekend attempt (failed). Did I mention it's for sale?
posted by Kojac | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 7:49 pm

There are no aerators on the sinks, there are mysterious holes in the floor beneath carpets that you can find with your feet. In fact, the entire floor must be squishy down there because furniture leaves immense impressions in the carpet. The kitchen is tiny (three large and one small cupboards) with just enough counter space for my microwave. AND I can't recycle here.
posted by Melanie | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 7:50 pm

Yard is way too shady for decent grass growth in many palces.
posted by chrisboy | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 7:59 pm

oh yeah - and no attic!
posted by chrisboy | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 8:00 pm

Its the pimp.
posted by what the...? | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 8:12 pm

Back Door leads to side path, not the backyard.
posted by issac | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 8:50 pm

neighborhood is infested with stray cats.
posted by Rusty | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 9:21 pm

Apartment - noisy upstairs neighbours, telephone jacks nowhere near power outlets, leaky dishwasher (but only sometimes of course, making it impossible to fix)
posted by Michelle | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 9:36 pm

It's Tom CRUISE not CRUZ! And just Regis? No Philbin? I thought this was some kind of joke and you couldn't actually post anything since I was getting these images wrong. Good thing I finally clued in you can look at the image properties...
posted by gah! | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 9:45 pm

No light in walk-in closet. No garbage disposal. Shower liner juts out for the shelves so when you want to take a bath, you can't sit up straight, you need to lean to the side to fit. Closets not deep enough to fit standard hangers. Electrical outlet is too far from the phone jack to plug in the answering machine. Entrance door from the garage and basement door open into each other. Attic stairs too steep AND narrow. A couple different apartments I lived in advertised outside patio storage - which ended up being a closet on the patio that housed the water heater. What the hell? The CAPTCHA is Elvis! Why won't you take my comment!!!!
posted by Noob | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 10:51 pm

Previous owners thought it would be a fantastic idea to KICK a cat-hole in the door from the basement to the garage...and realized too late that it was a steel-backed door. Brilliant.
posted by Kathryn | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 10:55 pm

i don't have a house - that is the main problem
posted by george | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 11:28 pm

mold that doesn't go away
posted by Kris | Wednesday 18th of April 2007 11:43 pm

The rapid weasels under the house are too bitey.
posted by Paul | Thursday 19th of April 2007 12:23 am

Read the intro and add a house problem yourself.