American dream turns into nightmare ordeal for devastated homeowners after horrifying discovery: ‘Everything I touch is breaking'
A couple who thought they'd bought the 'perfect house' in Arizona were flabbergasted after discovering that their home harbored a severe termite infestation — just three days after closing.
In a viral video with 2.1 million views, homeowner Hailey Aguirre walks into a room in her new home and zooms in on a wall infested with 'termite tubes' — tunnels the subterranean species uses to connect their underground colonies to food sources on the surface.
'I jokingly was like, I never want to buy a house ever again because of this,' Hailey Aguirre told People of the surprise pestilence.
The termite tubes on the wall.
TikTok/@haileyyy_annn
She and her husband, who had relocated to the Grand Canyon State from Buffalo, New York, initially felt that they had bought the ideal domicile.
Aguirre told the outlet that 'everything was going well' and 'the buying process was very smooth.'
But as they were driving to close on the house, the realtor called the pair to inform them that termites had been discovered on the property.
Fortunately, the seller assured her that the problem had been resolved by exterminators — and the inspection came back clean — so Aguirre and her beau went ahead with the purchase.
'I'm trying to be positive about it and make it (the home) my own,' explained the conflicted homeowner. 'But it has been a little hard to feel like I can actually live in the house, because it seems to be everything I touch is, like, breaking.'
TikTok/@haileyyy_annn
Then, just 72 hours after moving in, Aguirre and her hubby realized their wood-gobbling squatters were still at large in the same spot they were originally discovered. 'By Thursday night is when I discovered them again, and then realized there were other groups right above where they were,' lamented the distraught Buffalonian.
She tried to get the pest control company to handle the encroachment, but to no avail.
'The termite company that came and treated it was picked by the seller,' she lamented. 'So, in order for it to be covered by them, to figure it out, we didn't really have control over the termite company to come and eliminate them.'
After missing two appointments, the exterminators finally arrived and evicted the termites, only for another issue to rear its head. A pipe reportedly burst in their home, flooding the couple's floors and adding insult to injury, per a follow-up video.
As a result, they had to turn off the water and contact the realtor again.
Aguirre claimed that the ordeal has tested her optimism, explaining that she's second-guessing whether she made the 'right decision' by buying the house.
'I'm trying to be positive about it and make it (the home) my own,' explained the conflicted homeowner. 'But it has been a little hard to feel like I can actually live in the house, because it seems to be everything I touch is like breaking.'
In light of the trying saga, the woman is urging other potential homebuyers to be proactive and make sure inspections are thorough.
She also stressed the importance of having a good realtor who can go to bat for you, noting that if their agent wasn't so trustworthy, they would have been paying for the damages 'out of pocket.'
The saga prompted other people to share stories of their own infestations.
'I just backed out of [a] house because of termites, mold and raccoon damage in attic,' said one.
Another wrote, 'Same we had to fumigate the whole house and then found a skunk in the foundation now the house smells like skunk but the termites are gone.'
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