So I came across this real estate listing near where I live, and the price looks affordable... but the walls and the carpeting look funny. Can anyone tell me what likely happened with this house? Is it water damage of some kind?

https://www.redfin.com/OH/Akron/528-Rentschler-St-44304/home/66359451

looks like a house that has been cleaned as-well-as-possible after some very dirty tenants.

just imagine average gross people, (sadly most of the population after importing 3rd world) who live fast to survive. work, food, sleep, work, food, sleep, repeat. they don't "own" anything of substance, therefore don't have pride in ownership, because they are just "trying to get by" between paychecks and title loans. no time to clean, no drive to improve, because the just don't see the point.

a little as a year of this will leave greasy, furry, tacky, dirt adhering gross on the walls. carpet is carpet, and gravity is gravity.

t. 25 years in real-estaten trade work & property mgmt.

Looks like someone tried to freshen it up but used incompatible paint
Carpet just does that youre supposed to tighten it ince in a while
Both of these things are exasperated by humidity

>>2919343 (OP)
Looks like shitty carpet and lath and plaster walls. Have you never been in a house made before the 50s or something? That's instantly recognizable. Pre-sheet rock.

>>2919343 (OP)
the main problem i see is that its located in akron ohio

>>2919343 (OP)
>Is it water damage of some kind?

there as a renovation show on TV a few years ago where one of the fag decorators would use this technique of using a spatula and spackle to create texture on the walls
it can look ok-ish if it's done well
but this was not done well

>>2919343 (OP)
was it a rental? looks like low income rentoid abuse + cheap kike landord who slaps another coat of paint on the 50 other coats of paint on the wall.

>>2919343 (OP)
It's some crap attempt at skip trowel texture. I watched a literal meth head do a decent skip trowel room texture while I was tiling a shower.
This can be sanded, skimmed, reprimed, and painted with more labor than you're ready to put in. Let's hope it's not the entire house.

>>2919348
ok boomer

Here are the things wrong that I can see and what I think they would cost in my area. These are what needs to be done to stop further degradation (except for walls but and flooring but they obviously need something done with them). Probably cost another ~$60-100k in addition to the below to bring it up to modern standards (e.g. upgrade kitchen, upgrade bathrooms, landscaping, etc. depending on what you want)

>Shitty walls can be skimmed coated and repainted. ~$10k by professionals.
>The siding looks rotted in places, especially in the back. Several pieces are missing. ~$20k to replace with vinyl siding by professionals.
>90% of the windows are cracked or fogging. ~$14k to replace all of them.
>The entire front porch roof needs to be rebuilt and replaced at the same time as the siding. You can tell the porch ceiling has water damage and is rotten but they try to hide it with paint. From google street view, it looks like they butchered the siding while reroofing the front porch when they were trying to access the step flashing to reuse it because they were too cheap to buy ~$80 aluminum coil stock. ~$12k to get it replaced by a professional.
>The rest of the roof is probably in terrible shape if that's what the porch looked like. Recommend to replace roof and remove chimney below the roof since I don't see evidence of a fireplace anyway. ~$10k by a professional.
>The showers looks like they were installed incorrected where the insert walls meet the base. There's no caulking and it looks like they did some butchering to make it fit. There's probably water damage. ~$5k to replace with similar.
>Carpet and flooring need to be replaced. ~$4-8k depending on what kind you go with.
>Gutter prices and downspouts are missing. ~2k to replace.
>Backyard is Shrek's swamp.
>No clue what lead (paint) or asbestos (kitchen tiles) remediation would add to these costs.

Grim.

There are a million houses like this in the midwest. $100k for a shotgun house because "in a city."
Other than everything anon mentioned. You've got plaster walls. It's going to be knob and tube electrical, works but can't be insured unless you gut it. Your furnace and water heater? Probably need replaced. Plumbing? Anybody's guess. Is the roof decent? At least it's small. They can't even clean the trim or cabinets. The upper cabs are screwed up and they skipped the toe kick. There's a 2x10 board pretending to be a bathroom vanity. They couldn't even kick the carpets. Shower surround installed on top of the walls.

The flippers missed their marks every step of the way. You're going to sink 100k into this all over again if you want it to be nice. Maybe you can put in 50k of sweat equity.

>>2919343 (OP)
if you want to put in the hard work, wet the walls with a spray bottle, wait for it to soak into the wall a little, and then scrape it off. It's going to take a while ngl. It will make a mess on the carpet unless you put down something to catch the debris with. Use a plastic sheet and tape it (using BLUE painters tape; NOT WHITE masking tape) to the white board that runs along the bottom of the wall. This shit is heavy, so don't fill up the garbage back to the top. Go like, 1/3 to 1/2 of the way. Also, you don't know what that shit is composed of, so wear at least a N95 mask. A 3M respirator is a good long-term investment for your lungs. The ceiling looks adequate, so don't change it.

As for the carpeting, it was installed like shit. It was laid out and tucked in, but it clearly wasn't stretched into place. Get a knee-kick tool to stretch the fabric flat. You'll need to cut off the excess (probably a couple inches) with a knife. There's a strip that looks like a piece of wood with nails/staples in it and flipped upside down so the spikes point up. It's under the carpet along the edges of the room that keeps it taut. Do not remove them.

Anyway, that's all I care to type for now. Utilize youtube for more details.

tear it down and build our own home (from rolled up porn mags)

>>2919749
it's plaster, homie

>>2919362
>shitty
Those walls are solid as fuck. Break your hand trying to punch them.

>>2919443
This is probably a good way to reduce the echo in a room with hard floors by acting as a bit of a sound absorber/deflector.

>>2919486
>sanded
Why? That's so stupid.

>>2919343 (OP)
>Can anyone tell me what likely happened with this house?
The walls and the carpets are the least of your worries. It's pretty easy to clean up a place, but it's not easy to repair the bones. There's probably beautiful hardwood floors under those carpets and those walks are awesome plaster walls. The men who made that house were probably quite skilled when they built it. We just don't have that in homes anymore. You're gonna want to look at the foundation and structural members before you actually know the true condition of the home. When you look at a home ignore the finish and focus on the lines (how all the wall, door, ceiling, etc. lines run). The lines tell you how well the structural members have held up over the years. From what I can see there is definitely some sagging in some areas, but obviously hard to tell if any structural members have been hit hard. You would need to take a level and a tape to the house and get in the crawlspace and attic and possibly open up a wall to really see. Moisture is the #1 contributor to a house's degradation; usually that means roof leak, broken pipe, or lack of house water drainage system (gutters, french drain around perimeter, etc.). Every house has moisture damage. Older homes generally have more resilient timbers and because of the lack of insulation and such, they are able to dry out better than modern, sealed homes.

>>2919826
Cont...
This home doesn't look so bad to me. How it smells and feels inside would tell you where any rot is and how extensive. Like I said, it's amazing how well you can clean up a space, but compromised structural members are another matter entirely. I would say a lot of the comments thus far are judging surface level shit that can be easily changed. $84K is a damn good price for a home. You're going to have to maintain your home no matter what and it's not like modern homes don't have their problems, which can sometimes be super horrible within a handful of years of their life. You either pay a higher up front cost for everything to be nice right off or you pay less and make it nice over time. There are some pretty awesome perks to old homes, but it takes character to appreciate them.

>>2919809
Scraping as much as you can is implied.

I don't know why in the past couple years every diy housewife thinks they're a drywaller because they have a lawn sprayer. Just go get your sponge and it will be perfectly smooth!

You leave it, tear it down, or you tool it. Those are the options. Quick tear down is pretty viable since it's rock hard plaster. Fix the important stuff in your walls while you have them open.

>>2919830
Why not just skim coat it right off?

>>2919806
You wanna try reading that sentence again and reexamine the order in which the words appear?

>>2919827
>>2919826
If you're doing an impression of a boomer waxing poetic it's fantastic m8.

There are houses all across Akron for 60-120k. I don't know the area, but the OP house is a pure ass-kicker.

To me it's $40k valuable house. You buy it, put in another 40k with cleanup and maintenance, people rent it for five years and you're still underwater with taxes. Are you dying to live there?

Here,
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/844-Harrison-Ave-Akron-OH-44314/35428348_zpid/
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1187-Winton-Ave-Akron-OH-44320/35466397_zpid/
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1201-East-Ave-Akron-OH-44307/35475193_zpid/

>>2919831
What? You have half inch tall stiff peaks everywhere. Most sheet rock is only 1/2. You'd have to float out to the front of your baseboard to get that smooth.

Drywall joint compound dries to chalk consistency. It's brittle but fairly soft. Plaster is similar but it dries to half-way cement hardness.

is lead paint an actual concern with buying a house? I've heard the best way to mitigate it is to just paint over it and seal it

>>2919854
>is lead paint an actual concern with buying a house?
Hmm. No, I would not consider that a serious concern when buying a house, but I suppose it really depends on the situation. The thing is if it isn't lead, then it's mold or disease from pests or any number of toxins and pollutants that are released the same way as lead in paint. So you just need to get the right materials and protection to contain the mess or you don't disturb it and work around it.

>>2919837
Would it not stick properly? You just don't like that it would throw the trim off? Would doing a full smooth skim coat even be considered a skim coat? I wouldn't expect to go fully smooth. Probably just even it out or something, but I don't think someone who can't adapt to textured walls should be buying an old house, so I feel the idea is moot.

>>2919854
You bet your ass. We're layering up and increasing the value. Shingles on top of shingles, siding on top of siding, carpet over carpet. Bring on the paint sprayer.

https://youtu.be/hrVyfOeU0vg

>>2919343 (OP)
Floors are fucked because the house is settling which fucked the plaster which was then covered by a shitty skip trowel coat which was put on WAY too thick

The carpet is destroyed, not even worth restretching because (I assume) it's 25+ years old

Also, it's in Akron so you'd need to spend time in the neighborhood to actually get a picture of the whole thing

>>2919809
A power drywall sander is the big brain move. He could probably just sand it smooth and do touch-ups easier than anything else

>>2919343 (OP)
I’ve seen that style of texture in older houses, but maybe the others are right in saying it’s used to cover up stuff. The crack across the ceiling says there were settling issues, but that doesn’t mean anything. An 80 year old house built with concrete blocks and bricks will settle, fuck all the ceilings like that, and still last twice as long as a stick frame house. Check the foundation well, get a second opinion on it, no clue about anything else. Water damage can also be checked for, spend the money.

>>2920963
And the carpet is clearly just a shitty diy job by someone who didn’t know what they were doing. Which means it was either done by someone who didn’t give a fuck to replace dirty carpet, or done by someone who didn’t give a fuck to cover up damage. Moot point as the same advice applies, get a proper inspection, and not from your realtor’s inspector.

>>2920964
Just do your own inspection. Unless you know a literal hound of an inspector you can't trust anyone to find shit.

>>2919700
>$100k for a shotgun house because "in a city."
Good luck finding even a condemned tear-down for as little as 100K anywhere nowadays.

>>2921413
I linked 3 houses that are more manageable for OP, there are many more. Akron's entry level real estate is well below 100k.

We can pick apart the OP house if someone wants.

>>2921528
Yeah, but then you have to live in Akron, Ohio.

>akron
Is meth still the biggest problem or did that finally get replaced with fentanyl?
Ohio was actually quite a nice place outside the cities when I was growing up, but that's been 30 years. The memes became a self inflicted prophecy. For those who dont know the kids have been saying Ohio is shit far longer than the internet existed.

Shit paint and stucco, loose old carpet. Other than that, probably fine.