Poll results: You care, you really care
Some of you would gladly rent or purchase a place with a shady past, assuming the price was right, but most of you who took last week's poll say "no way." Someone else can live in the chainsaw-murderer mansion, thanks very much.
Just 3 percent of poll-takers said that what went on in a home they're interested in doesn't matter to them.
It was a choose-all-that-apply poll. Here's how the "I'd care if ..." answers ranked:
Tied for No. 1: If there was a murder there and if whatever happened caused structural problems -- both got 39 votes.
No. 2: If the previous owner/tenant used the property for selling illegal goods (14 votes).
No. 3: If it's renown for ghosts (13 votes).
Rather than making it a multiple-choice poll, I should have just included an "all of the above and then some" option. Several of you offered that as a write-in vote. (My favorite: "Yes, yes, yes and more yes!")
And one of you noted that what would particularly bother you is if the place had been used as a meth lab. Yeah, that would bother me too.
What previous life would you especially want for a home you were going to rent or buy? A long stint in the hands of a home-improvement expert?
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Comments
On this very theme --- I bought a 1913 Baltimore townhouse a few years ago and figured with its many previous owners, some might have passed away at home. Was also told that a former owner had kept a monkey in a large cage in the the basement -- which also sort of weirded me out. And to beat all, my first night there, I had to spend all alone without any furniture on a blowup mattress to be around for an early morning contractor.
After a fitful night sleeping with the lights on and bedroom door locked, I woke up feeling so wonderful I realized that if there WERE any ghosts they must be happy ones!! I now think of it as a "happy house", well cared for and a made home for very contented folks for nearly 100 years.
Posted by: Lisa | January 11, 2010 2:23 AM