I am addicted to trawling the realestate pages.
I have several daily reports come into my inbox each day from realestate.com.au - i'm interested in places I have lived before, or sometimes I just like to help friends find a new place.
So anyway, the house I grew up in came up today.
Never the palace of dreams ( I had friends in a neighbouring ( considered 'better' ) suburb who would invite me to slumber parties in their nice homes and the like, and i'd never invite them back to my place ... but that was as much to do with a fraught homelife, as well as the shame of our small fibro home in the not-so-good neighbourhood )
But it was clean, and we had vegetable gardens, and chooks .. the lawn was mowed.
It wasn't a crack den.
So these pics.
I don't think i've ever seen a house in worse condition.
Forget 'renovators delight' and think 'kero and a match'.
It seriously looks like squatters have been pee'ing in the corner .. another room looks like there may have been a fire in it ( ? ). My room has graffiti. My sister's room has big patches of ripped wallpaper. Everything is dirty and stained from grubby hands on walls, and I-don't-want-to-know-what...
There is debris everywhere. Boulders in the front yard look like they've been hurled in anger by some Hurculean force ( as my sister said 'why did they take all these photos?' ).
Two wheelie bins are tipped over in the backyard, with rubbish spewing from them.
Sadly, it looks like, at some stage, someone has bought the place and done it up cheaply to rent out to others. There's been a change of paint colours, and we never had wallpaper. They've gone 'cottagey' ( or Grandma-ish ). And then someone's come in and just trashed the place.
Really bad.
And no, i'm not posting the pics.
Email me if you wish, and if you'll still be my friend afterwards.
Perhaps i'll consider it.
But now, i'm off to look for a certain Ben Folds CD....
and then to wash my hands, OCD style ...
17 comments:
I think I would be a little devastated if I saw my childhood home - I'm not exactly sure why but maybe I liked it how it was and any change would throw me for six. Everything from childhood is locked in my brain and is not allowed to change! I have had an overwhelming desire to see my childhood home again (it is only about an hours drive away) but something is stopping me going - I think it has to do with a fear that I don't remember it "like that" anymore. This desire has grown stronger as my girls have gotten older.
Also, as to your "real women" post - real to me means truthful and you're all that. If you are in your element as a mother I say thank the lord and well done. I am so happy to see you so happy with your life and the choices you've made. Again I say, well done :-)
Aww. I'm sorry the memories of your childhood home have been tarnished.
My parents still live in my childhood home and I keep hoping they won't decide to sell it for their retirement.
That would hurt.
Don't get me wrong .. there are no treasured memories here.
I'm not saddened because of a 'beautiful home' ripped to shreds. No. Never was.
In the words of Ben Folds:
"Just find a place where no one knows of your redneck past
Yeah, you can easily dispose of your redneck past"
Or maybe that's why I like the Robbie Williams song "Come Undone" so much ? ;)
That makes me so sad. one of the few reasons I'm glad my mom still lives in my childhood home.
Hopefully someone will buy the house and turn it back into a home.
That must be so hard to see.
But if they are trying to sell the house, why are they posting photos of it in such dreadful condition?
My childhood home has been torn down. I'm so sorry you ran across those pictures. Hopefully this wasn't too traumatic for you. You'll always have your memories. Remember...that is only a building. :)
It's eye-opening to see how other people live. When it's like you described it's shocking. And to see it in a place that you're connected to, it can give you the creeps!
We looked at some fixer uppers as they say awhile back...mainly for investment purposes. I left thinking blech...who would ever clean and sanitize the place? ME? No way!
I'll go wash my hands just thinking about it. ;)
That's sad that people can actually do this to a house. Lack of respect and that makes me angry. Lucky for me, my parents still live in my childhood house in the country - they built it in 1977 and 30 years on are still living there! And I know they won't move on from there either, they love it. *phew*
ooohhhh dying to see those pics!!!
Can't be as cool as where I grew up aka shitsville. I think it may have had one of the highest drug and crime rate in melbourne for a short time..... Dress code: Electric blu eyeliner,perm and bubblegummers and if you were lucky white leather boots....hot
H & B, it seems some didnt realise you didnt have a love of the place- just a bad memory made worse!
My brother & I returned to see the little house we grew up in, & my brother didnt recognize it! Said it was too small- once you have grown, things from childhood always look small, dont they! haha.
Don't take it too hard, the house that is a reflection of you is the home you have made for yourself and your family.
Speaking of OCD, did anyone watch the program on ABC on Thursday night 'The House of Obsessive Compulsives' it was the last of the two-part doco? My, my...what a crippling condition.
Don't worry about your childhood home, instead think of the beautiful abode you've created for your family now. I think you should be extremely proud of your artistic abilities.
It is awful how some of us live in such dirty surroundings though, untidy is one thing BUT dirty...ugh no way.
You simply can't go back sometimes. You are remembering the feelings of your home, the emotional connection, not the physical surroundings. Can't believe that you didn't link to the pics though, so we could all be horrified and saddened by the way some people choose to live.
In the words of Ben Folds, the oracle,...I'm rocking the suburbs...makes me scream and wanna say f@#$!
Tried to comment last nite but the whine got the better of me. My childhood home now has a freeway over it or very close. Couldn't find my way back to it, even if I wanted to... which I don't
but still.
Someday I'd like to go back to see the houses I grew up in. I'm sure I'd be devastated as you were, though....
MMMmmm Ben Folds.....
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