50 Home Professionals Share The Quiet Red Flags They Notice Inside People’s Homes

I can tell you that after being in thousands of homes over the years...there are a lot more garbage/ hoarding homes than most people realize!

I live in an area with a lot of historical houses. Like houses built in the 1700s. Yeah... The owners don't give a rat's a*s about historic preservation. I had to tear down 300-year-old chimneys and walkways. I feel kind of bad, but I understand the owners bought a house, not a museum.

I can smell your kitty litter the second I walk in.

And no, I will not take my boots off, ever.

I’m usually sceptical of people who tell me it’s alright for me to leave my work boots on when I come inside, I always take them off.

*Edit to clarify I do data cabling/telecom work and am my own boss so if I hurt my foot that’s on me will also keep a pair of crocs for wearing inside if needed.
My boots have been to many different sites including mining sites and could have some nasty stuff on them like lead dust so yeah definitely not bringing that inside.

A good friend of mine is a plumber and he came over to help me install a new kitchen faucet not long ago and he asked me if I had ever been in one of my neighbor's home (we live in a townhouse community). I said no, why? He said he went there to install three faucets for him and his wife and he (the plumber) said it was the worst living conditions he'd seen in a long time. He said the carpeting had huge holes in them as though they had just cut it instead of cleaning it. The kitched sink had a bucket in it because the pipes below were broken. They were using the bucket to catch water then dumping it out back. He also said paint was pealing off the walls, and it just smelled. I was shocked because the wife is always prim and proper and he heads up our landscaping and is OCD about the flower beds!!

And I apologized for my mess - I had Halloween decorations in boxes to be moved to the garage and thought that that was a mess!

I insulate houses so I go into places like crawl spaces, knee walls, attics and other places that most people never see in their own homes. Sometimes, these are the cleanest areas in the house.

Side note: You are surrounded by spiders. Seriously, there's probably like 10 of them within 3 feet of you right now.

I once overheard my father and his friend, a plumber, talking. The state of bathroom tells how the owner of the house handle stress. Too clean = still in control, too messy = overwhelmed. I realized it's really true.

Not a plumber, electrician or a cleaner. Was an Army recruiter years ago. A lot of the “appointments” are conducted in people’s homes.

Went to a home to conduct an appointment. I arrived at the home and there is all sorts of junk in the front yard. Knock on the door and when it opened I was told “yeah tom’s in his room in the back”. Was told to go to the side gate… I did and welp Tom was living in a shed surrounded by trash that had been piled in the back yard for decades.

I felt bad for that young man. None the leas he did not join due to not being able to pass the test.

In my previous career I was a registered nurse and worked home care for about a year man. The stories I could tell. The one that sticks out to me was a very sick lady on hemodialysis who lived in a motel and it was the very definition of a roach motel. I live in the Midwest gets extremely cold in the winter so for a good part of the year I don't see bugs but this lady's room there were roaches crawling up and down the wall and along the trim. I felt so gross and paranoid for days. Maybe even weeks after that.

This one family had a lot of random, generic nature canvas around the place.  There were only a couple family photos.  It just felt like a doctors office.


While repairing, you could hear a pin drop in the home.  Maybe some occassional laughing and conversation.


I felt that their interior decor illustrated a family with no connection nor many hobbies to get by.  Almost like a hollow family, if that makes sense.

I used to groom special needs pets in their homes, and once was forced to wash and cut a dog in a bathroom with 3" of well-used cat litter on the floor. The only reason I didn't walk out and decline, was because I worked with the person at my 9-5 and didn't want to deal with the awkwardness at work every day... I sure did throw those clothes away when I got home, though.