The UK’s “most disgusting home” has been transformed into a dream seaside escape thanks an ambitious pensioner. Pictures that would have put off most buyers enticed 65-year-old Sara Haigh to snap up the litter-ridden property at a local auction after a 15-minute viewing.
Despite being covered in debris with ivy snaking through the roof, she purchased the house on Camperdown Street in Plymouth for £145,000. Every room was covered in years’ worth of discarded rubbish, with the owner even telling The MailOnline that she found old cider bottles full of urine and syringes.
Sara told the paper: “My sisters were on a flight together, about to go on holiday, when they saw an article about the house being ‘Britain’s most disgusting property’. They were laughing about it and thought, who would buy something like this?”
Little did they know her sister thought the run down property was “the one” after seeing the house advertised for auction.
“I had an ambition to take on the renovation of a house for a number of years…. When I saw the house on Camperdown Street come up for sale I thought to myself ‘this could be the one’.
“As we waded through the overgrown plant life it was clear that an enormous amount of work and investment was needed,” she told Purple Bricks, where the house is now back up for sale for £300,000.
Over three years she invested £100,000 to turn it into a three-bedroom family home with exposed wooden floors and original fireplaces.
It included lengthy repairs of the roof as the ivy had begun growing from the inside, which she said added a year onto the project.
All the fundamental services had to be completely replaced, with new plumbing, electrics and gas central heating, as well as a new kitchen, family bathroom and en-suite in the master bedroom.
Now, she and her partner could expect £55,000 profit for the years of hard work.
