Fangliang Xu, Centretown News
One of 10 buildings in downtown Ottawa that is said to have a troubling history by Housecreep.com.How would you feel if you discovered the home you recently purchased had been the site of a police shooting or a series of mysterious deaths?
Thanks to Ontario brothers Albert and Robert Armieri and their website – Housecreep.com – properties with sinister histories can now be identified in a “one stop shop.”
The website was born a year ago when Albert and his wife were searching for a new home in Ottawa and, Robert, an apartment in Toronto.
They tediously searched through the bedbug registry and other publicly available databases that led to “less than desirable” discoveries.
Since then, Albert and Robert have been working to consolidate information that may be unappealing to a buyer or tenant: the site of a murder, a brothel, a gravesite, a grow-op, or even an alleged haunting.
The website works by crowdsourcing publicly available information and personal experiences. There are already almost 25,000 stigmatized properties registered – 10 of which are in Centretown. Entering a city, suburb, or street address in Housecreep’s search engine reveals a list of events in the given area.
The Armieri brothers encourage all submissions be linked to police reports or news articles, or are specifically declared to be personal experiences. Entries are moderated where possible, but Albert Armieri admits they do rely on the trustworthiness of “creeps.”
Neither brother has real estate experience, but both recognize the convenience their site provides to brokers.
“It’s not just for the enjoyment of everyday folks, but it’s also serving primarily realtors,” says Albert Armieri. “They have their clients’ best interests at heart and Housecreep helps them to serve that purpose.”
Real estate agents have an obligation to disclose any fact that might affect the sale of a house, but the extent to which this applies is a grey area of real estate law.
“If we are made aware of events, we certainly ensure our clients are made aware, too,” says Charles Sezlik, Ottawa sales representative for Royal LePage.
“Depending, of course, on the nature of the event. There is a difference between an elderly man passing away of natural causes, and a vicious murder.
Any tool is a useful tool as long as it can be verified. It is an interesting concept, and if it can help inform myself and my clients then for sure I would use it.”
Although the site can also be used to document upbeat events such as celebrity connections, murders seem to appear in the mix most frequently.
“I’d have to say that murders take the cake. It’s a curiosity thing, though: people will always like to creep their communities,” says Albert Armieri.
The basement of a three-storey brick home at the corner of McLeod and Percy streets, protected from street-view by dense, overgrown schrubbery, was the site of a murder in 2003. But Kieran McDougal, a current tenant in the home, says until Centretown News approached him, he was unaware of his home’s grisly history.
“I’ve never heard about it. It happened years ago, I guess; but no one has actually lived in the basement for a while now,” McDougal said.
Other Centretown listings on the website record the brutal stabbing of a 14-year-old boy in a residential garage, the unsolved murder of a man found with gunshot wounds to his face, and a suspicious fire that injured three.
Although stories such as these could be considered distressing to present owners of these properties, the Armieri brothers reiterate that the website “simply consolidates information gathered from sources already available to the public.”
“While it has certainly led to some grim discoveries for current residents, it has also helped other individuals in making more informed decisions around renting or purchasing a property,” says Albert Armieri.
The Armieri brothers say they are pleased with the reception their initiative is receiving.
To date they have exceeded 4,000 contributors and although the site predominantly serves North America, they intend to take the creeping community worldwide.
“When we first came up with the idea for Housecreep.com, we were surprised to learn that nothing like it existed. We thought the website could be useful to home buyers and renters, and even though we enjoyed developing and doing research for the website, we always saw the potential for it to grow into something greater than just a hobby,” says Albert.