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Curb Your Enthusiasm

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Perhaps you know the feeling. There I was, tooling along through a simple, nice neighborhood—one with tidy homes and pride-of-ownership lawns—and smack in the middle of everything was a property so out of tune with its surroundings, so heartbreakingly wrong, that I wanted to jump out of my car, run over to that poor old blemish of a house, stroke its painfully misconceived paint job and say, “There, there. It’ll be all right.”

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There's nothing appealing about a home with BCA—bad curb appeal. Are there any cases of BCA in your neighborhood? Image: Jason Bouwman

Even when I knew it might be a terminal case of BCA—Bad Curb Appeal.

Most of us home owners make a decent effort at keeping up appearances. By and large we have a vested interest in preventing BCA, and we try our best. After all, few things can suck the life out your property value like a case of BCA.

Think you’ve seen places that make your heart wheeze and your teeth ache? Brace yourself. Our roundup of curb appeal mistakes is an eye-watering gallery of neighborhood home owners who’ve let things get more than a little out of control.

Have you got a bad case of BCA you’re trying to fix? Or a neighbor that refuses to fix theirs? Let us know with a comment below.

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John_Riha John Riha

John Riha has written seven books on home improvement and hundreds of articles on home-related topics. He’s been a residential builder, the editorial director of the Black & Decker Home Improvement Library, and the executive editor of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. His 1972 suburban house has been an ongoing source of maintenance and renovation experience.

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