OK, this is a weird question but I'm curious about others' opinions

[ailsagirl]

Would you rent/buy a house in which a homicide occurred??

Even if the price were greatly reduced, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't.

[hlthe2b]

1. Well, I'd sure have some local tribes members come over to burn sage

and if they got freaked out (or my dog did), I just might not.

[Orrex]

2. Sure would. Sign me up.

[SergeStorms]

3. Oh yeah.

As long as the mess was cleaned up.

I'm not a believer in spiritual residue.

[JenniferJuniper]

4. Hell, I've always coveted that Amityville house

[Shermann]

5. They changed the windows so that they don't look like eyes

It's just an ordinary house now. A pity.

[ailsagirl]

14. The original windows always gave me the creeps

[Meadowoak]

6. Nope, not me.

[Harker]

7. I wouldn't rule it out...

so long as the homicide didn't have loose ends and wasn't a magnet for weirdos or gawkers.

[Diamond_Dog]

8. I don't think I would.

Bad juju.

[Coventina]

9. Absolutely. I've lived with a haunting previously and it doesn't scare me.

[ailsagirl]

15. You'll have to tell us more about that...

if you're inclined.

[Coventina]

18. Sure! This was back in my childhood in Seattle, Wa.

My family was homeless (I won't go into that long story) and for a time we were squatting in a church basement.

That place was for sure haunted. Not sure by what, exactly. It had characteristics of both poltergeist and traditional "tape recorder" type phenomena.

We constantly had the sound of footsteps. Doors opening and closing, that sort of thing.

The most dramatic was water faucets that would turn on by themselves and at least twice "something" caused the electrical box to violently flip switches back and forth. An electrician was called over that, but he said nothing was wrong with the system, everything checked out just fine.

Oh yeah, and the sudden temperature drops, that happened a lot as well.

And when I say "a lot" it was a many-times-a-day thing.

It was so frequent, my mother refused to be alone at any time in that building.

I was freaked out at first, but children are very adaptable. Nothing ever hurt me, so I just learned to ignore it. In fact, I felt it was company, of a sort.

[ailsagirl]

19. Wow, Coventina-- you're brave

Do you suppose the church is still standing? Have you ever heard anything more about it?

[Coventina]

20. Last time I was in Seattle, the church was still there. (2005)

The "funny" part is, the part of the building I'm describing was a fairly new addition to the church, not the old part.
It was the education wing, built either in the late 50s-early 60s. The older portion of the church, with the worship spaces, was built in the early 20th century.

Now, that haunted wing is rented out as office space, because the church membership has continued to shrink over time and they don't need the space. That's why we were able to squat there in the first place.

on edit: grammar

[ailsagirl]

21. Interesting!

Really-- thanks for sharing that.

[Coventina]

22. You're welcome! The experience has given me a lifelong interest in hauntings.

I'm an absolute believer, although I do not believe the majority of them are literally spirits of dead people.

I think most of them are "tape recordings" that seem to be related to something in the environment combined with extreme emotion.

Then there is the poltergeist, which seems to be more related to part of a person's subconscious (often young people going through puberty) combined with the environment that results in the banging, slamming of doors, etc. The person "causing" it has absolutely no control or awareness that they are doing it.

It's a fascinating subject.

[unblock]

10. Depends. If the killer was clearly identified and now dead or in prison for life, sure.

But if the killer was, say, someone who grew up in that house then had major mental health problems and went back and killed the new residents of his childhood home, and he was still at large or eligible for release in only a few years, then no.

[Skittles]

11. as long as I did not know the killer or victim

sure

[Bluethroughu]

12. Depends...if I felt I could really clean it. Physically and metaphically.

Could it be a home again?

I did have a haunted house once, nobody lived there longer than 2 years. It was an angry house. It was only ten years old when we got it and nobody died in it, but it was majorly haunted. I'm talking lights on or off, radio on loud, bangs and doors slamming shut, bad vibes, insect problems and dark shadows wrapping around with low disembodied low tone screaming. It was unreal and scared my husband into a believer of the supernatural. It was so frightening we didn't like to talk about it.

A friend bought the house from me, because she loved the renovations and thought I was being superstitious. I told her I really did not want to sell it to her, but she insisted she have it. She moved in 2 years, and let another friend rent it, she moved within a year. She wouldn't say it was haunted, but said she had bad life events there, along with somethings she could not explain.

We drive by it and when I talked to the new owner, she said she couldn't stay there, she uses it as a rental but couldn't get anyone to stay. She had some strange things happen.

Needless to say, it was bad energy. Angry, unresolved energy. Believe it or not, but native American burials have poped up in flower beds in the area. It was on a peninsula. If you saw it, you would think it was a really nice house.

[ailsagirl]

16. Wow-- thanks for sharing that!!

Where I live, I often hear sounds at night I ascribe to my cats, but when I go to check, all three of them are sleeping soundly.

Never know what to think. It is an older place-- nearly 60 years, so maybe it's just falling apart.

[Ocelot II]

13. Depends on how recent, how gory, and how well-publicized.

I wouldn’t want to move into Jeffrey Dahmer’s old place, for example.

[ailsagirl]

17. Right-- if people were constantly cruising by, that would be a problem

I wouldn't want the type of element who would be fascinated by murder anywhere in my vicinity. You just never know.

[Tikki]

23. Yes, but not because a murder happen there..that would be weird.

Tikki

[Marthe48]

24. I wouldn't buy it right after the murder

We moved to this house in the fall. The following spring, our 96 year old neighbor was murdered in his home.
After his body was found, the police put crime scene tape around the property. You wouldn't believe how many cars circled around the block, just to see the murder house. The killers were caught and put away.

I always felt bad because before he was killed, I always thought that I would see or hear something and prevent a death. But we didn't see or hear anything.

[ailsagirl]

30. Poor man-- that's very sad

[Marthe48]

36. Yes, it was sad

The people who killed him thought he had money in the house. One of the killers was distantly related to him. I don't think they thought the old man would put up a fight, but he did, got hurt and died from the injuries. He had no money in the house. So sad.

[UTUSN]

25. Mine had a death by elderly smoker, fire, smoke inhalation. Am 20+ yrs in.

[JuJuChen]

26. I totally would! The house didn't kill.

[Generic Brad]

27. Especially if the price was greatly reduced

Those wouldn't be my memories in the place.

[tblue37]

28. Sure. I'm not superstitious.

[3catwoman3]

29. Probably not. One of the houses in our neighborhood was...

…the site of a suicide - a young man, in his early 20s, known to be a troubled individual, hung himself after his girlfriend broke up with him. He was an only child.

I could not live there.

[ailsagirl]

31. Nor I

Sad ☹️

[634-5789]

32. YEP.

Over time that homicide talk would fade and you would be getting a GREAT deal on a house. Back when we started looking for houses, (1974) there was a 'unsolved crime' house that we looked at. liked it fine, but did get outbid on the offer, so, today, few if anybody remembers or talks about it, and as far as I know, there have been 2 families move in and out so far. Still a really nice older house!

[ailsagirl]

34. You just never know--it could turn out fine!

[zanana1]

33. Sure.

I take it the blood stains would be out of the carpet, right?

[ailsagirl]

35. I don't think they ever come out

[malthaussen]

37. If I had the money, sure.

There is probably not one square foot of solid ground on Earth on which somebody didn't die/was killed sometime. Certainly most US real estate is on blood-stained ground, we had to take it by force, after all. If the property was desirable and I had the money, its violent history wouldn't bother me at all. I've already slept in a dead man's bed, this is nothing different.


-- Mal