Real Estate Horror Stories | Halloween Special | REIal Talk | EP. 75

Hi, guys. Welcome back to another episode on Real Talk. This is our Halloween edition. So we are going to be talking about horror stories and in spirit. Some of us dressed up or are in spirit. I love that shirt.

I was like, I need to get one of those.

I almost bought one, actually, but I'm Caitlin. But today I am Wednesday Addams. And I'll let you guys kind of go around the room and introduce yourselves.

I'm Erica. Today I am a smartie pants. As I have smarties glued onto my pants.

I am a 70s hippie love.

And I'm Jen, and I just have the spirit shirt on.

It's still okay, though, here in spirit.

We are very hard to be in.

Costume when you might have to go visit a property.

I definitely walked into Kroger. I like this today. Got some looks.

I was just saying I have to go into Marshall's after this, so it's fine. I mean, it's spooky season. It's fine. For those who might just only be listening to this, definitely check it out on YouTube. You are not gonna want to miss it. We have a giant bowl of candy in front of a few of us. Are eating on that. On it. So very excited. Who wants to start with their first horse story?

I can start.

Okay.

This one's just, like, kind of sad.

But it can be spooky. Oh.

So there was a property that we had some tenants in there, and so I'm in the property management, so I just deal with the tenants most of the time. And so one of the tenants, I must have been a drug dealer or.

Very heavily involved with drugs.

And they ended up getting shot in one of our houses, and they died. That was a very. It was a very sad thing. It was very like, what do we do now? And having to take care of the whole thing. You know, the police were involved, so that was very scary, you know, having to deal with that. I think that owner is trying to sell that house as well, so. Because he doesn't want to have to deal with that any longer. So it was very sad, very scary situation. Trying to figure out. Navigate that whole thing. I know. I'm sorry. I really dropped.

Dropped the mic.

But sometimes a horror story is just that.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Such a big.

Yeah.

Real estate horror stories, right? Yeah, that's definitely one of them. Biggest horror, biggest nightmare for any property owner.

That. I think that would be the worst.

Well, good.

It's only uphill from here.

So I'll share one. It's. It also has to do deal with property Management. And it's not, it's not really scary, but it was maybe frightening for us a little bit, I guess. So essentially I used to work in property management when I was in college and I had this resident come in and turn in their 30 day move out notice. Well, I forgot to file it and I didn't know and I like completely. We were like, what is going on? This person hadn't paid rent in two months and like all these things because where I used to work, if they didn't renew or give us 30 day notice, we automatically put them on a month to month basis. So we're like, they haven't paid the rent in two months. You know, we like started the eviction process and like all of these things and we're like, well, let's do like a well check. You know what? You know, we've tried calling. Let's just do a well check to be safe. So my property manager and I and our maintenance techs to go do a well check. And it was empty. But like, I mean, there was a lot of stuff left behind, but there was no one currently living in it. And like there were like needles on the ground. But here's the kicker. This is where it was terrifying for me at least. We opened the fridge and there were bugs everywhere. There was moldy milk, like old, like custard milk, all kinds of moldy food in it and like all these things because the fridge, for whatever reason had like turned off and it was very, very bad. So we had to go through like this whole thing on, like reversing the eviction and all this stuff. And my poor maintenance techs, they were not too fond of me because they were the ones who had to do the trash out on all of our units. They still loved me, though. I'm still in communication with them. So that's all good. But that was very bad. But what I learned from it was I never forgot to file a move out notice. So that was a plus. You live and learn.

Live and learn.

That is rough, Jen. I'm sure because you're in the rehab side things, you have some headaches. Don't we have a property that we have, the haunted house?

Yeah.

I'm listening to you guys and I'm thinking, oh, yeah, I could tell that story, or I could tell that story, or I could tell that story. Yeah. We had one that we called the haunted house, but really it wasn't haunted. It just looked like a haunted house. It looked like you could put some gargoyles up and it Would be perfect for Halloween. Sometimes when I'm in there checking on progress and I'm by myself, like, maybe the contractor isn't there that day and no one else is with me. It's really spooky when you hear noises.

Oh, yeah, something will fall.

And you're like, okay, what's that? Who's in here? Yep, there was one property where somehow a cat had gotten in and he had scared the daylights out of the punch guy.

Oh, no.

Because he didn't know he was in there. And, you know, you, like, see something just, like flying by and you don't know what it is. You just punched it out of the corner of your eye. So I went there after he had gotten out of there doing the punch list. So I knew the cat was going to be, you know, could possibly be there. And sure enough, I walk up and I see him sitting in the windowsill in the front window. So I'm like, okay, let's see how this is going to go, you know? Well, he was more scared of me probably even than I was of him. So I open the side door and he comes flying by to, like, try to escape out that side door or go down the basement. And as he's running by me, I don't know what he's going to. I'm screaming because I'm like, what? So that was. That was that one story. But yeah, we've had crazy stuff like going through the house when we do our. What we call our acquisition walks. Especially if it's a property that's been vacant. We will sometimes joke about the murdery door, a door that just has, like. Usually it's just something leaked from the roof, and it just makes it look more ominous than it is. Horror stories about properties that we just are struggling to push across the finish line.

Those are horror. Those are nightmares.

Yeah, those are nightmares, exactly. So, yeah, we've seen it all.

I have a couple. I was thinking about them. One has to do with the house that I am living in now, and another has to do with one of our properties. I was in contact with both of you during that. So for the house I'm living in now, I have a friend who's very. She's into those witch stuff and witchcraft and stuff like that. Super cute. But she wanted to sage our house. It is a. There's an upstairs main level basement. Basement is like hours unfinished. It's good for storage and stuff, laundry and stuff like that. So she saged our entire house, and then she went down to the basement and the sage wouldn't light it, wouldn't catch it, wouldn't smoke or anything. So she just advised us not to go down here anymore. We don't go down there. We have to. Laundry. Always bring a partner. The buddy system. We don't go down there. But the other one, that was one of our properties, this one actually did frighten me in a sense of like, somebody's in the house. Yeah. I don't remember what property it was. I remember I FaceTimed you, and I was texting you during the whole process, because I was terrified. But I was inside. It was a pretty big house. I would say two or three levels. And as I was upstairs, I heard some walking, maybe stuff moving around downstairs.

I remember this now.

Went outside of the porch, sat on the step. Facetimed you, Caitlin? Yep. I was talking about the whole thing, and all of a sudden, I heard something bang inside and drop. And I was like, I'm gonna die. I'm not going down. All those lights inside, they're gonna stay on because, like, I go to properties, take pictures of them. This one is all finished, ready to go for property pictures. And it's haunted, I believe it's still haunted. I went back inside with Caitlin on FaceTime. Just talking through it. I'm sure my face was pure white. But I went upstairs to the bathroom. I saw that the light in the bathroom had just slipped off and fell on the ground, but that was it. But I didn't finish the house. No.

Yeah. So I'm. I'm a very big scaredy cat. We actually talked about this in the vlog, so I used to take pro pics before you did. And I, like, very rarely went alone because I'm a scaredy cat, which is ironic for my costume, because I'm Wednesday Adams. And she, like.

They're like, oh, what do you smell like?

I like that perfume. She's like, it's death. Anyways, so I never went alone.

No.

Basements do not. I do not do basements. And so whenever I would go, I would have someone stand at the top of the basement door, hold the door open, because I'm terrified of it, like, slamming shut. And it's a real fear. And they. I actually went to a property with someone before, and she knew that I had this fear, and I was, like, downstairs. Like, I wasn't on the stairs. Like, I was actually downstairs in the basement doing something, and she just, like, slammed the door shut, and, like, my heart just dropped, and I ran to the bottom of the stairs, and it Was shut and I like walked up and I was able to get out and she's just like cracking up and I'm like, that is not funny.

Our basements are terrifying.

Yeah, Daytona has some crazy looking basement.

Yeah.

We are in hundred plus year old houses.

Yes.

Yep. So I always send. Bill Stewart is our junior project manager for Bulldog and he's tall. So I, we send him into the basement first with the joke that he clears all the cobwebs out because he's tall. So he kind of hits them all. But I. I've actually gotten to the point where they don't bother me.

Really? Oh.

I mean if they don't have spiders like actively on them, then yeah, it's a pain. It's annoying. You come out and you're like, you know, gotta get it all out of your hair, off your jacket and stuff. But for the most part it's just. They're just cobwebs, I guess.

Well, see, even like on the few times that I went alone, I would like look like elf like trying to go up the escalators where I'm like have one foot on the top step and my other leg extended completely down. Just like trying to get like angles of the basement so they could still be taken, but still within arm's reach of the door in case I need to escape.

I still do that. There was one property that I went to, it wasn't fully finished yet, but I was in the bathroom upstairs, I guess on the main floor, and the vent wasn't put in place yet. So I looked through the vent and I saw a basement with a light on. I checked every door in the house and I found no doors that could lead to that basement. But there was a light on. I saw it in everything. You could look around, you could see the poles, the light, the light bulb. I couldn't find the basement though.

Is it like a, like a crawl space or was there like something outside?

Maybe it was a basement I looked outside I could find.

So no access from the outside.

It's a different dimension.

I think Jen, after this podcast, she's gonna be like, so what was that property? Oh, it was right there. You just had to do this.

I don't know.

Sometimes the basements are spooky. I understand. But sometimes they're actually the best part of the house.

Yeah.

The upstairs is so full of stuff that people have left behind if they've had animals and they haven't cared for them.

True.

There's that smell. Sometimes the basement is refreshing because in the Summer. It's cool.

True.

Usually doesn't smell as bad. So I've learned to embrace the basement.

There was a basement that I was just looking at a property to try to figure out rent costs, and it's currently tenanted. And so I was just looking through the pictures to see, like, oh, what kind of shape is it in? And I went to the basement and I actually sent Caitlin this picture. And it is full of clothing. Like, they have a washer and dryer down there, but they have all these clothing. And so they have like, like a roach nest down there and like bedbugs. And I'm like, oh, God.

Oh, I'm not excited. Sometimes nightmares, it's a little rough.

Yeah. Oh, man.

Propanese is so funny.

So I have another story that I actually just thought about while in this. This is more of a, like, personal experience, like, what have you. But my. When I was little, my mom had rented this house and we had found out that a drug deal gone wrong and someone was shot on the front porch. Well, the landlord had apparently actually told my mom, like, hey, you know, we are willing to do like a two week kind of like rent basis because, you know, we can't keep anyone in here. They say that they have experienced, like, all kinds of things and we don't want to, like, tie anyone down. Especially since you have kids.

Like, creepy things. Like ghosty things.

Yes.

Or like people coming up trying to buy more drugs.

No, no. Like, like ghostly.

Okay.

Adventures. And so my mom was like, you know what? I need a place. We'll deal with it. So my mom had, like, told me this, but I was. I was trying to be, like, super in denial about it because I had never experienced anything. She said that she had experienced some things, and so I would like, randomly do things. So, like, she had like a fake plant in the corner and I would. I moved it one time in front of the bathroom door and she opened it and it was right there. She was like, like, really, guys who move this? And I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like, played it off so well and she started freaking out. I would, like, trick. Trick the lights off and on and like, I would do all kinds of things. But then I actually experienced something and I was terrified to go back to that house. We had a little, like, crawl space underneath and there. We never went down there just because, like, it was really. Just like insulation. Like, that's really all that.

It was like.

It was like very small space, everything. But there was a radio down there for whatever reason. I don't know. Just kind of like looked under, saw the radio and I was like, yeah, back up. But every now and then the radio would start playing like really like old weirder music. I don't even know. It was kind of like, like almost like jazzy kind of music. Freaked me out. I would just slam the door shut. The light would randomly come on and off. The light on our porch would start, like randomly flickering. So it was like the longer we were there, the more things happened. But that was a real like horror story for me because I don't. I don't do ghostly adventures.

You don't think your mom was trying to get back at you?

Oh, no. Oh no. I mean, she may have, but like we've talked about this now that you know, like I'm an adult and we're older and that was years ago. Like, shoot, whenever she tells people about it, she still will like say like, oh yeah, that place is definitely haunted.

Yeah, that's rough. I'm thankful we don't have any haunted properties.

At least that we know of.

True, true.

They probably are.

Yeah. You never know.

I'm convinced whenever I go into them by myself that they are expect the worst. Expect the worst.

Well, so that's what we were talking about in the vlog was it was Tiffany was supposed to be here and she had a couple of stories that she wanted to share, but the one that she really was excited about was from a previous marketing assistant. She went to this property to take photos and she heard footsteps. So she like freaking out. She called the office and was like, hey, is anyone supposed to be here? They were like, no. She was like, okay, cool. Well, she stayed. I heard from another source that she actually hid in a closet for a little bit of time and then she decided to like finally like go out and leave. Well, she saw muddy foot footprints leading up to an attic, to a closet in the attic. And like, it was just like a one way direction kind of thing. Like they walked in and went straight to the closet in the attic. Yeah, I would have peaced out. Can't do that.

Absolutely not. That's when they call the police. If you're hiding in a closet at that point, you should probably call the police.

Like the non emergency number.

No, I call 91 1.

Oh my God. Oh my gosh. Yesterday we had to run over to a property because our maintenance. Well, a neighbor had told me when I went there earlier yesterday that there were squatters, like people that would like go and hang out in the garage that was detached. So I made a work order for a maintenance tech, two of them to go out there and like, check it out, you know, secure it and all this different stuff. And there were. There were people in there. Well, actually, I think they walked up on them securing it and they were like, hey, what are you doing? I just want to get my stuff. They were like, no, we're not gonna you in here. So they threatened to just. They were like, whenever you leave, we're just going to come back and get our, you know, break back in. Oh my gosh. That was a dumb thing to do anyway. Like, why would you tell somebody that? But then. So Jen's assistant was going to the property to help out and just kind of like, like watch it while the guys went to go get the supplies that they need. And I was like, you can't go by yourself.

No.

So then I went. But then our Aaron, our CEO went because he, like heard us talking about it and he was mad. He came in hot, driving in there.

He's like, where are these guys?

It was so funny.

He might have been kind of joking, but then he circled the neighborhood to try to find them.

Well, that garage is nice. It's like Bonzi's garage on Happy Days.

Cool.

I'm dating myself with that too. But yeah, squatters are an issue. They're scary. Another one that I usually send Bill Stewart. And you know, he's good at just being like, get out. Get your stuff out. You have five minutes or I call the police.

Yeah.

You know, or I've had to, at the certain. The apartments in Middletown have had to just. And you, you don't really want to touch the stuff because you don't know, you know, whatever. So I've kind of been known to kind of just kick it out the door and secure the, the, you know, the, the, the lock or whatever. But one time when I was there. Oh, I just thought about this one. So we were.

I don't remember.

I was supposed to be checking it to make sure it was vacant, which is always a thing that you should do, not by yourself.

Yeah.

But I did happen to be there by myself. Opened the back door. It looked like I could see all the way through the kitchen and toward the front because that's the way these are designed. And it looked like there was a blanket or a sheet or whatever on the floor. You know, it was far away. So I wasn't positive that there was someone sleeping under it. But I'm like, you know what? This is above My pay grade.

Don't even try.

Nope. Yeah, no, thank you. Backed out, locked it up. I'm like, okay, you need to send somebody down here to. To clear this guy.

That's what I've done. Better safe than sorry. There was one property down in Cincinnati, I think I was looking through the house. I always do that when I get there first. I'll make sure the door was locked.

Before I went in.

But going inside, checking all the doors, all the closets, turning on all the lights, but I noticed that the back door was unlocked and slightly open. So I left immediately. Sat in my car, called the police department, not emergency, and had a cop come down, walk the place. He cleared the cobwebs for me in the basement. But, yeah, better safe than sorry for these. For these kind of properties.

Oh, my gosh.

And that, you know, that can go. That kind of sounds like a horror story on its own.

Like, oh, you have, you know, like, squatters.

But, no, in all reality, that can literally happen, like, anywhere. A vacant property, you know, even if it's in rehab, it's been vacant for a while, or it's vacant, and you're trying to get at least. You know, literally, that could happen anywhere. Someone just sees an opportunity, and they take their shot.

So I was so scared.

I went to a property and I went. It was like a duplex upstairs, downstairs. And I walked upstairs, and I noticed that there's a balcony, and the doors were open, and I was like, oh, my gosh. And so I was, like, gingerly, like, walked in. I was like, okay. And there, like, went into the back rooms, and another door, like, another window was open. I was like, oh, my God. What am I gonna do? I was just, like, walking, and I didn't feel like. Like unsettled. You know, you kind of have a gut feeling, but I was just like, I don't know. So I'm just gonna keep walking. And it was fine. There was nothing. And I kept, like. Like, I would never, like, let my back, you know, like, go to just where everything was. Cause I was like, I'm just gonna be very careful just in case someone's, like, hiding from me, you know? So I took all my pictures that I needed to, though, and they're actually.

Fixing the door, I think.

So it's all good now. Oh, my God. I was so scared, though.

You always got to be better safe than sorry for those.

Oh, yeah, it was. Oh, man. I. My parents, so I managed their rentals for them. They had a property that came vacant this past summer, and the guy, he. You know, he left. I went. This is the first time that I had, like, gone into a property right after someone has moved out, because usually, like, my brothers would do that or something. Well, no, this is me. My first time. I was by myself. I shouldn't have been by myself because we weren't, like, certain if they were out or not. Again, live and learn. Everything was fine, luckily, as far as, like, going by myself. But I walked in and the entire house was destroyed. This person had several dogs. They weren't allowed to have dogs per the lease or animals per the lease. Well, he did. And he let them use the restroom inside the house. And there was carpet. So, like, the living room and all the bedrooms were carpet. And so we had to completely rip up the carpet, the padding, and all of that because it was terrible. Especially in the bedroom. There were. He had, like, punched holes in all the walls. So we had to do all kinds of drywall repair. The. We had to get new appliances because they were just destroyed on the inside and outside. But so for me, that was, like, my first experience ever doing that. And I was not in the proper attire. I was in sandals, and I was very terrified. Yeah. I was like, you know, I have done several walks with BDR and with Jen. I should know better than this. I, like, why did I set myself up for failure? Luckily, again, nothing happened. But I was terrified walking in and, like, walking on the carpet and everything. I was like, oh, my gosh. But I did. I did clean them. I did. And I did also check myself for fleas before I, like, out of my car and drove away and everything, because you never know. But, yeah, so that was insane.

Bug spray, A pair of rubber boots in a plastic bag. Yeah. Sometimes I wish there were a hazmat suit.

And these are all things, you know, like, you learn as you go.

You know, you never know what you could walk into.

Yeah.

It's just never know with real estate.

Because you're dealing with people, the general public, and they have different ways of living. Yeah.

But, you know, generally, you know, I know this is like the horror stories podcast or Halloween edition, but in a nutshell, you know, there's always light at the end of the tunnel, you know.

Oh, yeah.

You know, that's what this tattoo means, actually. You know, if there's no rains, you aren't going to have any flowers, essentially. So, you know, you'll go through hardships and it ends out coming.

And it's so cool to see a house that has been a horror story. When we first walked through it, and then you see it at the very end, the first house. The. Like, the week after I started here, the first house I ever walked again, I was in sandals because I didn't know better either.

Yep.

And they were literally shooting, shoveling the trash down the stairs to get it out. Every window was broken. It was awful. It was just a disaster. And by the time it was finished and completely rehabbed, it was beautiful.

Yeah.

One of our nicest, nicest properties that I've seen. So. Yeah.

The bright side of real estate is we're making these neighborhoods better.

Yes.

Even if it is a nightmare house, even if there are squatters, even if it's trashed, in the end, it's still making the neighborhood better once we're done with it.

Yeah, absolutely. That. You just reminded me of a property that we had. Again, this is a while ago, but we had acquired it, and, like, it was almost immediately after we closed, it flooded, Right.

Yes.

And that was a nightmare.

And again, supposed to, like, keep the.

Floor, five feet of water in the basement. Yep.

Yeah. And wasn't it, like, pouring into. Oh, I remember going in right after we had gotten all the water out, and the light fixtures were, like, filled with water. The floors were completely warped, and it, like, before the water damage, like, it was beautiful before. Like, it could. Like, all of that could have been, you know, restored, and it would have been beautiful. Like, the hardwood floors, everything. But again, you know, we went through that, and I remember seeing it, I was like, this does not even look the same. Like, this is gorgeous now. I love that.

Makes it completely different. Yeah. Yeah. You never know. This was good.

I loved doing this. Does anyone have anything else they want to say or share? Any final words?

Smarty pants, Maybe.

I think it's. It speaks a lot that we can turn these properties into something beautiful. I think our team is, like, really solid, and we have a lot of experience throughout, all of us. So we figure it out.

Yep.

Or we're so naive, we come up with new solutions. Yes, we figure it out. Yeah, we get it figured out, so it's awesome.

Something I was. I meant to add on to what you were saying earlier about, you know, with the squatter issue that you guys were dealing with was that literally, people just jumped in to help. Like, and that's very much, you know, our culture here at the family of companies. I mean. I mean, in this room alone, we have. We have Freedom Real Estate Group Independence Property Management, Bulldog Renovations. Lauren and I are kind of all over. So, you know, Cash for Ohio Houses, Bulldog, irgu, all of them for everything. So it's, it's very warm feeling and nice, you know, being not only being able to like work here and like have that experience, but just having, knowing that like we have like people to back our backs.

Yeah.

So that's.

Everyone is ready to jump in and hoping something has to be done. Yeah.

It may not always be fun, especially if you're in open toed sandals, but yeah.

All right guys.

Well, I appreciate you guys all doing this. I hope you guys enjoyed this podcast. I know it's a little different than what we normally do, but again, we just wanted to do something a little fun and different. We hope you guys all have a good day. If you guys have any questions or any suggestions on future topics that you want us to talk about or even touch base on, feel free to put it in the comments below. We'd be more than happy to answer those or touch on that topic for you guys. We always like to end these with invest Smart, Live happy. Bye guys.

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