Showing the house.

[George K]

D4 is considering moving from the city to one of the suburbs. She and SIL want to be close to the city and not "too suburban," so she's looking at Oak Park.

She asked around on FB and is thinking about renting a house, rather than an apartment. It would have a yard, better parking options, and most importantly, no neighbors to be pissed off when the toddler goes running around.

She was messaged by someone who wants to sublet her place. It was built in 1917 and the photos she was sent made it look pretty nice (from a Zillow listing). On Sunday, she went to see it and was shocked at how bad it showed. She took tons of photos, and was really disappointed. It was dingy, dark, and no lights were turned on. Every blind was pulled. There was crap ALL OVER the house. There was even cooked food in the skillet on the kitchen stove. FFS.

I commented that I find it hard to believe that something that looked SO good could look so shitty IRL. She likes the neighborhood, the rooms work, and they're of good enough size. SIL is working from home, so he needs some privacy, and the "green room" in the pictures would be perfect - even the basement is doable. I'm going to try to convince her to take it.

But...look at these pictures (she made the comparison images). You can see that only one room has been painted different from the originals.

[Klaus]

The photos don't look that bad. Most things can be fixed relatively easily. For instance, te blinds being down shows that the "seller" is bad at selling things, but it's not inherently bad.

If it is otherwise a good deal I'd still consider it.

[Doctor Phibes]

It's a lot tidier than my house looks right now.

[LuFins Dad]

@Klaus said in Showing the house.:

The photos don't look that bad. Most things can be fixed relatively easily. For instance, te blinds being down shows that the "seller" is bad at selling things, but it's not inherently bad.

If it is otherwise a good deal I'd still consider it.

Yeah, I have to agree with Klaus. There doesn’t appear to be anything structurally damaged and it just looks disordered as opposed to dirty. The skillet thing is a little odd, but who knows how much notice they had that your daughter was coming over.

[Doctor Phibes]

They've presumably got a baby or very small child - my dim recollection of those days was that cleanliness may indeed be next to godliness, but total exhaustion was a lot closer to us than either.

[LuFins Dad]

It was wrong of the landlord to use the Zillow photos, though. Especially if it’s being rented as furnished.

[George K]

It's a sublet from the current tennant. Everything appears to be in pretty good shape from what she says. She's not interested in buying, yet. This will do for a couple of years.

[George K]

@Doctor-Phibes said in Showing the house.:

They've presumably got a baby or very small child

The current tennant is a single mom with a 3 month old.

Oy.

[Mik]

Whoever took the original pics was much better at staging and filtering. But as said, nothing there worries me. Oak Park..not even sure that is suburban enough to be considered suburban. Nice location.

[Loki]

Ah in my youth I went to bed in the after house and woke in the before house. What more proof do you need in the non-linearity of time?