Every agent knows deceased estates come with complications: grieving families, decades of accumulated life, and the occasional surprise behind a closed door. But when one selling agent took on a deceased estate sitting on a good-sized block just a short, convenient commute from a major capital city CBD, he received a masterclass in just how surprising a property can be.
The warning signs were there from the moment the family handed over the keys. “Look, Mum was a bit of a hoarder,” they offered. “And there’s a bit of wildlife to deal with too.”
A bit. Right.
Deciding there was safety in numbers, the agent and his associate headed out together for a first inspection. The property was everything they had been told, and considerably more.
Pushing open the front door, they were greeted by a forest of furniture. The ground cover was magazines and stacked paper, while the cupboards heaved with enough knick-knacks, crockery and expired condiments to fill a football stadium. Navigating the maze and the odour was a challenge enough.
Then there were the pigeons. An entire flock had taken up residence inside the house. The spare room was, for all practical purposes, an aviary.
The pair assumed they had found the worst of it… they had not.
A rustle from atop the cupboards drew their eyes upward, just in time to catch the back half of a very large reptile slithering into the roof cavity. That was the last straw. They exited with haste, feet barely touching the ground on the way out.
With an auction campaign locked in, the home had to be cleared and made at least more accessible for open homes, which proved easier said than done. After several staff flatly refused to set foot inside, it was time to call in a professional snake catcher to deal with the slithery resident.
The catcher’s report afterwards explained a great deal. “Boy, he was a big one, and he wasn’t too happy about being dragged away,” he said.
It turns out the carpet snake had been feasting on its housemates. A steady diet of pigeons had produced a genuine behemoth, and he had no intention of abandoning his flying smorgasbord without a fight.
With the wildlife rehomed and the house finally cleared, the property went on to sell for a tidy sum, snake-free and pigeon-free, proving once again the oldest rule in real estate: a great location conquers all.
For buyers’ agents, the lessons write themselves. Tread lightly, obviously. But more importantly, there is no substitute for walking through the door yourself. Photographs, listing copy and even a sales agent’s guided walk-through will never tell you what is roosting in the spare room or living above the ceiling. In this business, what you don’t inspect can still bite.
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