I thought I had seen it all until today.....
I have found moldy food, panties, money, jewelery, illegal substances, naughty bedroom items but I have never found what I saw today.
Our team went into a client's home to destage it since it had sold. The homeowner was at work and left me the key to let myself in. After we had packed up the accessories, lamps and artwork we then got to work rolling up the area rugs. I had to move the family room sofa to get the rug out from underneath it. When I moved it I found.....
Yes a GUN!!
To be honest I was not sure it if was real or not- maybe it was a squirt gun or a BB gun? It looked real. My assistant and I decided not to pick it up and I immediately called the homeowner. He told me that he had left it there last night and FORGOT about it.
The problem was that I did not want to leave it there since the rental company was coming to get the furniture and I did not want them to A. touch it or B. take it.
The homeowner informed me that it was real and it was LOADED.
I did not realize that they were so heavy. I wanted to do a Charlie's Angels Pose but I did not want my prints on it! Definitely this was above and beyond normal decluttering and not part of my staging props.
Kate - yikes! I wouldn't want to come upon a gun in one of my listings, not laying around like that. I have had listings where there were rifles, locked up in a case, and I've known there were locked gun closets in homes I've shown betore, too. But never any gun out like that one was......thankfully a child didn't find it.
Ann
Yeow! Reminds me of years ago in a past life, before I was a mortgage broker, I had a temporary job picking up cable boxes from people who hadn't paid their bills (hey, the job had health insurance, and we had our second baby coming.)
I got back to our warehouse and was unloading my trunk and one of these cable boxes had a syringe stuck into one of its rubber feet!
Nothing says "North Denver" (80205) like a syringe!
While on vacation sitting by the pool in SC with my husband and kids ( about ages 6 and 4 at the time) I saw a lizard run by. My daughter had been trying to catch one all day. I got off the chair and lunged into the bush it ran under and low- and -behold- a loaded gun sat there. My husband was a cop many moons ago and we obviously guarded it and called the police. They said a botched robbery had occurred the nite before when a homeowner walked in and they apparently ditched the gun when they ran! SO GLAD MY DAUGHTER or any other child didnt find this!
As far as seeing something in a home surprising- probably my least favorite- and it has happened more than once---an UNFLUSHED TOILET.
That is crazy. I have guns and I have children. I always keep my guns under lock and key.
" Your Mortgage Specialist"
Shaun Wren
Centric Mortgage
Hi Kate, what a surprise. Wow. I did an open house on one of my listings one time because the seller's were out of town. Apparently their nephew had a party the night before so I had to pick up a few beer bottles. No big deal...until I saw the breast implants sitting on the kitchen table. Ha! Apparently one of the party goers was considering what size they wanted to be. :)
But a gun! That's something.
Yikes! That would have made me run screaming from the room. People are just so brain dead. The two most disgusting things I found in a home were, in order of disgust, used condoms under the bed, and a big pile of dog poop in a spare bedroom.
Terry Haugen - STAGE it RIGHT!
I have a question: Why was a loaded gun hidden under the sofa? For quick access while watching tv?
Scary. Good luck.
Sugar Land, Tx
Where Life is Sweet
Don't you just love finding little surprises? I've walked into homes (with appointments, mind you) that have had "party" paraphenalia around, magazines, a loaded pistol sitting on a closet shelf (with no safety), lingerie, hand cuffs .... I could go on and on. Someday I'll tell you about the story of doing a consultation at a house where the bathroom door was locked from the inside. (If you can't wait, you can email me).
The worst part about staging - dust, dirt and fur.
Thank goodness a child did not find it- I did not even consider that someone looking at the home may have a child with them. Not a very safe or welcoming statement. No explanation of why it was there- I just wanted to get my things and get OUT of there. We did take a picture because I was so shocked I did not think anyone would believe me.
Callie, I am dying to know the bathroom story. Could it be as bad as the one I saw with 13 (yes 13!) wig stands with men's toupees??? Yuck- we had to move them to the master bedroom closet. I felt like I was picking up roadkill.
Kate, That is wild. Having grown up in Texas where lots of people have and keep guns, I'm afraid I would not have thought it through as thourougly as you did. I probably would have been stupid enough to pick it up and put it in a safer place. I'm glad you made this post. Besides being intersting, it made me THINK!
Kim Dillon, Creative Eye Home Staging
Kate, I just stumbled onto your fun/interesting post and had to share this. When I bought my first condo, the previous owner had left a small bowl with 2 goldfish in the refrigerator. Yes... they were still alive and became part of my family.
I had to stage around this:
The home owner would not remove it. Sorry about the large photo but I thought you needed it to get the full effect.
Time to add some latex gloves to your essential items list.
I had the same story as this. I had a showing on a house i had listed that was about to go into foreclosure. the owner had a renter in the property so all showings needed to be set up with the tenants ok. I ended up being the one to call the female tenant because it was an after hours showing so the agent called me directly.
"one more thing marcus. please tell the agent showing the house my shotgun is laying out on the floor. i was scared last night so i kept it close to me"
needless to say i wanted the house to sell so i told the agent just show up a bit early so you can kick the gun under the couch.
He didn't want to show it after that! lol.
Kate, I had a similar experience last year. I was showing a city townhouse. When we got to the bedroom, there hanging over an open closet door in plain sight was a belt and holster with a 44 Magnum revolver (a very large and intimidating gun, for those not familiar with firearms).
I called the listing agent, who informed the owner, that the current tenant in the house was displaying something not helpful for either sales or safety. Ironically, the tenant had a small daughter of his own in the house as well.
Kate, I do believe you need to stop working in the 'ghetto'! I still can't get the image out of my head that one client so kindly left me with-asked to help him sort out his closet for better presentation, I came upon stacks and stacks of 'tighty-whiteys' on open racks laid out for everyone to see. He saw nothing wrong with them, either! Needless to say, he is still living there! And without a designer/stager!
Maureen, I hope you put a hat and some shorts on your boy!
Marty, two live ones in the frig are better than 5 dead in the freezer (apparently you can return them if they die too soon!)!
Oh Kate,
Of course you wanted to do a Charlie's Angels pose! This could only happen to you! So, what did you do with it (if someone else asked this I wouldn't know because I read the blog and comment - I don't read comments as a rule)?
VAL
I had the naked people once. We showed up for a scheduled showing and the renter answers in her bathrobe with her hair wet.
"can you come back later my Boyfriend is in the shower"
My clients didn't really want to go back to see it. i think they decided they did not want to live in a house and be thinking about the love that had gone on in the shower.
Kate...
For me the strangest has to be the panties and pot.
Large quantities of pot and panties hanging from ceiling fans, door handles, chairs etc. . .
Our Seller's apparently were using the panties as lovely home accessories. Hey. At least they were clean panties :)
I don't suppose you would want to hear the one about the dead body would you? :)
TLW...ROAR!
Kate - that's a pretty scary story. Guess my life is boring...thank goodness. I can't match what anyone else has shared, that I can recall. I do know of an agent in our market who found a body (murdered) during a showing. Caused quite a stir in town. And the crime was solved as well.
Jeff
GATOR! I wrote about it a while back..so I won't repeat. STRANGER-than-Fiction
I guess in Pennsylvania that might be unusual. Here in mississippi guns are ways of life. They are in every home. I would not have thought much of the gun. I would have been concered if a child lived in the house and I would probably just picked it up and put it away and let the owner know where I put it. I have a loaded gun in my house now. it is in a locked box away from the children but I have one. You just have to respect them but god help the person that decides to break in my home. :)
sweett!!! I always wanted to hold one of those... ?
how heavy was it?
did you feel like you had some kind of power?
Just playing.. I am not sure I would be totally freaked out though... it's something that one would not expect though...
Did you wipe your prints off? did you use a glove to hold it,....
I am playing!!!
I showed a house once where we called the seller the night before and told them we were coming, on voice mail, and if there was an issue with the time frame to call back...no call back...went to house, let ourselves in with lockbox...seller was standing at top of stairs in his undershorts with a rifle pointing down at us. We immediately turned around, and walked out, locking the door behind us. Didn't want to stick around to see if he'd use it on us!
I haven't run into that here and the only "weird" thing I ran into was a guy who prayed and practiced "magic"...you know the voodoo stuff...and when the cleaning lady was moving the mattress found a knife underneath...
Sounds like this homeowner may be on track for a Darwin award.
"A Chronicle of Enterprising Demises
Honoring those who improve the species...by
accidentally removing themselves from it! "
I'm not sure if i would have freakout from seeing a gun in the house. I would have probably move it with a paper towl to a safer place in the house and notify the homeowner. Back in high school, i wrote an article about guns and its safe for some crazy project and i feel the gun related topics differ from areas you were grown up in. I work out in outter part of the city limit in rurual area and you will find plenty of guns in people's home and you never know if they are loaded. I don't know if you guys had experience with selling a hunter's home, but one how i showed had over 100 taxadermie animals ranging from bears to little tiny farret. The house was over 4500 sq. ft. and half of his downstairs was a personal mesum for his collection. He had your typical moose and dear head.
I don't know anyone has sold a rental house near college campus, but once you've seen those rentals, you've seen them all, everything else just doesn't come close. I've seen college rentals with people passed out in the back yard, garbage everywhere, naughty objects and affections that were previously mentioned. Besides, many of the top officials in our government have done pots and few other white powder in their life time.
I'll give you the owner was wrong to leave the gun out when people were coming to move things. It is however only a gun. It's not alive it will not attack you. Its not a bomb it won't explode or jest go off. I don't think I've been in a house in the past 15 years that didn't hav at least one gun in it. Those who commented they'd "freak-out", You must have a very dull life or be wound really tight.
That being said, the owner of the gun should have been More responsible.
My favorite was a first showing I had with a young couple. She attending a local seminary school and he a grad student at OSU. They were refferred to me by a very religious friend who was also in seminary school.
We walk into the second home on the tour and the smell of pot is very strong. The house in in dissary, but I'm hoping they are naive enough to miss the smell.
We walk through the downstairs and head up to the second floor and are greeted with a stripper pole, I just stop. Hoping against hope they think it is a brace and scan my eyes to the right and there are pictures of different women, thankfully clothed, "demonstrating" the pole. We leave and the non-buyer says "this is one of those houses you buy and for six months you have people coming up trying to buy drugs from you."
Thankfully it wasn't the same as her friend, or it would have been a deal breaker.
Guns being found in this area are normal, we really don't think twice about it, I guess.
I have shown a house that right when we walked in the selling agent told us a skunk just died under the house. IT WAS AWFUL!
I'm glad you didn't find a dead body to go along with the gun!
Well, after reading this blog, I'm feeling pretty blessed right now.
I thought dirty underwear, rude posters, marijuana, and beer fridges in bedrooms were bad to have to stage with......
Loaded gun? THAT would make me pretty pissed. I would have left the home right then and there. As one blogger had said before....what was the owner thinking?
Julia
Why would people do such a thing it's just beyond me! What if some silly kid was playing and found it underneath the couch and thought it was a toy gun?! People do leave the privatest thing around. I tripped over the seller's vibrator once. haha
cheers,
cindy
My question would be how in the world could someone just forget the gun was there? The home was staged, so I take it not occupied...where is the need for a loaded gun if no one is living there?