Sad House

[cdnikoloff]

There is a house in my small town where a horrific triple murder took place in 2002. Since then the old girl has been standing empty and unattended. The general concensous of the towns people is to simply bulldoze her under and rebuild. I am not sure how I feel about that, the crime commited under the roof of this old house was so violent that I don't know who would ever want to live there knowing what happended. I don't know what condition the inside is in, the outside could really use some fixing. I guess deep down I hope someone steps up and saves this house and makes it a home and starts new wonderful memories, enough to dilute the sadness that has occured if thats possible..

[lildog]

Cute house.

As for knocking it down, I personally would recommend against it.

Sometimes horrible things happen in places. Paving over what happened and trying to forget doesn’t erase them from history and as horrible as it sounds, people like seeing where bad things happened.

Look at the Molly Hatchet house, which is now a museum/ bed and breakfast where people pay good money to sleep in the very bed a murder took place.

One thing often said in Salem, MA is the expression of sadness that the town embarrassed by the events that took place there destroyed many of the historic homes and locations that had anything to do with the witch trials. The few related homes that still stand are now all museums.

So as bad as it sounds, the house is now historically significant.

[johnb.]

I'd vote to keep it. As bad as the situation was, it was an event, not a lifestyle. I'm sure plenty of bad things happened in a lot of our houses; we're just not privvy to them.

If something bad happened in a house I wanted, I don't think it'd bother me. Some folks let their imaginations get carried away. It's like the pro-gun, anti-gun sentiment: A gun is a tool. It's the person using the tool that's the culprit. A bad person will use it for a bad purpose. Getting rid of guns will do nothing to curb the actions of bad people.

The house is the same. Bad people did bad things there. The house is merely the structure where the event took place. The house had no influence on the events. I'm sure someone will buy it. As a town, you should try to downplay the event and get it sold, so as to put it back on the tax roles.

[Texas_Ranger]

If every house where something real bad had happened had been bulldozed, most European cities would have very few pre-WWII houses left. Our former neighbor possibly shot himself in the house when his wife was murdered by the Nazis, at a friend's house one of the tenants hung himself in the attic, one house in the neighborhood has rumors going the new owners threw the (Jewish) PO down the stairs and bricked him in in the basement... a few blocks away a writer allegedly shouted down on the street for everybody to go away before he jumped out of the window in 1938...
After all, it's still a house. In my opinion, houses _can_ have bad vibes, but you can get rid of them. Our apartment once gave me helluva scare when we first looked at it. When I was in there I didn't notice anything, on the contrary, I was surprised how nice and bright everything looked, but when I went to bad that evening I felt horrible.
Now all the bad karma or whatvever you want to call it is completely gone and I love the place.

[Crash]

Move it to Hiroshima, it may blend right in.
(I shouldn't have written that, sorry for weak macabre humor)

Anyway, there's still a Hiroshima. So historically speaking, if 10's of thousands of awful deaths doesn't render a place off bounds, a handful of deaths shouldn't either.

[S]

I read someplace that the Nichole Simpson house just sold at a high premium. The owner of the house where the Manson murders took place kept the house after the murders and continued living there for a long time.

I'm not sure I'd mind living in a house where murders took place. If the house was the right price, I'd hire someone (I don't think I'd want to do the work myself in that case) to substantially change or restore the house. Make it into a "new" atmosphere. I don't think it would bother me then. It might actually be rewarding to turn a "bad" place into a "good" place.

[Texas_Ranger]

Yup... it's all about the way you redo it. I don't know if I'd be able to sand blood stains out of the floor myself to pick an extreme example, but if you can change the way the house feels by renovating it - go for it.

[Don M]

I would keep it; it's an attractive house and as has been said there are probably bad things that have occurred in many old houses; that's the history of the house. Don

[AdkNorth]

Shades of "The Amityville Horror." (Which is another house that I loved!) Sorta looks a little bit like it too. I always thought, "Oh, that's terrible. Now no one will ever buy that nice old house in Amityville."

I agree with the "a house is a house" sentiment. It should stand. However, as Texas mentioned, I don't know if I would want to be the one to see the evidence of it's history, or replaster bloodstained walls. But, if someone bought it and redid it beautifully and really turned people's perceptions around, they'd definitely qualify for local-hero status!

[brianm]

If you could renovate the house and change the 'vibes' it gives and it feels comfortable, then it should stand. If it is solid, why tear it down? I'm sure there are a lot of places with such a sad history, that still stand and are used.