Hands up who’s ever rented or bought a property only for some unsavory elements about the place to become apparent after the fact. Practically everyone, right? It’s all too common to find a spot of mold or faulty plumbing that the real estate agents or previous owners conveniently forgot to mention to you.
OK, but hands up who’s ever moved into a new property only to then discover it has a history so dark and murderous they made a true crime documentary about it. Unless you’re unlucky enough to be a protagonist of a Stephen King novel or a John Carpenter movie, I’m guessing the answer is no.
Alternatively, unless you’re unlucky enough to be TikTok user @faizanfaizoff, who got quite the fright when he sat down to watch a documentary one day. Faizan was hooked on the true crime doc, which detailed a murder case involving the ghoulish murder of an entire family, until an establishing shot of the house where it all took place came on screen.
Reader, it was his house.
As Faizan’s video recreates, in a blackly comic way, he steps away from the shot of the house in the documentary and goes outside, only to show us the exact same building. “This is actually really sad and scary,” he wrote, coming across as surprisingly casual, in his caption, “but it does explain the haunted nature of the house.”
In the comments, Faizan responded to those incredulous that he could’ve not known his own house’s blood-soaked past until accidentally seeing this doc, but he swears that nobody ever told him about it beforehand. Believe it or not, it seems several people out there have similarly found themselves in the first act of a horror film.
“This is the reason we bought a new construction home and guess what! Built on an ancient cemetery,” one wrote. Another recalled: “Rented a house and right after signing the lease the owner was like I should let you know last year a girl was kidnapped from this house and murdered.. like WHAT?!”
Others, however, have also found out unsavory facts that cut way too close to home from watching true crime shows. “True Crime shows are how I found out my stepdad’s brother is a serial killer,” wrote another. So, OK, we’re going to need that story now too.
For those of us who are feeling pretty cozy right now in our unhaunted houses, this comment might give you pause: “Bad things happen in [almost] everyone’s home.” Thanks for that, random TikToker.
At least there exists a handy online tool to help you determine whether your house is murder-free or not. If you visit diedinhouse.com and enter your address, it’ll check it against any reported murders, so if it doesn’t bring anything up then you’re in the clear. And if it does… Well, who needs sleep, really?