Real Estate in American Film & TeeVee: Poltergeists & Full Disclosure

Today is a dark and stormy July morning, totally normal for midsummer in the mountains of San Diego, and a little creepy with the wind blowing through my drapes and off-plumb creaky doors, and I am thinking about maybe my favorite representation of real estate in a movie: Poltergeist.

Already more than a 30 year old flick, I can honestly say this movie is and probably always will be theeeee scariest of scaries for all time. The special effects do not seem to age or get corny, the fear factor is psychological, physical, gorey, horrific. Oh, and there's a clown. Ask any 30-something aged person how they feel about clowns, and if they've seen this movie ever, you probably wouldn't catch them with a stuffed one in their homes, or bedrooms, or in arm's reach. Ever.

Anyway, the real estate premise in this movie is that after all the ghosts and furniture rearranging and hallucinations and getting sucked in and out of the closet, the tv, the death pool, etc., come to find out that the source of all these woes is that an unscrupulous developer, in an effort to save a few bucks, built tracts of homes over old cemeteries without first removing their interred inhabitants. And dead people don't like it when you do that. In subsequent Poltergeist movies, (there was a series) the story goes on to explain that it was old INDIAN burial grounds that were disturbed, and let me tell you, they are the worst about being disturbed from eternal rest. I do my best to not piss an Indian off who is among the living. An angry dead Indian is maybe the scariest thought I can conjure. Second only to clowns, of course.

I don't know which came first, stories like these and like the Amityville Horror or the laws, but there are in fact laws about disclosing deaths in homes. In California, a seller must disclose to a buyer if a death has occurred, naturally or not, in a home if the death occurred within 12 months. If a home is believed to be haunted, a seller must also disclose that belief. If a home was built on the cheap because the land underneath was a burial ground, yeah. That would require some disclosure as well. I don't know about the other Amityville movie, I only saw most of the one with my darling Ryan Reynolds, but the Realtor in the latter, though reluctant to do so, did explain that the reason the home was on the market was because of a series of murders that had recently occurred there. Lo and behold, the cause for THAT house's bloody history and overall spookiness: more Indians, not quite ready to pass on to the next level. If you are reading into this additional theme, here, I have more to tie into on the subject of Native Americans, specifically native Warner Springs-ians, Temeculans, real estate, and the question of do they or do they not haunt the land, living or departed, but that will have to wait perhaps until next time. I mean, it's a blog, not a blencyclopedia, am I right?

So the moral of this week's story, for now, especially if you're a seller: disclose, disclose, disclose. If you had a leaky roof or a suspected crack in the slab, a fire, insurance claim, a rotten nuisance of a loud neighbor, it's always best to let your buyer know, even if the problem has been resolved. Your Realtor can help you and get you all the proper forms to document the exchange of information, because if you have simply been living with wraiths and tolerating them discreetly, sell your house, and 6 months down the line the un-informed new owners' home suddenly implodes into another dimension.....man. You're going to get sued! And buyers, if you find a place you love, every home has its issues here and there, but if you distinctly hear it growl at you to get out, I'd take its advice. Growling homes know what they're talking about, and there are other fish in the sea.



Take care, kids, be safe in real estate, and tune in next time. Hope you all had a great, super creepy, recent Friday the 13th. :)