If the seller is indeed odd and difficult, I bet she was a nag too! If any of his spirit remains there, he would probably be delighted to have you move in.
Maybe he died with a smile on his face, enjoying the RIP.

Sweet tea...That was more for simplicity in explaining the issue here and I could've explained it in more detailed, but I didn't. The seller originally told the agent before we asked (immediately after our showing.), "In case they ask, tell them my husband died at the hospital." My husband had a conversation with the agent about an hour after our showing. As he started to inquire about the husband's death. the agent brought it up first saying the seller wanted us to know. It's confusing, but that is what happened. We both brought it up at the same time and the agent had an answer. Sweet tea, thanks for splitting hairs and the two hours of detective work you did to prove what a terrible, lying person I am and reading all of the posts to find your evidence.

Good grief people. Some of you guys are truly amazing and need to find better things to do with your time. Death in a home is a personal thing to some people....just like square footage, neighborhood, school district, carpet color, or whatever. I have young children and frankly it does bother me. Apparently this man was very well known in town and my kids will hear he died in their home.

tomato...if my husband dies in the house, I will tell the truth.

farmhousegirl, you have to take responsibility for how you presented the issue. You did, in the original post, made it sound like you had inquired about the issue of the husband dying at home or not. And you continue to say it's a serious issue for you. You move back and forth between it being the "lying" that bothers you and the fact that he died and what if your children hear he died in the house? You also make clear that, once the broker did bring up the issue, you pursued it, and you consistently say it IS an issue for you, so I don't think you're being very fair in being so critical of others. I also don't think sweet-tea had to infer that you're a liar. People can see and heart exactly the same thing and have utterly different interpretations.

Having said that, I have to say, so what if your children hear that a man died in their home? Children have to learn about death. If they hear it and ask you, just be straight with them. Yes, he was an elderly man who died, and so now it's our time to make this our home.

I would say, though, that in the future, if it really bothers you if people have died in any given house before, don't ask about it, even if someone brings it up. This strikes me as being one of those situations where ignorance is bliss. To lose a potentially great house in which to raise your family because someone once died there is not rational.

Two questions:

1) Are you going to buy it?

2) Are you going to continue the drama of dithering?

Inquiring minds want to know.

"Sweet tea, thanks for splitting hairs and the two hours of detective work you did to prove what a terrible, lying person I am and reading all of the posts to find your evidence."

You are welcome, but it took less than 1 minute. It's all contained in one thread.

I never said you were terrible, and I simply questioned your truthfulness based on your contradicting statements - much like you questioned the honesty of the seller.

Did Micheal Jackson die in the hospital or at his home? I think he officially died at the hospital, though he was unresponsive at home. I think you are dealing with the same situation about the guy that had the heart attack.

sweet_tea: Great analogy! For the sake of argument, I would say Michael Jackson died at home (everything was done, in an attempt to resuscitate him, on the scene by the paramedics). He was only transported to the hospital because someone on the scene insisted he be transported.

OP: Obviously this situation bothers YOU; therefore, I do not think YOU should buy the house.

If someone (family, friend, contractor) died in a house you were living in, would you then move out of that house?

Reading threads like this one has convinced me that, when it becomes time to sell my own home, I will definitely sell it "as is".

Buyers today, imo, have become impossibly fussy.

I suppose that is a luxury allowed by it being a buyer's market?

Regarding special education slot availability, good luck on getting school cooperation. I have known school districts to require reassessment of a student before paying for one.
Such school programs can easily surpass what the school district will get back in taxes, or even, after a number of years, the cost of the house itself.

I bet your children would care less that the old man died in the home. Don't assume that your fears are theirs.
And even IF the seller lied to you, she lied about a non material fact. Happens in a lot of business transactions.

I don't think it started with nor will stop with the recent owner's death. Quit likly somthing weird happened on the site before the house was even built and refuses to go away. If a person can't trust their natural intuitive power,what can they put trust in? Certainly not observations by people who clearly don't have a dog in the fight. Maybe the gamble would be worth taking with a car or pet that is simple to dispose of but a house could realy be a stone around one's neck. Is it any wonder the widow lost her mind and is ready to get out? I wouldn't attend a dinner party at that house,much less buy it.

This has got to be one of the weirdest threads I've read. Shoot, the house I put an offer on (but was outbid by someone else) was built in the 1700's and has a person buried on the property, including a headstone. I think it's kind of cool. Different strokes, I guess.

I agree with NC. This isn't about your kids. You should just be honest with yourself about that much, at least. This sounds like some kind of phobia and we all deal with fears. That's human nature. But just own it instead of blaming the owner, rationalizing that your kids will be upset, and lashing out at posters who are trying to give you a different perspective.

pam14, my dad bought a house in the country when I was in high school. There was a slight wooded hill on the other side of the pasture and a creek beyond that. On the hill were 7 very worn tombstones. It seems that an entire family succumbed to the Spanish flu. I loved to go and sit there and think of them. If their spirits were about, I hope they liked having company.

Indeed, some posters were harsh to the OP. It is unnecessary to label OP's concerns as a phobia, call her a liar, a difficult buyer, a person who does not take responsibility...etc.

OP, It sounds to me the seller has broken trust during the transaction, it is human nature to wonder if there are other hidden tangible and intangible issues that are not shared.

This purchase is for your family, very likely you would live there for a long time. If the negativity of this deal bothers you, move on. As always there will be another house available.

I like, and agree with, CanadianLori's remark :-D

OP -- Now that you know the whole story, do you still want to live in that house? I think if it will always bother you then walk away; maybe it just wasn't meant to be. But if you think you can come to peace with it...do you think that this is your chance to learn a new life lesson? Is there something in this situation that will help you to grow?

For me, bad memories/bad circumstance fade with time and more positive experiences.

We've only bought one home, and never sold it (but I like to visit this forum because I'd like to move one day). At the time we bought our home, it was not our first choice and it was/is not that great of a place OR that great of a deal. But I really wanted to buy a house, prices were going up up up...felt like now or never (at the time).

We did everything as fast as we could because the sellers wanted out ASAP. We were supposed to close on a Friday, but when we did a final walk-through and the owners still had belongings (furniture) IN the house, and a non-op vehicle in the backyard. So we didn't close until the following week, once everything had been removed.

They were mad and sued us for the additional, non-pro-rated payment they had to make on their mortgage (IDK why their bank didn't pro-rate, whatever, maybe that was a lie). They lost the case but what a stress and hassle, right after we bought this house. Not only that, we found various things that had been done to the house -- probably intentionally -- that seemed passive-agressive. A dead rotting mouse (partially ground up) in the garbage disposal, animal urine in the rooms (they had several large dogs), cosmetic damage to flooring (it looked like they had hammered all over the kitchen vinyl -- which was annoying but the kitchen was all falling apart anyway)...just lots of bad vibes surrounding the whole thing.

For a few years it felt like the bad house vibes were infecting our lives -- DH and I fought all the time about the house. Eventually we had our first child and started renovating the problems (both with the house AND with our marriage). The bad vibes diminished. I still don't love the house, but it feels like home and I don't think about all the negativity surrounding the purchase. I think about how it's the place we startd our family, and how we've done so many things to make the house a more pleasant place to live -- both inside and out. It's not perfect, the neighborhood isn't that great, I take my kids to a charter school 3 miles away not the neighborhood school...but, overall, it's been an okay choice. Because we didn't over-buy, we've never had the risk of losing our house. It's been nice to have the stability etc.

OP -- if you go through with this purchase, how will you feel? Will you forever remember being lied to and manipulated, or will you be able to let it go and enjoy a new beginning?

Sorry to hear about your delima, farmhousegirl. Reminds me of a house we once bought. The sellers brother died of a heart attack in front of the garage. My spouse never thought to mention this to me until after the sale. Our realtor told him, but apparently, she didn't think I rated the same information. She was dishonest, and probably just wanted her commission. It creeped me out, and I never really liked the house after that. If she had mentioned this, I would have kept looking. If you have doubts, just move on, there are a ton of houses for sale, you may have to compromise something, but it may be worth it to you. Happy ending to that house, we sold it after a few years. I fixed it up nicely, and most everyone who saw it, would tell the realtors they loved it. The house gave off a pleasant vibe, just because someone dies there, doesn't make it a bad place, but for me, it still had the creep factor.

This was definitely one of the most interesting threads on Gardenweb. We live in a particular society where death is taboo--more so than sex used to be. In the grand scheme, such an aversion is a hazardous way to live because it often includes pretending that we won't die. If we each realized that we could die tomorrow, we would probably rearrange today in more positive ways.
Seeking out problems, listening to gossip, focusing on fears are not healthy proclivities.

@ dretutz - agree, somewhat like philosophical questions discussed at the bar while in college. :-) Wierd, but interesting to hear different perspectives.

You are so correct, in the emergency department I see so many sudden deaths of not just the elderly but also children and young adults. The family is often devastated because they did not say ''i love you'' that AM or they just had a fight, etc.

"Seeking out problems, listening to gossip, focusing on fears are not healthy proclivities."

Amen.

I would never be upset to live in a house where someone died if I didn't know them; or if I did know them and their death was unhappy like a suicide or something. Death is just a stage of our existence, and is one of the few experiences we will all share. As a genealogist, some of my favorite family members are ones no longer among us. Visiting a graveyard is like visiting old friends whose voices I just can't hear.

I would have loved to buy my mother's house. We had so many happy memories - Christmases, birthdays. Even the day she died was happy in its own way. She walked around the house that morning and said how strange it was that she kept thinking she saw my father, who passed away many years before, standing in the doorway looking for her. Then that evening she died, as I stroked her hair and told her how much I loved her. The people who bought that house are, I am convinced, blessed to be In a home with so much happiness.

We all have the right to express our opinions here and I don't feel in any way that suggesting this fear is phobic is harsh, shaming, or attacking the poster. I have my own experience with dealing with phobia so I do have compassion and I don't see any shame in talking about it. Actually, the best help I received was when people were honest with me. Which was my intention in my post.

Regarding kids in that house, I'd be more concerned that it takes paramedics 30 minutes to get there. But that's just me, and I suppose that's common in many parts of the country.

I wonder if the agent is the one that decided to tell the buyer about the guy dying in the hospital, and not in the home? Agent might have sensed that the buyers were concerned about the death in the house, so decided to calm the situation down and say he died in the hospital, without ever discussing this with the seller and without even knowing.

After all, this agent was going to be a dual agent, and she could tell the buyers were concerned about the death because the buyer approached her about the situation. Of course the agent could read the buyer's concern, so she quickly calmed down the buyers and gave them the answer they wanted to hear.

Maybe this is why the seller fired the agent and didn't want her to act as a dual agent.

Mmmbeeer, I also don't think it's harsh to point out an irrational fear as phobia. Phobias keep psychiatrists in business. Healthy people try to get over whatever phobia they have. There's a big difference between a fear of real danger and a fear of, say, clowns.

I was born and raised in the Bible Belt, the South, and Southerners generally thrive on ghost stories. Both my mom and dad had fantastic ghost and spirit stories. I loved hearing them. To argue that ghosts and spirits are real, though, is fruitless; there is no way to prove them. I can enjoy the possibility that they exist because I'm not fearful or superstitious.

Here is a link that might be useful: Phasmophobia

When my grandfather and step-grandmother married in 1950, they bought a house.

It was a small split-level house, facing south in the brutal Central Valley heat: the first floor on the east side of the house had the entry hall, living room, dining room, and tiny kitchen. On the west side, from the kitchen there were 5 or 6 steps down to a laundry room with pantry cupboard, a room at the back which might have been planned as a maid's room but which my grandfather used as an office (he was a newspaperman, not yet retired), a tiny bathroom, and at the front of the house, a narrow garage.

Above the lower level, at the cooler back of the house, was the master bedroom. At the front, above the garage, was the guest bedroom, and in-between was a large bathroom with a huge built-in bathtub and several amazing colors of tile.

The house was available for purchase because the previous owner, after his wife left him, had committed suicide in the back of the garage, hanging himself from a rafter.

The upstairs bathroom was approximately above the place where he'd died. And every single time that toilet was flushed, for the nearly 30 years my grandparents (and after my grandfather's death, my step-grandmother) lived there, the toilet mooooaned. And no one could stop it moaning. [The toilet in the tiny basement bathroom, between the laundry room and Grandpa's office, never moaned.]

I don't believe in ghosts. I have never believed in ghosts. But ... well ... that toilet moaned.

We all knew why it moaned. Every time that toilet was flushed, it was a reminder that the previous owner had killed himself in the garage.

It was sad, if we thought about it. It was kind of bizarre. But it didn't scare us as kids. It didn't keep us from visiting or from sleeping in the house. That was just the way it was; it was part of Grandma and Grandpa's house, like the magnolia tree, the Persian cat who hid when we kids pestered her, the stairs I was afraid of (having fallen down a flight of stairs at an uncle’s house at the age of four, and always having lived in blessedly-stairless ranch houses), the cork oaks next to the alley, the painting of Half Dome in the living room across from the horsehair-stuffed Victorian sofa that had belonged to Grandpa's mother, Grandma's camellias in the side yard, the rotating corner cupboard in the kitchen, or the sofa in Grandpa's office that separated into trundle beds my brother and I slept in.

===

When I was a teenager, we moved to the same part of southwestern Connecticut which my grandfather’s parents had left in 1890 to go to California. The new garbageman, on learning our surname, told us he had a small cemetary on his property a few miles away, with several gravestones with the same surname as ours. [He himself was descended from recent Greek immigrants, with no connection to the people buried on the property he had purchased.]

Heard that before funeral homes, wakes used to be held in the homes of the deceased person.

I have a story too. When we bought a large house on an acreage in the country about 15 years ago, it came with a guest house. The owner, a widow, used to rent the guest house out short-term. She rented it to a woman and her teenage daughter and the daughter hung herself there.

The owner told us the whole story herself, before we bought the place: " . . . I could see her hanging there, so I went in and cut her down, and tried to revive her, but it was too late . . . " OMG.

No, we never rented out the guesthouse and no one ever stayed in it while we owned it (13 years). One of our sons wouldn't go near it, while our other son tried to raise the ghost. He was successful, but that's another story for another thread. :)

Missingtheobvious - a moaning toilet, particularly on the second floor, is common and can be fixed.

"Heard that before funeral homes, wakes used to be held in the homes of the deceased person."

This is why you hear the term "funeral parlor" and "funeral home". It's the offshoot of when deceased used to be displayed in the parlor (room) of the home.

At that time there was still a room in the home called the "parlor". Savvy home builders and architects knew that "parlor" often was associated with the room that displayed dead bodies. So they started renaming this room to "the living room" in new homes. Over time, the parlor disappeared and was replaced with "The living room". They came up with the word "living" because it was opposite from dead.

Wow, never knew or even thought of why the living room or funeral homes were called that. Thanks sweet_tea.

>I really don't like the thought of someone dying there.WoW - what a wack job!

@ last poster

My grandmother died in 1956 in NYC. She was laid out in the parlor and the wake held there and there was a graveside service...

No public event at funeral home...

I think I may have y'all beat! When I was very small, my parents bought a large home that had been built in the 1870's by a wealthy department store owner. After the original family moved away or died off, the home was turned into a rooming house. Then, during the depression, the home served as the town's funeral parlor. The first floor set up was perfect with a front and back parlor for laying out the deceased and holding visitations.

Anywhooo....

The day we moved in, my brother couldn't wait to gleefully tell me ALL about the history of our new home complete with the (dubious) fact that the tub in the upstairs bathroom "is where!! they washed!! the dead!! bodies!!!"

My poor mother, exhausted from a day of moving, just could not understand why I screamed bloody murder when she tried to give me a bath in that tub that night.

Even today, decades later, when I go "home" to visit and am using that tub, I think about what my brother said and hope he was wrong...

As the OP expressed. "We also overpaid for the property...needs a complete remodel and is in bad shape." To me that is scary. Remodel is not so bad, but "bad shape" sends shivers down my spine. I would walk away......

This post was edited by Acadiafun on Thu, Oct 2, 14 at 0:39

So farmhousegirl, have you and your husband made a decision yet? Inquiring minds want to know. NancyLouise

So farmhousegirl, have you and your husband made a decision yet? Inquiring minds want to know. NancyLouise

Well, I know I'm looking at houses, but it's the farthest consideration from my mind to inquire if anyone has died in the house.
I'm more concerned with heating/cooling efficiency, shade trees, garden areas, size of rooms in house, and room for the dog.

Sounds like buyer's remorse, I would not buy this house because there are too many things telling you that you do not want to buy it. Cut your losses and find a different home before it is too late. I know that most of us do not believe in ghosts but for some it's a reality of their life so she may be afraid that she'll be plagued by the man that died in the house.

In the interest of this general conversation.....what might bother me in buying a home is if I knew that children had been abused in the home. I think abusing children or even adults, emotionally, physically, or sexually is worse than murder/death.

Growing up there was a family with about 6 kids. The father was arrested for sexualy abusing all the children. I got the creeps every time I drove by that house. I would never live there. Of course abuse of all kinds takes place all the time in all kinds of locations. There is no way to know of sure. Probably every house has had something "bad" happen in it.

OP, Hope it works out for you.

I rarely come to the real estate side here, but somehow ended up here. What an interesting discussion.

When I sold my mother's condo, the contract had a clause in there about death and felonies in the place. I had to add "not to my knowledge". The place was built in the 1970s, is a senior living joint, and while I knew what happened to my mother and the woman she bought from, I knew nothing about prior residents and wasn't about to do all the research on all the prior owners to find out. It is what it is. The sale went through fine.

Before we built, we tore down the old family home which was purchased in the 1930s, but the house itself was built in the 1790s. A neighbor told us his aunt was born in the house, that it had been a rooming house for awhile. If you think back, there were no ambulances, and doctors made house calls so people were born and got sick, injured and died at home all the time. The closest hospital wasn't even founded until 100 years after the old house was built. The odds of making it there by horse and wagon were pretty slim. So it wasn't even an option for a long, long time.

DH's grandmother died in the house...sat up in bed in the a.m., had a massive stroke and fell back on the bed and that was that. It never bothered anyone that she died there. For a few days before, she told everyone she had lived long enough and was ready to go. She had her own superstitions...the downstairs bedroom was supposed to be hers and her husbands, but before they moved in, he returned to Europe to visit family and died there. She would never sleep in that room and instead moved upstairs...

But long before she died, DH, his mother and my brother were all convinced of ghostly happenings in the house...though I never witnessed anything. But all the events seemed benign. Since building the new house, we've seen no evidence of ghostly happenings and the new house has a wonderful energy to it.

On the other hand, I would never live in John Wayne Gacy's house, and there's a reason they tore down the Sandy Hook school. Be it bad memories, bad karma, or an instinctive discomfort, I think most of us can related to a desire to "not live there knowing that", though for each of us, the trigger point may be different.

People have different tolerances. I live in New England, so a lot of houses here are old or older. For myself, I don't want to know too much or be too aware of a house's past inhabitants.

But, I know more than one person who swears up and down their house is haunted. Some of what people have described would have me bolting for the hills, but they view the occasional eerie happening as no more troubling than a sticky window or light carpet that easily shows dirt.

It wouldn't bother me personally that there was a death in the house.

It would bother me if the seller volunteered that her husband died at the hospital when the death certificate was different (and the hospital was apparently a long way away).

I would probably inquire. That is, I would say that the seller said her husband died at the hospital and we noticed the death certificate said he died at home. Then I would ask for an explanation.

KatsMeow, good to "see" you again.

"Is possibly the reason why the seller has been difficult have been because she is a widow and very likely still reeling from the death of her husband?"

That is what I wondered. The seller is probably grieving. Not surprising. Plus, having to put up with the nonsense that goes with selling a house wouldn't be much of a picnic.

Perhaps she is also sad because she has to move to a strange place, doesn't have enough money (after medical bills?), or family to help, and is counting on the sale to pay for assisted living, etc?

Unless someone was violently killed, I also wouldn't worry about a death.

I'd be more concerned about the water.

Many years ago we made an offer on a house that had well water. The inspection revealed high radon and a contaminated well with low pressure. It was also located in an area known for fracking....

The seller was willing to put in a mitigation system, but we didn't want to deal with a low pressure, polluted well so we passed.

It would be interesting to know what caused the heart attack.

We spoke to an inspector that said that elderly people die from carbon monoxide poisoning but aren't checked for this because they think they died from other causes. He said many CO detectors don't pick up dangerous levels. Older folks are home more often. They keep windows closed. Not a stretch to see how this can be overlooked..

Links that might be useful:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080129125412.htm
http://www.detectcarbonmonoxide.com/co-health-risks/

- Someone died in the house - even for nefarious reasons - it's a house, bodies are gone. But I'm not spiritual and not much for anthropomorphizing inanimate objects. If you do, certainly something to consider.

- The seller lied to you? I'm sure that rarely happens in a property transaction LOL! The only thing you should trust from a seller is what you or your agents and see or dig up. That's what due diligence is all about.

Something that often alerts us to the possibility of CO poisoning is when more than one person in the house is experiencing symptoms (headache, weak, dizzy, nausea, vomiting, palpitations, chest pain, difficulty breathing, blurred vision, confusion, seizure).

In many cases the patients think they ''have the flu.''

Study at Univ of IL Medical Center in Chicago, IL, showed 18.9% of patients reporting headaches in the winter actually suffered from serious CO poisoning. Paul Heckerling, American Journal of Emergency Medicine Volume 5, Number 3, May 1987

I have wondered about this issue because my late husband died of cancer in our home last year, at the age of 53. I have wondered if it would hurt the sale of my home someday.

But you know what? He was on hospice care for 2 weeks and I'm grateful that he didn't spend his last days in a hospital room. It was so much better to be surrounded by the kids, me, family and friends at the very end. I think if someone liked my house but wished my husband had died in a hospital somewhere, then I wouldn't want to deal with them anyway. Like kiwi said, wouldn't we all rather die at home than in some sterile and impersonal hospital room?

I agree that if it really bothers you then that's not the house for you. But if a loved one ever gets sick, you may decide that being at home is the best thing for them.

My grandfather and all his siblings (except the oldest, who was 2 weeks old when they moved in) were born in the house my cousin now lives in. His grandparents, parents, youngest brother, and his SIL all died there (not all at once). I know his sister wanted to die there too rather than a nursing home, she spent 2 years in a small room with another roommate before she died at age 90.

My grandparents both died (years apart) after hospice care at their youngest son's house across the street from the farmhouse. That oldest brother just died last year at the age of 100 in the home he built for his family. His older DD still lives there, in fact sleeps in the same room he died in (his sister who died in the nursing home slept for decades in the parlor where her mother and grandparents were waked, which was later converted to a bedroom for her elderly father, and where he died).

It's a normal part of life.

Years ago, a workmate showed off the front car seats he got at a great price from a wrecker. The driver had died in his. Now, that would bother me.

It looks like the OP may have gotten fed up and left, but if you're still reading....

If you have reasons to believe this house will be a money pit and a burden, then it's better to pass on it.

But if this is a good house that will suit you and your family, I would feel like the love and good energy you bring to it will be enough to make it a happy place. I would also feel like that house "needed" me in a way, and like it deserves to have your loving attention.

My house was new but vandalized by local teens before we ever viewed it. It was fixed by the bank that owned it, but once in a while, in a certain light, I can see where the wall or cabinet was scraped with something, etc. I feel bad for this nice house that anyone mistreated it and that my house is so much better off with me caring for it. I convince myself that the house knows this and returns the favor. It takes care of me and my family.

I know giving the house the power of emotion might not sound logical to some people, but it comes down to your attitude and how you want to feel about your new home. I chose to look at it this way, and that helped me adjust to a big move and a whole new environment.

And I would try to keep in mind that this difficult seller who may have lied will not be there any more. She'll be gone and out of your house and out of your lives. You don't really need to hear any more from her or deal with her again. Home inspections will be more reliable than anything she says.

I can see a widow not wanting to deal with repairs, but is it too late to knock off some money from the purchase price in order to do them? That's what I would have tried and then fixed things on my own.

I don't know about a natural death being a factor. Only you can decide that for yourself. But I was thinking things like people going through a divorce or bankruptcy and losing a home could be seen as negatives, too. But that doesn't have anything to do with your situation and what positive energy you'll bring to the house.

I don't really believe in ghosts, but I have relatives who swear they've come in contact with them. And all of them live in PA. What is it about PA and ghosts?

I hope this has worked out for you and that you'll come back and let people know what happened.