Do You HATE Your House?

Yes, but really I can't stand the neighbors and their DRAMA with each other.
Domestic Violence, neighbors threatening each other, etc.. There are no kids my child's age who have sane, sober parents. We would love to live near some good kids who play outside. I really hate WHERE the house is more than anything.

I like my house some days. Its nice but small and needs lots of work. But my husband doesn't ever want to fix anything and it gets expensive to do that stuff. About once a week there is something that goes wrong. The sink backs up. the toliet leaks, the kitchen floor is torn in places, I could keep going......

OH I SO HATE MY HOUSE!

- Our neighbors are inconsiderate and leave their dogs out at all hours. Each neighbor has multiple dogs that wake me up in the middle of the night all the time. Miserable
- One neighbor sends her kid over to our house all the time and she is horribly behaved. She literally throws herself on the ground and punches and kicks when her parents come over to pick her up. She is 6.
- The house needs work done in every single room. Not one room is finished to the point I can sit in it and be peaceful. There are always tools laying around each room bc hubby thinks he may get to working on the room one of these days. We have lived there 4 years.
- It is ugly
- There is not enough space for all of us. Not enough square footage and not even close to enough closet space. I share a closet with the baby and use the hall closet because hubby has the entire bedroom closet to himself....and he does not have much clothing.
- The yard is patches of grass and lots of dirt. The lady who lived there before us never raked her leaves and they just compacted year after year. Totally fun.
- The house across the street is a rental and boy does the LL pick some winners. Most get evicted after about 6 months. It is always entertaining to see the process server driving up.
- Did I mention I don't have enough SPACE!?!
- I literally have to sit and say to myself "At least your children have a roof over their head and you can pay your bills" each day to myself. It helps!

There....I feel a little better. =)

I know the feeling well. My family and I have moved 15 times in ten years. Yup I still live with them (by this year I should be moved out!!!!) but each house there are great things, and awful things. Our current house was built in the 70's and still has the original drafty windows. Including one in the my shower. Yeah, don't shower when it's snowing out.
I do suggest you have an inspector look at the electrical. . .you want your house to be safe. Send the report to the landlord and say fix it. It is his job to keep the house safe.
I would focus on the things you do like of the house. My favorite house was not one I even wanted to move into at the beginning. It was nice, but I just couldn't see us in it. Low and behold, when we left I was bawling. Focus on the positive. Create storage for you. Like get ottomans with a compartment to store old whatever. Or put everyday items in the ottomans so you can free up the little storage space as much as possible. Go to IKEA and get lots of shelves and boxes to put things in. Focus on good.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new house!! :) I say that because I, too, did not like my previous house. It was also an in-a-pinch house and knew when we bought it that we'd be there just a couple years. Well, that turned into over 4 years and I was literally househunting for two years before I found our present home. The kitchen was WWAAAAAAAAYYYY too small for our family of then-6. The floors creaked, you could hear everything everywhere (poor insulation), it was like the home was stapled together with cheap materials and it showed! Here's what I did to try to make myself feel better before we moved:

I watched ALOT of HGTV and got tips on how to dress up our house to make it look better suited to my tastes on the inside. Basically that included lots of painting and decorating. But I did it on the cheap, buying things on clearance or on craigslist. We updated all the UGLY, old and outdated light fixtures, which made a huge difference. We updated the UGLY countertops in the kitchen and bathrooms. We put bright or neutral colors in the walls in certain rooms and made them pop. I bought those cute sticker-wallpaper decals to put in the playroom and the kids' rooms so it looked like it was painted with murals. We really turned our ugly house into a little HGTV-ized showplace! So then it was ready to sell and we bought our new, modern home that needs nothing but our family to fill it.

I know you're renting, but maybe you could do some of these things to improve it and maybe the owner would knock off some rent in exchange for the upgrades? You never know. In the meantime... keep looking at the light at the end of the tunnel... you will find a better house someday. :)

Well, like others have said, your landlord is responsible for fixing anything that can be considered a safety or health hazard (stuck windows, electrical, cracks in ceiling, etc). If they are not willing to fix these issues, you are legally able to get out of your lease (talk to a lawyer). So, I'd suggest talking to the landlord first--ask nicely and formally (write up a letter--keep a copy). If they don't respond (or respond negatively), start looking for a new place and talking to a lawyer. To be honest it is a buyer's (renter's) market, so as long as you are a good tenant (quiet, pay rent on time, etc), your landlord should be bending over backwards to keep you there!

For the past 3 years DH and I lived in a 950 sq foot condo that we BOUGHT. It was a rushed decision since we had just moved from across the country, were living in my parents' house, and could only get bank approved for very little $$. Besides being small, there's very limited extra storage (3x5 space in the "basement"), our unit is on the 2nd floor, so there are stairs, the upstairs neighbors were noisy (I swear they must have a pet elephant who suffers from insomnia), the downstairs neighbor is a college kid who loves to party til the wee hours of the morning, the balcony is practically falling apart, the dryer (stacked set located in the hall closet) doesn't have a vent, we only had 1 parking space, oh, the list could go on and on and on.

But, it worked for us. We were 2 people in a 2-bedroom condo, we could easily afford the mortgage + HOA payments, and it was very convenient to everywhere in the city! 1 year later, DD came along. We adjusted, and it was fine until she became mobile. After 2 years of living there, we decided to put it on the market and try to get into a new place. Yeah, 1 year on the market and NO LUCK! We finally just decided to "bite the bullet" and use it as a rental property. Here we are 3 months later and it's going good. Fortunately, we made a lot of improvements while we lived there, so the tenant is very happy with the upgrades and "hominess" of the place.

We are currently back at my parents' house saving up money for our next house... We won't look at anything smaller than 4 bedrooms! I hope that by this summer we'll be moving into our own Dream House!

I don't like my rental house either, but we are luckily in the position to move and I'm on the hunt... I want nothing more than to be CONTENT with where we live, even if it's not my dream home, I want to stop looking around and finding fault with the house.

But I would say first and foremost do a little digging into building codes in your area and tenants rights. For me, windows that don't open are a fire hazard, and it's possible that it is entirely up to your landlord to make sure they work. Same with electrical. If you can get proof that they legally need to be dealt with, it's likelier to happen. Also think about how you are approaching the landlord. I think they are more likely to say yes to something if you will handle the repair and deduct the cost from the rent. But if it's entirely up to them to get a person in, clear the schedule with you, and then lay out cash on top of it, they may drag their feet on getting it done.

As for the "pretty it up" issue, I would look hard and creatively at what you can do to make it more livable and comfortable for you now. When i first moved into this place I thought it was temporary so I didn't unpack a bunch of boxes or hang art for like 6 months. Once I broke down and settled in a little, I felt more at home. If you spend some time and a little money to make the spaces more workable (storage and such) you may be happier. And take the opportunity of a small space to purge purge purge!

We rent also and hate this house and unfortunatly, will be signing another lease in June! I guess we hate to move even more than we hate the house and refuse to move until we can BUY something. We are working on our credit scores as well as saving cash and need lots of it because we live in a "wealthy" area and homes are still 250-300k for the size and area we want. We hate this house because it's small (2000 sf), there is no carpet at all, its all Saltillo tiles which is basically made of mud and are hard to clean, and the insulation is terrible so our elect bill in summer is over $400, the landlord tries to blame us for anything that goes wrong but she bandaid fixes everything, all the appliances are some weird generic brand and mostly don't work, the yard are all rock, no grass, which is nice and easy to care for, but ugly. We ended up here because I knew the landlord and before the bad economy, she was going to lose the home cuz she couldn't make the payments and my hubby and i make good money, but we are 1099 so it was hard for us to find a place to rent to us. so it was a 'good' match, we thought. we have worked thru the kinks but still not our ideal house although the location is perfect, across the street from the kids school and our office is about 3 minutes aross the road. And it has a decent pool which is a must in AZ! So girl, i understand...just be glad you don't OWN it and count the days and dream of when you can buy a home you will LOVE! that's what gets me thru it! :o)

that does sound very challenging. tree houses, hobbit holes and tiny tumbleweed houses are wonderful and planet-friendly and adorable and i may well have one at some point, but only if i live alone!
our first house was pretty small, about 800 square feet, for 3 and then 4 of us. we loved it, though, and it didn't have the creepy factor (the basement was dirt and unfinished and creepy, but the only thing down there was my husband's workbench and stored boxes.
but i must say, it's nice having a bigger place now. not huge by modern american standards by any means, but close to 2000 feet plus a big nice dry unfinished basement that nearly doubles it.
i do hope you can find something with an equally great location that you love! it's good to love where you live.
:) khairete
S.

That is usually the first thing out of my mouth. The last house we lived in the night I moved in I stubbed my toe on the, hmmmm going into the bathroom on the floor right in the doorway there was a marble (of all things rock hard MARBLE) piece, not quite a step but just enough sticking out...I screamed I HATE THIS HOUSE. Then had to laugh and though good thing hubby isn't here yet. He feels responsible when ever I say that because he picks (really the army picks) our houses.

This house I don't hate but I don't love either. If we owed it, yes changes would be made but the layout typically something you can not change and it is a weird one. But at least I haven't hurt myself in it. The yard, now that makes me scream! Hate the yard!

I would hate that house too (except for the fact that it's in Richmond and I lived there for many years and would love to go back)!

Just remember that it's a rental and you can always move, which is a lot easier than if you own and hate your house in this market.

I actually love my house, but the location is now inconvenient. If I could pick it up and move it an hour south, it would be great!

I love my house, however, I've been in your shoes before. Maybe that is why I do love my house now because I've lived in a house that was so gross. It wasn't too small, but had all kinds of bugs. It was falling apart, the landlord lived cities away, like 6 hours, was not putting any money into it and thought he should charge more and I should be feeling so bless for having it. It wasn't that clean when I moved in, the bathtub was so gross. Again, so many bugs, lots of Texas cockroaches, if you ever seen a Texas cockroach you know they are HUGE and scary. I broke my lease, I just couldn't say after 3 months... I moved in with my parents for awhile until my dream house was available... I love it so much, it's so beautiful and really is a dream house to me.
So what I'm saying, be patient your dream house will come....

I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you!!! Oh, your post cracked me up! Here's why.....

We owned an adorable house in the city that was built in 1926 and falling over and in a terrible school district. It was close to downtown, and when we decided to move, we put it for Lease first. It leased out from under us in 2 days, to a single guy who worked downtown... perfect fit. However, we didn't have time to do a thorough search for the next house to buy and there was ONE house in the neighborhood we wanted (schools) available, and it was for lease. We leased it and immediately fell, head over heels, in love with the neighborhood, school, everything, EXCEPT the stupid house! I have to say, I've never had a snake fall on my head, or go outside with the laundry, but we had a leak in the ceiling, a leak in the front yard, and a leak in the shower. Thankfully, the landlord fixed them all promptly. I hate the house because of the floorplan. If someone where to sit down and draw the absolute least efficient floorplan, this house would have been it. I love to cook and my kitchen sucks. I can't see the kids while I'm in there and I have to walk through the dining room, and guest bedroom to get to the grill/garden in the backyard. There are 2 ways to get to my kids' rooms, 1 is a small hallway that has the sound dimensions to attract noise from every part of the house. The other is through my Master bedroom.

Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense to bulldoze it, or we would have bought it and leveled it and built a house to our liking. What we did, was saved up, and watched the market monthly for our ideal house to come on. Eventually, we started talking to neighbors and as it turns out, our next door neighbor was selling at the same time we could buy, and we bought her house, which is absolutely perfect. Hang in there. Once you are ready to buy, mail a postcard to your neighborhood asking if anyone is interested in selling...

I actually love my house so I can't relate there, but coming from a real estate perspective, your landlord has a legal obligation to fix the windows (you have to have an exit in addition to the doorways in case of fire or other disaster or they can't consider the room a bedroom) and also the electrical hazard. That isn't just a cosmetic problem that is a big safety issue. But I really hope you find something you like soon. And i have to say the treehouse reference to your house made me laugh:-)

Next time maybe you should take more time to find a nice rental!!! Your house would drive me crazy too!!! Sorry to say I can't commiserate with you! We finally bought a house that I LOVE! Sadly my husband wants to take a job elsewhere so we might be moving this year. I figure I may never have a house I love ever again. sigh.

Thank you-your post made me chuckle.
I have a love/hate relationship w/ our house...that we are about to lose.
I hate our basement, it has mold, leaks, is creepy, and I have to wash my clothes down there. (Yes, I know how dangerous mold is.)
Oh and I feel like I have to go through a maze to get to the washing machine/dryer.
Our bathroom is falling to peices.
But it is OUR home. My babies were concieved here and brought home here. I am comfortable here, aside from the problem areas.
It's nothing fabulous. A box. Not my ideal home. But...
I love the room I created for our children.
It is very sad to me. I think I could be ok leaving it...but to be forced out, is a different story. =...(

Are cave crickets the kind w/ the spikey nose? I HATE those suckers!!!
I didn't know what they were called.

I hated our first house, well we still own it but dont have to live there. Its two story Master bedroom down stairs with a stupid cramed shower and separate master bath that faced the enclosed atrium that has no point. You can only get to this atrium through the living room, its a 10x10 hole where leaves go to die. Would have been the perfect spot for a hot tub if only the siding would support the moisture, which it wont because the siding was rotting and had to be replaced on the entire back of the house. The living room is like a huge loft with a staircase that went two separate ways towards two tiny bedrooms, and a media room.

The house is very beautiful curb appeal, and the kitchen was absolutely perfect. But the rest of the house is so awkward it aggravated me every day.

I love that my house looks beautiful. But I hate that it is a rotting shell! I could fill pages with the shoddy workmanship that we have spent thousands to repair. We bought it new 12 years ago and are still trying to get it built properly. Just last week my living room flooded and ruined the wood flooring! This isn't even close to the worst we have dealt with.
Years ago I gutted and remodelled an old house -- that cost me less in time and money than this new house!
Thanks for asking and letting me vent!

:)))))))))) I know you're frustrated and I don't mean to laugh, but your post is hilarious! You're too funny. :)))))))))))))))

Yeah sometimes I hate my house too but its not as bad as yours it sounds like.

Oh dear. While mine is not as bad as yours, I can relate. We've owned ours for over a decade and I still hate it! Have a large lot, but can't roll around and play outside during the spring, summer or fall without full protection because we have deer ticks which have given us Lyme. Trees are diseased and dying, can't afford tree work. Fence is collapsing. Baseboard heating sucks. Windows are tiny. Basement is from the Brady Bunch era. It's brick, but built by a bachelor, probably, given its complete lack of character. Ugly! Grateful to own, but desperately crave more daylight. Laughed at your post ..... good luck to you!
=)

They need to rename this site "R. D-pedia" It's like your personal blog. I'm quiting this site because I'm tried of reading your post. Is this all you do all day long? Sit here and post questions on this site? Literally all 3 today are yours.

I too hate my house from the first day I moved into it. Mine is also too small and the basement wasn't finish. They put up doors that when you open them all you see is concrete wall. What was that all about? It had out dated appliances that I had to purchase when I had the money. The yard had a partial fence and I would love to have a private fencing all around because my back yard joins with 4 other yards, which everyone can just literly watch each other when having out doors events. Oh yeah, the attic you can't get to because it's up in a small closet in the bathroom and the hole was cut out for a small kid. I have no trees in my back yard, but my yard catches all the falling leaves from the other neighbors yard and I'm raking all the time. The closets in every room is the size of a crib and I feel the shakes from heavy trucks driving by. When family or friends come over they just love the darn thing, as they say. Some blooming idot started with putting up a brick wall but quit the job and then threw a white picket fencing on top, which was in a leaning mode and the brick is falling over because they built the wall too close to a tree that was then cut down (in another yard) and the stump is pushing my brick. I feel like I'm living in a time warp zone of a house. I pray that money fall down for me to have it fixed the way I would like to be a livable place for me and family to enjoy.