History Main / TheAllegedHouse

[[OhCrap Uh oh]]. They've bought [[TitleDrop The Alleged House]]. Unfortunately, [[TruthInTelevision this trope is all too common in real life]]. May or may not also be an OldDarkHouse, and god help you if it's also [[HauntedHouse haunted]]. Compare TheAllegedCar and TheAllegedComputer for the automotive and computer equivalents. Contrast CoolHouse. If it's a CoolHouse hiding in alleged house clothing, see WhatAPieceOfJunk and/or NotSoAbandonedBuilding. Also compare LonelyBachelorPad. See also HorribleHousing, with which this can overlap; that trope is a crappy home being used to mark a character as poor.

* Stuart Hamblen's "This Ole House" is all about one of these.

* ''Series/TheMuppetShow'': There is a sketch where a lazy redneck is reciting a poem called "Life Sure Gets Tee-jus, Don't It?" Apparently unwilling or unable to work, he was poor to the point where he was out of food, had no presentable clothes, and his house was in terrible disrepair. In his own words: "Tin[[note]] the house on the set didn't actually have a tin roof at all, just a wooden one that looked like it was badly put together... make of that what you will[[/note]] roof leaks, chimney leans..." His house [[UpToEleven literally falls apart]] at the end of the sketch.

[[folder:Music]]
* Stuart Hamblen's '' This Ole House'' is all about one of these.
* "Handy" by Music/WeirdAlYankovic is equal parts KitschyLocalCommercial and BoastfulRap from the perspective of [[MrFixit a handyman who can apparently fix anything]], and he demonstrates his talents on a house described to be in terrible disrepair -- and [[ButtMonkey the unlucky soul who lives there]] has to put up with each problem with the house as Al lists them (a stuck doorjamb, a rusted disposal, a termite infestation, a busted front window, an overflowing toilet, and a dishwasher that explodes when he tries to use it are just the start.)
[[/folder]]

* PlayedForLaughs in ''Film/TheJerk'' with Nils' family's home. It's a run-down shack that is barely a hairsbreadth over being declared HorribleHousing, but they still love it and when they strike it rich thanks to their son sending them money and some good investments, they make a "mansion" that is a perfect replica of the shack in all of its dilapidated "glory", only much bigger and with a few butlers.

[[OhCrap Uh oh]]. They've bought [[TitleDrop The Alleged House]]. Unfortunately, [[TruthInTelevision this trope is all too common in real life]]. May or may not also be an OldDarkHouse, and god help you if it's also [[HauntedHouse haunted]]. Compare TheAllegedCar and TheAllegedComputer for the automotive and computer equivalents. Contrast CoolHouse. If it's a CoolHouse hiding in alleged house clothing, see WhatAPieceOfJunk and/or NotSoAbandonedBuilding. Also compare LonelyBachelorPad.

* Peter Parker's apartment in ''Film/SpiderMan2'' and ''Film/SpiderMan3'' is one of these. It's small, it's ugly, and the door sticks. Presumably this is because he went with the cheapest option, being stuck in PerpetualPoverty (not that it stops [[CrankyLandlord Mr. Ditkovich]] from taking what little money he can get).

* ''[[Creator/ChoiceOfGames Choice of the Deathless]]'': The cheapest housing option for the player character is a rickety shoebox of an apartment above a bar in the very worst part of town. Which leads to a SugarWiki/{{Funny Moment|s}} when [[TheBeautifulElite Wakefield]] first shows up for a visit.
-->'''Wakefield:''' ''[standing on your doorstep]'' [[DeadpanSnarker Care to let me in before a local unfortunate decides to slit my throat?]]

Part and parcel of the ShadyRealEstateAgent.

But then they move in, and suddenly things take a turn for the worse. [[MindYourStep The stairs squeak, then collapse]]. You try to take a shower, but only end up CoveredInMud. The faucet in the master bathroom [[DrippingDisturbance won't stop dripping]]. The back door is being [[TermiteTrouble eaten by bugs]]. If / when they work at all, both the stove / oven in the kitchen and the grill in the garden char everything placed on them, and that's only the times when [[GrillingPyrotechnics they don't go off in someone's face like an Improvised Incendiary Device]]. And it appears a [[SmellySkunk family of skunks]] is living in the attic.

[[OhCrap Uh oh]]. They've bought [[TitleDrop The Alleged House]]. Unfortunately, [[TruthInTelevision this trope is all too common in real life]]. May or may not also be an OldDarkHouse, and god help you if it's also [[HauntedHouse haunted]]. Compare TheAllegedCar and TheAllegedComputer for the automotive and computer equivalents. Contrast CoolHouse. If it's a CoolHouse hiding in alleged house clothing, see WhatAPieceOfJunk and/or NotSoAbandonedBuilding.

* ''Fanfic/TheRealDentonAffair'': Frank lived in a run down farm house, instead of a Gothic castle.

* In ''Film/TheGreatMuppetCaper'', Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo stay at the rundown Happiness Hotel. Its residents sure are happy, though, and they proudly describe their dilapidated home in song.

* Sheriff Bill Daggett of Big Whiskey from ''Film/{{Unforgiven}}'' built his own wood frame house on a lonely parcel away from town. While recounting the exploits of TheWildWest to biographer W. Beauchamp, both men set out assorted vessels to catch all the rainwater that's leaking through the roof. One of the sheriff's own deputies put it succinctly; "You know, he don't have a straight angle in that whole god-damned porch, or the whole house for that matter. He is the worst damn carpenter."

* ''Series/GreenAcres'': The Old Haney Place, which former big city lawyer Oliver Douglas buys so he can become a farmer. A run-down old farmhouse with no inside phone (Oliver has to climb a telephone pole to make a call). Renovations take up much of the show's run and are never fully finished; the master bedroom closet, for example, doubles as a back door.

* ''Theatre/BarefootInThePark'': There are multiple quirks in the apartment, one which sees a lot of use for laughs (and drama) being that it doesn't has a good insulation, which allows the New York winter cold to seep in.

** The Simpson household, either from lack of maintenance or poor construction, is often shown with such unpleasantries as paper thin walls or faulty plumbing and wiring. This seemingly explains how the family [[FriendsRentControl can afford such a large house with Homer's paycheque]].

** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E23HomersEnemy Homer's Enemy]]", the abandoned factory that Bart gets from the auction turns out to be utterly dilapidated -- although he enjoys it because he gets to play with all of the unsafe gizmos. The sub-plot ends with the building falling apart literally overnight all by itself. In that same episode, Frank rants that he can't believe Homer [[FriendsRentControl has a such an enormous house]] when his home is a one-room apartment sandwiched in between two bowling alleys.

'''Lionel Hutz:''' I'd say it's awfully "cozy."\\

** The Simpson household, either from lack of maintenance or poor construction, is often shown with such unpleasantries as paper thin walls or faulty plumbing and wiring. This seemingly explains how the family [[FriendsRentControl can afford such a large house with Homer's paycheck]].

** When Marge gets a job as a real estate agent in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E9RealtyBites Realty Bites]]", she doesn't do well because her employer expects her [[ShadyRealEstateAgent to lie through her teeth]] to trick people into buying terrible homes. And then she actually manages to sell a house to the Flanders family, which plays with this: it is a perfectly fine home in terms of structure, and it definitely is the family's dream home... the problem is that it's a ''murder house''. The Flanders family is ''[[NightmareFetishist still]]'' perfectly okay with it once they find out, but everybody else in the cast (especially Marge) feels nervous at the very concept and she can't stop feeling like she swindled them for not bringing the fact up sooner.

** The rebuilt Flanders home in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E8HurricaneNeddy Hurricane Neddy]]". It starts with the main door's handle popping off, then it goes through one of the corridors having a painted dirt floor (because they ran out of tiles), the main electrical room having lousy shielding and so there is an absurd amount of static and then it goes straight to Alien Geometries territory. We don't get to see any other of the myriad problems there are inside... not that it matters, because Homer patting the door frame makes the whole building fall apart.

-->--'''Walter''', ''Film/TheMoneyPit''

[[folder:Fanfic]]

** Same with ''Film/MrBlandingsBuildsHisDreamhouse'' and ''Film/GeorgeWashingtonSleptHere''

* ''Series/TheMuppetShow'': There was a sketch where a lazy redneck was reciting a poem called "Life Sure Gets Tee-jus, Don't It?" Apparently unwilling or unable to work, he was poor to the point where he was out of food, had no presentable clothes, and his house was in terrible disrepair. In his own words: "Tin[[note]] the house on the set didn't actually have a tin roof at all, just a wooden one that looked like it was badly put together... make of that what you will[[/note]] roof leaks, chimney leans..." His house [[UpToEleven literally fell apart]] at the end of the sketch.

[[folder:Theatre]]
* ''Theatre/BarefootInThePark'': There are multiple quirks in the apartment, one which sees a lot of use for laughs (and drama) being that it doesn't has a good insulation, which allows the New York winter cold to seep in.

-->'''Wakefield:''' ''(standing on your doorstep)'' [[DeadpanSnarker "Care to let me in before a local unfortunate decides to slit my throat?"]]

** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E23HomersEnemy Homer's Enemy]]", the abandoned factory that Bart gets from the auction turns out to be utterly dillapidated--although he enjoys it because he gets to play with all of the unsafe gizmos. The sub-plot ends with the building falling apart literally overnight all by itself. In that same episode, Frank rants that he can't believe Homer [[FriendsRentControl has a such an enormous house]] when his home is a one-room apartment sandwiched in between two bowling alleys.

* ''Film/MaAndPaKettle'' has two: The house they used to live in, which is the traditional broken down shack, and the house Pa wins in a sweepstakes, which while much more modern and clean, is quite prone to gadget malfunctions.

* ''Music/ThisOleHouse'' is a song about one of these.

** When Marge gets a job as a real estate agent in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E9RealtyBites Realty Bites]]", she doesn't do well because her employer expects her to lie through her teeth to trick people into buy terrible homes. And then she actually manages to sell a house to the Flanders family, which plays with this: it is a perfectly fine home in terms of structure, and it definitely is the family's dream home... the problem is that it's a ''murder house''. The Flanders family is ''[[NightmareFetishist still]]'' perfectly okay with it once they find out, but everybody else in the cast (especially Marge) feels nervous at the very concept and she can't stop feeling like she swindled them for not bringing the fact up sooner.

** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E23HomersEnemy Homer's Enemy]]", the abandoned factory that Bart gets from the auction turns out to be this (although he enjoys it because he gets to play with all of the unsafe gizmos). The sub-plot ends with the building falling apart literally overnight all by itself, along with Frank's home (when he rants later in the episode) is a one-room apartment sandwiched in between two bowling alleys.

-->-- '''Walter''', ''Film/TheMoneyPit''

* ''Film/{{Loveling}}: Irene and Claus's house is dilapidated: the tap is broken; the entrance lock is broken, so they have to go through a window to go in; there is a big crack in a wall.

* The latter half of the ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'' episode, [[Recap/ArthurS1E15ArthursFamilyVacationGrandpaDavesOldCountryFarm Grandpa Dave's Old Country Farm]]. Due to Grandpa Dave's inability to take care of the farm on his own, his house is falling apart. The hen house in particular deserves mention, as its roof fell in an untold amount of time ago and Dave has continually ignored fixing it.

** The rebuilt Flanders home in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E8HurricaneNeddy Hurricane Neddy]]. It starts with the main door's handle popping off, then it goes through one of the corridors having a painted dirt floor (because they ran out of tiles), the main electrical room having lousy shielding and so there is an absurd amount of static and then it goes straight to Alien Geometries territory. We don't get to see any other of the myriad problems there are inside... not that it matters, because Homer patting the door frame makes the whole building fall apart.

* ''Film/HomeAlone2LostInNewYork'': Uncle Rob's townhouse is a dirty wreck, which is why it's being renovated. [[HomeAloneAntics This works out in Kevin's favor]], since he's able to use the building's problems in his traps.

* In ''Film/TheGreatMuppetCaper'', Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo stay at the rundown Happiness Hotel. Its residents sure are happy, though, and they proudly describe their dilapidated home in song.
-->'''Fozzie:''' If that's the Happiness Hotel, I'd hate to see what the sad one looks like.

[[folder:Puppet Shows]]
* ''Series/TheMuppetShow'': There was a sketch where a lazy redneck was reciting a poem called "Life Sure Gets Tee-jus, Don't It?" Apparently unwilling or unable to work, he was poor to the point where he was out of food, had no presentable clothes, and his house was in terrible disrepair. In his own words: "Tin[[note]] the house on the set didn't actually have a tin roof at all, just a wooden one that looked like it was badly put together... make of that what you will[[/note]] roof leaks, chimney leans..." His house [[UpToEleven literally fell apart]] at the end of the sketch.
[[/folder]]

But then they move in, and suddenly things take a turn for the worse. [[MindYourStep The stairs squeak, then collapse]]. You try to take a shower, but only end up CoveredInMud. The faucet in the master bathroom [[DrippingDisturbance won't stop dripping]]. The back door is being [[TermiteTrouble eaten by bugs]]. Both the oven and the grill in the garden char everything placed on them, and that's on the times when [[GrillingPyrotechnics they don't go off in someone's face like an Improvised Incendiary Device]]. And it appears a [[SmellySkunk family of skunks]] is living in the attic.