Reno Hall of Shame

Hi All,

I recently visited a friend who has moved into a rental property. It had just been renovated by the owner, and it must be the worst reno job I've ever seen. I had to take some photos, which I've put in the gallery reno photos .

Overall the painting was terrible, especially around the skirting boards, cornices, door and window frames (including painting over the window locks, rendering them useless).

Particularly bad was the tiling job in the bathroom. Looks like they tiled over existing tiles, but very poorly (you'll see what I mean when you see the photos).

The owner/renovator is a real estate agent. I know who to avoid when I'm looking for a PM.

John.

P.S. Sorry some of the photos are a bit fuzzy - must have been laughing too much.
 
Hey John,

It's a shocker! :)

We found some really badly done stuff in our current live-in property. Some of it we fixed or concealed, but some simply can't be cheaply/easily redone.

But the guy we bought from also was his own real estate agent and was as proficient in this as he was a renovator - so we're not complaining (and it's one reason why I reckon that people who sell their own houses are similar to people who choose to be their own lawyers).

Cheers,

Aceyducey
 
We've got a house like that at the back of our place. The previous owner put up a kit home himself. The cement slab was not level & looked like they tried to level it by hand. :mad: The painting! I can't describe how bad that is. :(

I could go on, but I won't. It's depressing.
 
Dodgy with a capital D

The one philosophical choice I made about property investment, which no doubt has limited some of the opportunites :), is to only provide something to tenants I would be prepared to live in myself. I hope the slum lord who provides this house lives in something similar, otherwise he/she should be jailed. The landlord would also wanna make sure the Landlord's Insurance premium is paid, now there is photographic evidence of what the tenant needs to survive (I think when you have to grout around a lightswitch you are setting yourself up for a 'shocker' ;-)

Thanks for the photos John - it even makes me feel better about my tiling skills :p
 
goodness - and i thought my finishing was sometimes on the rough side! those photos were disgusting and i am a perfectionist!

you would think that, if they were going to do such a bad job, they'd at least try and disguise the finish with a white grout. no accounting for some.

lizzie
 
I was thinking the same as lizzie.

Thought I was pretty useless at the handyman thing, but some of my bad work would look pretty good compared to some of those photos.

I also loved the little captions that accompanied the photos, very amusing.

Regards
Marty
 
lizzie said:
goodness - and i thought my finishing was sometimes on the rough side! those photos were disgusting and i am a perfectionist!

you would think that, if they were going to do such a bad job, they'd at least try and disguise the finish with a white grout. no accounting for some.

lizzie
Oh, was it black grout? I thought it was dirt.
 
Thanks John for a good belly laugh.

Trouble was I stopped laughing when I saw that power switch.

Started me thinking "whats behind his visible work".

Rented a house once that I was continually forking out on Gas in bottle form.

Got a Gasfitter in to check.

Turned out the landlord had done his own plumbing,electrical, gasfitting etc and had used waterpipe and waterpipe connections for the gas and it was leaking gas in our wall cavities.

Hopefully his work is only cosmetic, if you can call it that.

A86
 
Glad I could bring a bit of laughter to everyone's day. My favourite was the tiling around the taps.

Most of the problems were cosmetic (as you can see), but there were also some more serious issues, like the front door needing to be slammed (hard) to close. The worst thing, which I couldn't live with for 1 second, was the sink and shower drains being blocked. If you ran the water for more than about 10 secs the water would stop draining and bits of food would float to the top. I refused to have a shower for the two days I stayed there.

John.
 
??????
Whats wrong with it ???
It Looks Beauuuudifulll !!

You guys are just too fussy !

In some parts of the world this would be considered 'sheer luxury' ( just having tiles )


OK...seriously, it is crap...and highlight a point as to why there is no regulation that requires construction to be up to a certain standard...

I mean, if the electrics were substandard and it was reported or discovered ...then the property could be disconnected with order put in place to bring it up to a standard.

I wonder if this applies to the plumbing, etc. ?

Obviously not applicable to the internal cosmetic...( but it should be )

kp
 
Gosh, these are hillarious...

They look so much like the house I rented when I first came to BNE.

Well, actually, that was worse :eek: Seriously, it was.

You'd get seasick walking up the hallway, coz the floor went up and down and up and down... The kids used to roll marbles and tennis balls along it and laugh.

asy :D
 
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