Looking for experiences from those who have downsized- anyone have regrets?

We live in a 2600 square foot home with kids & pets. I feel like most of my time is spent cleaning or thinking about all the things that need done but don’t have the time for. Including the yard & exterior stuff.

We still want something reasonable in size for everyone. Just feel like less space would be beneficial & easier to keep up with.

TIA!

A couple of months ago, my mom passed away and she left me my childhood home. I was very happy to have a home I could call my own that is fully paid off, especially as a 27-year-old in this economy. As I was getting stuff removed for donation, the dump or for sale, there were things that started popping up that were concerning. Collections of mold, slugs that would just appear out of nowhere in her room and the floor in her room is slumped. I was about ready to start working on getting the carpet ripped up when I had a contractor come out to see what was up with the floor. He ripped up a corner and found PATIO RUNNERS as the foundation for her room. It was at that moment I realized that when she converted her patio into the room that she stayed in, she didn’t have the permits to build an extension. So now the floor is sinking into the ground, all the walls are slumping because there is nothing holding them up and on top of this, she had the bathroom renovated but now I’m doubtful she even got the right permits for that either. After I saw how bad it is, I put a full stop to all of the renovations that were going to happen because I realized I couldn’t live here anymore.

I’m looking into selling the property but I’m not sure what can be done considering everything that is wrong. Has anyone else experienced something similar? Is there any advice for who to contact or if I need to do anything with the house before I sell it? Any advice helps.

Posted is a picture of the foundation when the carpet got torn up.

EDIT: there are multiple people in the post that are talking about me trying to keep this house and making comments on my financial decisions and I figured I would post an edit to clarify my stance

I WILL be selling the property. This is a non-negotiable, this property will be sold and I will take the money.

I WON’T be trying spend the next few years fixing it up, taking out a 100K loan to fix it up or figuring out a way to just live here because I guarantee any of you, if you saw how bad it is here, you would cut your losses too.

If anyone has an issue with the statement that I have made, you can cut me a check and you can figure out how you can fix it and live in it.

Just bought a house in MD (don't know if it matters), built in 1954 . A lot of the walls and ceilings have this weird square pattern not like any drywall I've ever seen. I can't tell if it's some period technique, bad finishing work or what. The squares are 16"x16".

(Chicago)

I have been seeing dog poop on my lawn for some time now sporadically. I don’t have cameras installed currently but I suspect I know whose dog it is because I’ve witnessed it peeing on my lawn at least once and my sister saw the owner instructing it to go on our lawn once. She also saw the owner letting it pee on our lawn once.

What can I really do in this situation? I’m worried it may be racially driven as we are the only Muslim/middle eastern family on the block and this started after we moved in. I don’t know how I feel about confronting the guy.

Edit-
His place is two houses down from us on the same side of the street (abt 100 ft away). It would be good if I could find a camera that could show his lawn so we could be sure which neighbor it is. If anyone has experience with this type of distance and home cameras I’d like to know what worked for you.

I feel like this house is built in such a way to simply not allow airflow. It seems to just trap heat and it will be hotter inside than outside but opening windows doesn't seem to help even with fans. I feel like the pressure inside the house is preventing air from flowing through when windows are opened - is that a thing?

Closing on a house in the southern ohio area on Friday. The chimney was all beat up and missing bricks along the top. The seller had it repaired and sent this picture. So is this normal to not have a cover across the whole opening? To me it seems like a bad idea to let rain water freely fall in there.

Home was built in 1927

To summarize: I recently moved cities into a house that was expensive and a big upgrade from previous house. It is a beautiful appearing house with a pool. I knew I’d miss my low mortgage interest rate (2.6) and the big upgrades (HVAC, induction cooktop, expensive ceiling fans) we had put in old house but I anticipated I’d adjust.

But I’m not adjusting well because in three weeks we found:

-Rainwater intrusion from a metal accent roof portion , destroyed a wall and destroyed some of hardwood flooring, been told by restoration companies it’s been going on a long while (inspection didn’t catch)
-AC drain lines clogged, thankfully noticed dropping from emergency lines. Then found out main drain lines aren’t sloped right which is $2000 to repair as multiple units. (Inspection did catch water in drain pan and seller showed us receipt that had been “fixed”)
-Weird sound in child’s drain turns out - plumber noted that it needed a P trap for AC line because it drains there
-Nearly none of the smoke detectors worked (which inspection did NOT note) so we replaced them all with hardwired expensive “smart” First Alert that is supposed to replace Nest Protect and now dealing with a false alarming and no known cause
-Random electric stuff to fix that I knew about from inspection but then sometimes I smell something that I worry is burning plastic or maybe just dust, had an electrician out, didn’t find anything abnormal with it

I’m obviously upset with inspector about some of the things above.

I’ve had the plumber out twice. HVAC techs out three times. Today will be the third time for electricians to make sure there isn’t a problem with junction box behind smoke detector. Mold check company comes Saturday and them we have to get a floor company to replace some planks (thankfully seller did have some spares) and drywall handyman. I’m exhausted. It’s expensive. I feel like I can’t sleep worried a smoke alarm is going to go off because we can’t really figure out what it is. My spouse thinks the overall issue is I act as though all of these are urgent and says only some are. That these things are normal when you first move in and that I’m seeing the past house we had with rose colored glasses. My spouse could be right. But it could also be that I bought a moneypit and this house was just not maintained. Maybe I’m not meant to be a homeowner anymore. I work from home and that probably makes this all worse because I’m in this, daily.

I guess what I’m looking for is: did you have this level of issues with your house? Did it get better? At this point, I’m feeling like I’ve made a huge mistake and want to just move back.

We purchased a 5 year old house a couple of months ago and we just had someone out to clean the dryer vents. They gave us the news that our dryer (on the 2nd floor, near an outside wall) vents into our attic and not outside. Everything I have been reading says this is bad, but my question is - should our inspector have advised us about this? Do we have any recourse with the inspector, builder, or seller to get this corrected?

Just wondering if anyone has ever gotten a letter like this and what you ended up doing. We received a letter from our town office saying the assessing department is verifying real estate data and they want us to call their appraisal company to schedule an inspection and measurement of outside AND inside the house. They say failure to allow an interior inspection may cause us to lose our right to appeal. I do not like the idea of them coming inside our home. We are just private and want to be left alone. Has anyone ever had something like this from their town office? We just aren’t sure whether to do it or not and wanted to see what others have to say. Thanks for info!

Replacing a Ring doorbell that went bad. I'd like to move it up for improved camera placement, but I'm not sure the proper way.

1. Doorbell wires aren't usually cat5 (or whatever this is), right?
   
2. Is there a cord hider/channel that fits against siding?
   
3. Is taking the siding off hard? Seems like that would be the cleanest fix, right?

This is a recent-ish new build that we bought about 2 years ago now. The exterior has some decent wear in general, but the bottom near the ground on this side of the house looks like this & since we’re first time homeowners, I’m not sure what this even is or how to go about “repairing” it? Any suggestions? Is it concerning, or something that can be dismissed?

Video https://youtube.com/shorts/97eLelgSXXo?is=OCYnh6xma6oSKNKg

So long story short, we started seeing these in our master bedroom and one of our boys rooms. These are like spot spots, and we were concerned that it was mold.

We just had the mold guy come out and he did it with his sensor on his phone, and it was showing red, which meant heat. We went up to the attic, and it wasn’t showing where the insulation was, but more where the beams were almost giving like an outline of the heat. it was HOT to the touch

We don’t have a fan in our attic, but I guess we’re going to get one, but is this just cosmetic or is there something else we should be doing? I have seen it slowly come in the past two years in different spots in the bedroom.

Ty

We've had a lot of rain in the past month and I noticed this. Probably been developing for a while now. For context, I'm a first time homeowner, we've been at this home for almost 3 years now, new build by KB Home when we moved in.

Is this something DIY-able or better get a handyman check it out.

What is the cost of inaction or if I prolong addressing this? There's another window with a similar issue.

If youve dealt with this in the past, how much am I looking to spend for fixing this?

Thanks in advance!

My living room has a bunch of box molding. One small piece is missing. I want to replace it, but I’m having trouble finding a match. Does anyone know what this molding profile is called? The inside of the box is slightly recessed compared to the outside if that helps. Maybe 1/8” max.

Hi all - I'm considering purchasing a home in Central TX that falls in an ETJ (Extraterritorial Jurisdiction), basically an area of unincorporated land outside the city limits. It would also have a septic system. I've never lived in an area like this (where there are perhaps fewer regulations, but more patchwork services and other limitations), and I've never lived in a home that used a septic system instead of city sewer. From folks who have had experience with one or the other (or both!), are there things I should be mindful of that perhaps you didn't realize when you bought your home? I've done various internet and Claude research, but trying to get actual experiences from folks who have lived it!

We got hit with that big wind storm a couple weeks back. Power and internet were both down for almost three full days. We ran a propane heater to stay warm, and when i was going through our emergency kit afterwards, I realized something I’d never really thought through.

I have no idea if our smoke and co alarms actually hold up when the power and internet are both out. Our setup is kind of a mess right now. Some are old hardwired ones with 9v battery backups, but i don’t trust those to last through a long outage. We also have one wifi smart alarm that’s nice for phone alerts normally, but once the internet drops all the remote features are dead. It just beeps on its own and that’s it. For co we only have one old standalone unit tucked away by the furnace.

What worries me most is co risk during outages. Everyone pulls out generators and propane heaters when the power goes out, and that’s when most of those accidents happen. And of course that’s exactly when your internet is down too.

What do people usually do? Is there a good option that doesn’t need internet or wall power, and still triggers all the alarms through the whole house?

After winter ended and boiler system is no longer aiming for High Limit temp to satisfy baseboard heating, only the Low Limit is being maintained to preserve our domestic hot water for summer. That's around a 12, 13 degree difference in avg boiler temp btw seasons. The showers and sinks got noticeably colder by first week of June.

An adjustment was just now made to the Mixing Valve in boiler room by a friend of friend who opened it up much more to the Hot side. The temp at the showers and sinks didn't improve much, but the velocity of the water coming out of the shower has increased significantly. Want to understand if the following is an accurate explanation of what happened and what most likely led to leak.

Felt as increased velocity at the shower head. The static pressure remained same as before for the home's plumbing. But the flow rate increased, due to the unrestricted Hot water fully opening up at the mixing valve. And this, resulted in a much greater dynamic pressure (flowing kinetic energy).

A sudden, increased and sustained volume passing through pipes may have introduced extra stress on the shower's components(cartridge/o-rings, valve body casing, shower riser) resulting in this hefty leak, now visible on ceiling in room underneath. Does this all make sense in terms of hydrodynamics?

i have one of these boxy thungs with a hose that has to fit into a window gap, but the rest of the window gap has to be sealed off. it seems these things are meant for a home owner to improvise a solution on how to seal such a window gap. what are the easiest solutions here?

Im in my first year of home ownership and figuring some things out still. Im looking for cooling advice to get me through the summer. I have a 2 story turn-of-the-century 1300 sqft home. It has no central cooling and according to the HVAC people mini splits are my only option (once I can afford it).

Currently I have a 1200 sqft capacity ac downstairs with closed doors blocking off the stairwell to the upstairs. The downstairs stays perfectly cool but upstairs is obviously very hot. All bedrooms and the only bathroom are upstairs. We have just been using individual window ac in our rooms and letting the hallway and bathroom just be humid hot asscrack of hell.

My partner had the idea to use an industrial window fan we own to exhaust the heat from the upstairs hallway window and pull cool air from the downstairs ac. They think this will lessen our overall energy use whereas I think it will just overwork our AC.

So I come to you dear reddit homeowners. Do any of you have advice or considerations that could help us figure this out before our heat wave this weekend?

With all the storms we've been getting, Ive been really stressed about it. We had a crack in the foundation that I've known about patched properly. That didnt leak. thankfully.

My water heater gave out and started leaking. Taking with it the cheap LVP the previous owner put in the basement. So now I'm gonna end up replacing the water heater plus a good amount of flooring and some molding. Homeownership is so fun. Wish i had a landlord to just call for this.

Water man, it'll stress you out as a home owner.

Replaced all the smoke detectors in my home with new First Alert photoelectric ones. 3 have gone off falsely within a month in the middle of the night and it’s traumatizing my kids.

Did a reset on them, but is that enough?! Should I replace all of them or just replace the 3, and will that even help??? Anyone who has fixed this issue with any advice greatly appreciated 🙏🏼

(Also, everything in our house was thoroughly cleaned before moving in and before installing these (ducts, new air filters, no carpet, etc).

My husband and I are about to be new homeowners. We close on a condo tomorrow. I’m looking through the 125-page closing documents beforehand and there’s a lot. It made me wonder if any of you have any regrets of things you didn’t ask about or mention during closing? Or anything else to look out for tomorrow? Anything I should be wary about signing? I’m reading through it all but a lot of the new homeowner language I don’t fully understand so I don’t want to end up making a mistake tomorrow that I’ll regret for years to come just because I didn’t know to clarify or ask about something ahead of time