Newcastle’s house viewing horror stories

It’s safe to say that no student really likes the house viewing process. For tenant and viewer alike, it’s generally just a terrible experience. For every house you view, there’s a tenant still asleep at 3pm, a bathroom you can’t view as the shower’s occupied, or a kitchen that’s so dirty you can hardly face going past the door.

Equally we’ve all been woken up at 9am to answer the door to an annoyingly enthusiastic bunch of first-year house hunters, or been shouted at by our landlords for not having the house in an ‘acceptable’ state for the viewings.

Some of us Jesmonders have had more then our fair share of house viewing horror stories, and The Tab went on a mission to find them.

Kate, Graduate

Our landlord told us about this time she was showing round the house to a group of girls. Coincidentally one of the girl’s boyfriends already lived in the house but unfortunately for all, the said boyfriend had decided to bring a different girl back home with him the night before the viewing and she was still in his bed during that morning. They had to hide the girl under the bed whilst the landlord (who was in on the whole thing) rushed the viewing around as quickly as possibly to avoid any drama. Close call.

Anonymous, Third year

So one time I took this boy home from Swingers and in the morning I obviously had the door locked and we heard this knocking. I assumed it was my housemate so was shouting ‘Go away!’ ‘Leave me alone!’ thinking they were just trying to be funny, but the knocking literally wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t really hear what they were saying and I suddenly realised it was my landlady because we had a house viewing. Me and the boy had to put on our clothes so quickly and open the door and let all these strangers come in. It was so obvious what had happened, so I was like ‘sorry this is my boyfriend’ as I didn’t want her thinking I was slutty and he literally looked at me like ‘wtf’.

Hannah, Second year

Me and my friends went to see this house and the landlady took us round. The current tenants had obviously had a party the night before because there were empty glasses and bottles everywhere. The floor was an absolute state and all the walls were covered in tin foil. The landlady went absolutely psycho at the people that lived there, screaming and shouting at them about respecting her property. I’ve never felt more uncomfortable in my life.

Ed, Third Year

Basically we went in to this house and it looked empty, no one had answered the bell and it didn’t sound like anyone was home. The agent was taking us round: bedroom 1, bedroom 2, bathroom, kitchen, yeah all lovely and fine. Bedroom 3: we didn’t knock because by this point we’d assumed nobody was in but when we opened the door there was this boy lying in bed with his hands in his boxers doing we all know what. He literally shut his laptop in a millisecond but we all knew. It was super awkward.

Emily, Second year

We were all at home chilling in our kitchen and this group of people came round for a viewing. We quite like our house and have made a massive effort to make it really homely and these people literally said in front of us ‘Ew, this house is disgusting.’ It was so rude.

Anonymous, First year.

We had a bit of a house viewing horror when we looked round a really promising-looking house in West Jes that was lived in by some agrics (warning signs). The guys were lurking around the house looking a bit shifty and shy and we thought this was just because the house was disgustingly dirty (that was bad enough), but when the estate agent let us out into the yard at the back he suddenly got a bit anxious.

When we followed him out we saw that the entire back courtyard was covered in a carpet of pigeon feathers. Like… thousands of them. There were feather-covered bin bags leaning against the wall and we could only imagine what else was inside. We spent quite a while surveying the scene, considering the smashed eggs on the kitchen floor and the status of the occupants, and still have absolutely no idea why their yard was so feathery. Needless to say, we signed for a different, feather-free house a couple of weeks later!

Sarah, Second year

Once we were going to look at this house and when we rang the bell this boy answered the door completely starkers! He was literally so embarrassed and I think he thought we were one of his mates or something. It was so funny.

So beware all you house hunters, you never know what a viewing may bring.