and you got a surprise ride. [ laughs ] you've got to turn around and walk into the sunset. greiner: good luck, you guys. it's over. thank you. thanks. thanks, everyone. herjavec: good luck. thank you. robert pulling away at the end is almost a blessing in disguise. it showed how serious or not serious he was about our business. that's hilarious. they talked themselves out of a deal. you know what? it happens. it was their deal to lose.

in the real estate game, everybody is playing for keeps. welcome to my world. >> tonight on 20/20, what happens when your real estate dreams cave in? literally. houses swallowed by a sink hole. tonight looking for new places to live. home with that sinking feeling. and the landlords looking to make a fortune. their only hurdle, they need you out to flip the building. did those landlords flip out? >> what are you doing? >> i own this building. >> you think this only happens in the cartoons? >> they're sawing my floor. >> tonight the 20/20 exclusive, the couple called landlords from hell. then the contractors who come in and flatten homes, what happens when they meant to tear down the

house next door? >> they tore down the wrong house. >> what did the homeowner get? >> it happens more than you think. >> tonight, getting the home wreckers to pay up. and there is money in this, but this is ridiculous. we take you inside the hoarder houses. is this real estate for real? living in a tricked out dumpster. >> no rent. no mortgage. no taxes. >> a converted plane. >> welcome to my home. >> get ready for takeoff. 20/20 home sweet home starts now. tonight in much of this country real estate is roaring back, home prices up 13% in a year, buyers in bidding wars families looking to flip a property for profit. it looks easy on tv, tonight see what happens when a couple so determined to flip their property, they will do anything to get their tenants out. abc's chris conley tonight on

why they are being called the landlords from hell. >> reporter: flipping homes for fun and profit. it's long been a popular investment strategy, and a cable tv staple. but before buying your own flip-worthy walk-up, consider a man, who went from this house to the big house. what is it that you regret doing? >> well, all of it, but i mainly regret having bought the building. >> reporter: long before 34-year-old kip macy was cooling his heels in county, he and his wife nicole were famous in the real estate hotbed of by-the-bay san francisco, because what they did in this building -- -- won them the title. >> landlords from hell. >> reporter: it said this place once was a sex club. under the macy's only the tenants got -- well, you know. kip earned six figures in

software says the initial plan to flip the building was nicole's. step one buy apartment building. step two -- evict the tenants, legally. step three -- sell the apartments as condos. step four -- pocket a quick $200,000 profit. >> i was hesitant. but i mean, she assured me it wouldn't be that risky. >> reporter: oh, but it was. just ask real estate expert barbara cochran. >> the macys started off as very naïve, thinking they could just flip this building and make a fortune. >> reporter: but guess what? then reality hit. it's called a tenant. a tenant like the guy in apartment 4. camera shy scott morrow knew all about the city's tenant-friendly housing laws and played the system like a stradivarius. >> tenants are almost impossible to move today if they don't want to move. >> we're the owners of the property, scott. >> you don't have a permit to do any work here at all. >> basically, scott was sort of the, sort of the one breaking point. >> you wanna be -- kicked out on

your [ bleep ] the same way i kicked out -- >> reporter: you got mad at some point. >> uh, probably. that's when we started making bad decisions. >> reporter: instead of flipping the house, kip and nicole flipped their lids -- declaring war on their tenants. >> hey, hey, hey excuse me! >> get the [ bleep ] out! get the [ bleep ] off my property. >> what are you doing? >> [ bleep ], i own this place, i own that line, i own this building! >> reporter: cutting phone lines and shutting off power? slumlord 101. but here's kip burglarizing an apartment occupied by three tenants, while being photographed through a peephole. cutting edge, right? >> i regret, having moved, uh, the mexicans' stuff into the hallway. >> reporter: the macys drenched the rest of the three tenants' stuff in ammonia. >> he said, "you know what? this is my building. i can do whatever i want. this is my property." >> reporter: building manager ricardo cartagena treasured his artwork, and found it trashed when the macys ransacked his place. >> they don't care.

like a -- like a katrina was in my apartment. everything destroyed. >> reporter: why did you take stuff out of ricardo's apartment? >> because it was garbage. >> reporter: then there were the menacing phone messages. >> ricardo, [ bleep ] you, get out of the building or bad [ bleep ] going to happen to you >> reporter: could it get uglier? well, the macys did purchase a handgun. >> kip call me -- "ricardo, if you come to the building, my wife bought a gun and we will shoot you. this is serious." >> reporter: did you threaten to shoot him if he came back on the property? no. i threatened to shoot him if he attacked -- attacked my wife. >> reporter: had he ever attacked your wife? >> he never attacked her, no. >> reporter: the macy's did attack -- the building. nicole asked an inspector what support beams they could cut to make the building unlivable. san francisco district attorney. >> this has to go in the books as criminal. they used a power saw, tried to cut support beams underneath the

floor. >> reporter: see all those cuts in the beams? kip and nicole were sabotaging their own million dollar property. i don't understand why you were doing it. >> um, we didn't either, at this point. >> when there's enough potential profit in a building, the tactics escalate because the landlord wants to get his hands on that money. >> i was in the hallway. and i hear screaming. stop. stop! stop!" "i call the police, stop!" >> reporter: it was a handsaw, coming up thru the floorboards of apartment four. >> they are sawing -- they are sawing my floor. they cut a new hole in it. >> this looks, like, right out of a cartoon. uh, literally, you can see the blade going -- going through the uh, wooden floor. >> reporter: i'm guessing that's not legal. >> no. to say the least. if anybody was gonna make a movie, uh, about a problem between landlords and tenants, this would be a perfect script. >> reporter: the da's office rolled the credits on the macys' reign of terror, charging them with a fistful of felonies, the

case aided by shocking boasts that kip had made on the internet. >> i will be demolishing his unit while he is living in it. i slammed him against the wall. >> reporter: "we harassed him a bit because no longer had anything to lose. he had parts of his floor cut out from underneath, also illegal, but whatever." whatever? breaking the law, whatever? >> uh. well, we felt like the law had abandoned us. >> reporter: kip and nicole were held on big-time bail -- $500,000. to spring them, kip's parents dug deep, his mother marie, a va nurse, sold her jewelry, but they fretted that their freedom would be short lived. >> just seemed like the various -- vice grip of the system was just closing. >> reporter: so in june, 2010, kip and nicole skipped bail and vanished. did you say to yourself, did you say to your wife, we can't leave, because my parents will be out half a million dollars? >> no. i mean, i didn't. >> totally oblivious to the enormous, um, difficulties that would put us in.

>> reporter: kip had messed with the wrong mother. marie reached out to geriito campana and ron lee, bail agents and bounty hunters for 30 years. >> i found out that the passports were used to exit the united states. >> reporter: gumshoe work by geri and ron would produce the break they desperately needed -- someone with inside info on the couple's whereabouts. >> and he gave us a street. >> reporter: a street where? >> florence. >> reporter: florence, italy. a romantic city, swarming with american tourists. the perfect hideaway for kip and nicole, but ron vowed to track them down. >> i had mug shots of them. i stared at them. when i was shaving, i took them in the bathroom and kept staring at them. >> reporter: after three fruitless days on stakeout in florence, ron's attention wandered to the unlikeliest of italian sights -- a chinese restaurant. >> i look down the street, and i see this sign that says chinatown. i said, hey, i gotta have a

picture of this, and then as i got there, i looked up and there they were. >> and i said, oh, my god. >> reporter: kip and nicole might have been on the lam, but they had made no attempt to transform their appearance. >> they had no clue that we were coming after them. they thought they were home free. >> reporter: the next day, marie pushed open this door, and stood face-to-face at last with her fugitive son. a big hug was not on the menu. >> reporter: what did you see on his face when you looked at him? >> he was kind of horrified. he said, "well, i'm impressed." you look mad. >> yeah, i mean, probably. >> reporter: it's your mother, kip. >> yeah. >> reporter: whose money you had used to get out of jail. >> i mean, i just saw her as sort of representing the state, which was trying to take me down. >> reporter: kip and nicole were eventually taken into custody and returned to the u.s., but marie's whole aim was to get her money back, and to her shock,

the da and courts stiffed her, she says. >> we were robbed by the court. >> they fled the jurisdiction, they fled the nation. and that's really what the bottom line is. >> reporter: nicole and kip were each sentenced to four years and four months. still married, during sentencing, they barely looked at each other. their real estate dream, lost to foreclosure. as he sits in stir, kip thinks. not about the tenant terrorizing he pled guilty to, but that lost $500,000 and his hopes to pay his parents back. >> $100,000 over five years. reporter: you're going to give him $100,000 a year. >> if i can. >> people ask me if i'm angry mad at kip, but really? i just feel sad. >> obviously we are both ashamed to be here. it's a difficult juncture. >> reporter: you're the landlords from hell. >> that's what they say, yeah. >> we want to know what you think tonight, do those

landlords deserve their new address. let us know on twitter. #abc 20/20. the home wreckers set to destroy the home next door, what happens when they tear down your home? and all you get is an oops. >> announcer: still ahead, your home reduced to rubble. >> it's totally gone. >> the government meant to tear down your neighbor. >> you can't undo it at this point. >> announcer: talk about a tough sell, hoarder houses. >> this is not right.

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we're going to turn to the home wreckers, but not what you might think. these are the crews hired to flatten homes. make way for new ones. what happens when they get the address wrong and knock down your home instead? tonight abc's jim avila on the fight playing out right now should these home wreckers have to pay up? you'd be surprised.

>> new dining room will have -- >> reporter: it was supposed to be the retirement home of their dreams. soon to be empty-nesters david and valerie underwood had a grand plan, to fix up this ft. worth house and move in. it had been david's grandmother's, a gathering place for family holidays, filled with cherished memories. >> that was our first third-generation christmas. >> reporter: then last summer, after hiring architects and builders, the underwoods drove by to check out the condition of their lawn. >> i've got mowing, weeding to do. but -- >> reporter: then a shocking discovery. something was missing. >> right about here she taps me and goes, "david, the house is gone." >> reporter: it's totally gone. >> it's totally gone. >> it's totally gone. it was surreal. >> reporter: that's right. the lakeside view was intact. but the 1,200-square-foot home gone. where are we kind of standing? >> this was the garage, and the living room was right over. the bedrooms were back on that edge of the house. that was the patio. >> reporter: how on earth could

a house just vanish into thin air? believe it or not, the city had bulldozed it by mistake. they even took pictures of their handiwork. >> i was just shocked, like you know, what in the world? like, how do you tear down the wrong house? >> reporter: the underwoods' house is 9716, clearly marked on their mailbox. the right house, the one the city was supposed to demolish, was next door at 9708. but somehow the brain trust at city hall managed to mess that up. >> and in today's world of gps, when you can spot something the size of a nickel, i would think that -- >> you can. >> -- that there would be a fail-safe. >> reporter: a onetime occurrence? actually no, according to real estate mogul barbara corcoran. >> it happens more than you think. you could probably find at least one home wrecked in just about every city across the united states by mistake. >> reporter: demolishing the wrong house is actually hard to do, according to new jersey contractor lou santora. >> it's basically just completing a mountain of paperwork. letters from your asbestos

company, the gas company, the water company. if you're a competent contractor things like this shouldn't happen. >> reporter: that's small comfort to andre hall. he figured he had the wrong address when he saw a backhoe tearing down a house. >> i was like, "oh, somebody's house is getting knocked down. it can't be mine." i drove around the block and came back, and it was my house. i was just in shock. >> reporter: he had poured his heart and soul into fixing up the pittsburgh house, prepping it so his three daughters could move from living with their mom out of state to be with him. >> i put new glass, put new frames, new windows. i did everything i had to do to get this house right. >> reporter: he even painted his daughters rooms. there's no place like home. and now for hall, that's way too true, because there's no home period. >> it's gone now. it ain't nothing but an open lot. >> reporter: hall hit rock bottom. today he lives in an apartment without his daughters. >> nobody wants to take the blame.

the contractor points the finger at the city. the city points the finger at the contractor. >> reporter: you'd think when your house gets bulldozed by mistake you'd get compensated, and quickly, but you'd be wrong. jessie vernon is a good example. here are pictures of his little rock house being demolished last year. the city-hired contractor admitted to a local tv station that he made a big bulldozer blunder. >> there were two houses side by side, and i didn't look close enough to figure out which is which. >> reporter: but adding insult to injury, vernon has not been paid neither by city nor by the contractor. and listen to this bold reasoning from the contractor's attorney. they say they did vernon a favor. >> i think mr. vernon actually benefited from what my client did. and i'll be glad -- >> reporter: he knocked down the house and benefited from it? >> that can be made to sound terrible, and normally i assume it would be. >> reporter: well, if it was your house, you would think it was terrible. >> surely. surely.

but the city had told mr. vernon months before this to either get a permit to fix this house up or to demolish it. my client just hastened what was probably inevitable. >> reporter: but that's not your client's decision to make. >> he can't undo it. you can't unring the bell at this point. >> reporter: but vernon says he was planning to repair the house to rent it out. vernon went to a city council meeting to try to get justice. >> good evening, i'm jessie vernon. >> reporter: no luck. >> mr. vernon's and the city's interests are not aligned. >> reporter: file that under legal talk for "sorry, chump." we had to ask a few questions. is it really not your fault? you have no responsibility for this? the people you hired knocked down the wrong house. >> yeah. the people we hired didn't do what we hired them to do. no, i don't think that we have a legal responsibility for that. >> reporter: so if i hired somebody to knock down my porch, and they knocked down my neighbor's porch, don't you think my neighbor's going to come after me, not just the guy who knocked down the porch? >> well, i think so. but you don't have immunity from negligence actions, as local

governments do. >> reporter: wait, come again? >> you don't have immunity from negligence actions, as local governments do. >> reporter: you heard right. some local governments are off the hook from lawsuits. so if they hire a bungling backhoe that happens to flatten your home sweet home you're on your own. where does that leave vernon? the city advised him to sue the errant contractor. >> it would cost me money to sue. and i shouldn't have to pay a dime. all i've heard is talk. >> reporter: back in ft. worth, talk is all david underwood has been hearing, too, even though the city admitted they made the error. in a statement to "20/20," they said they have -- "reviewed city policies and procedures and added a series of additional checks." but they still haven't paid a check to underwood. you must be a little ticked off by now, right? >> well, frustration's growing. >> reporter: especially since for the years that the city was collecting taxes on the house,

before it was demolished, it was appraised for $82,000. but now that the city might have to pay for the wrecked house there's a new appraisal for just 25 grand. you can't buy a car for that, much less a house, right? >> exactly. >> reporter: we wanted to ask the city about that, and since they wouldn't talk to us on camera we went straight to city hall to confront underwood's councilman. hi, i'm jim avila. from abc news 20/20. >> nice to meet you. >> are you disappointed at all that the city has not come forward when they admitted they made the mistake? >> we are going to settle with this gentleman, but there has been some discourse over total settlement value, and that's where it's at right now. >> reporter: but has the assessment been reduced in order to pay him, pay him a lower amount? >> i can't answer that. no, absolutely not. >> reporter: the underwoods still hope they can salvage their dream house, rebuild. but the memories they had, those have been demolished. and so what is left of your dream at this point? >> uh -- >> it's a new dream. >> it's a new vision. it's a -- >> yeah.

>> we're going to have to build a totally new house now. there's not going to be that tie to my childhood. it did mean something to me, obviously. if i'd want it torn down, i'd have torn it down. >> a lot of fingers pointed in this one. who should pay? the contractor or the town that hired them? use the #abc 20/20. when we come back the story from the headlines, the homes disappearing under their feet. the dramatic pictures, how to know if your home is sitting on a sink hole. you have to see this. >> watch what a sink hole does to a stand of trees. >> they are moving, john. >> i got it. >> it did it yesterday to a whole neighborhood. >> we're asking everyone to stay in place except the homes we evacuated. >> it was their house being sucked into the ground. when we come back. wow...look at you. i've always tried to give it my best shot. these days i'm living with a higher risk of stroke due to afib, a type of irregular heartbeat,

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we all heard it before in real estate. location, location, location. but what happens when that location disappears under your feet into a massive sink hole? tonight the real estate nightmare playing out in one american neighborhood, seven

families suddenly looking for a new place to live. here's abc's gio benitez on that sinking feeling. >> reporter: welcome to sunny florida. the sinkhole capital of the nation. a hole that can bury you financially, or bury you forever. >> i was halfway out of the house, called 911. >> how far is it sinking? >> it's just cracking, the whole house and floor are cracking. >> reporter: this is what's left of the dupree family home in dunedin after a sinkhole made a house call yesterday. >> i thought someone was trying to break in, but i didn't expect this. >> reporter: no one was breaking in. it was the dupree family home breaking up. first, the porch and the brand new boat devoured by the earth. today, a demolition crew took care of the rest -- pushing the remains into the sinkhole, reducing what housed five years of dupree family memories to dust. later this weekend, it will also be filled in with sand.

>> the dupree family says they knew the sinkhole was here years ago. but were fighting with their insurance company on exactly how to fix it. the duprees aren't alone, this homeowner has been living with the danger of a potential sinkhole on his property while he slugs it out with his insurance company on how to proceed. >> we are in a dangerous situation. >> definitely. >> it's been for the past three years. >> we get up in the morning and notice that crack is bigger. i mean, all of a sudden, it's gotten larger. >> reporter: the nonaction can lead to a form of real estate roulette where every day could turn to drama. >> this entire area and our home could fall into the earth. >> could just collapse. >> with us in it. >> the bedroom floor collapsed and my brother-in-law is underneath the house! >> an enormous sink hole swallows a family's home. >> reporter: but the fallout isn't just financial. sometimes, it's deadly.

back in february. a seffner florida man was killed when a massive hole opened up under his family's home. without warning, the ground gave way and swallowed the 37-year old, his furniture, clothes and everything else the sinkhole could fit in its giant mouth. >> that hole just opened up and swallowed my brother's bed. >> reporter: the victim's brother, went into that same darkness and lived to tell about it. >> i was in that hole myself, i didn't care. the hole was still growing as i was in the hole. concrete was still falling as i was in the hole, i didn't care. i really didn't. >> this man right here is going to have to live the rest of his life seeing himself in that hole and hearing his brother scream his name. that's his last words. he's calling his brother's name. >> reporter: the damage was a shock to first responders as well. >> never. never in my life have i seen anything like that. >> reporter: the man became the

third sinkhole fatality in florida. carla chapman was barely able to avoid the same fate. in 2011, the plant city woman fell in a sinkhole in her own backyard but managed to call 911 from her cell phone. >> 911 emergency. do you need police, fire or ambulance? >> i'm in the ground! >> you're in the ground? >> somebody help me! >> reporter: about the only thing unexpected in this week's drama was that the damage happened outside the so called, "sinkhole season," which runs from around february thru the end of the summer. sinkholes form when limestone, which is pourous, is eaten away by water. the land above it -- now without the support of the limestone -- can dramatically give way at any moment. to get a closer look at a sinkhole, we went inside one with geologist anthony randazzo. here at the devils den scuba diving resort near gainesville, people don't fall in a sinkhole. they take the stairs.

>> when you're looking at this, you're saying it's like that seffner home. >> yes. a diameter of 20, 25 feet for the sink hole. but in the subsurface, much wider, much deeper. >> reporter: down in this diver's paradise the terror many associate with sink holes is replaced by tranquility. the question they're asking above ground remains the same. >> do you think any recovery effort would have been successful? >> i think it would have been fruitless. >> reporter: one man's misery is another man's opportunity. enter the sink hole guy. there is actually sink hole activity beneath this home? >> that's correct. it was identified by the engineers that the soils are very unstable below this home. >> reporter: taylor is a contractor and during sink hole season he's busy. very busy. how many of these do you do each month? >> we underpin 30 to 40 homes in

a month average. >> reporter: the process involves a series of metal rods and concrete mixture that brackets the home to solid footing. peace of mind does not come cheap. >> this process can range from 25 to $50,000 per home. >> reporter: experts say a home with a sinkhole problem can lose 80% of its value. >> simply because home buyers are afraid to buy in the area. fear is the worst enemy of real estate value. >> reporter: real estate shark barbara corcoran says just the stigma of having a sinkhole property in your neighborhood is enough to drive property values down. >> it could reduce the value of your home by a third, even 40, 50%. >> reporter: yesterday michael dupree tried to recover the value of something far more significant. he asked firefighters if his wedding ring could be retrieved from his home. a firefighter did manage to find the ring on a desk and not a moment too soon.

>> they got it for me. it's amazing. we never thought it could be so devastating. >> hoarder houses, get them cheap. if you can even get inside. >> we don't just have a hoarder's house, we have a hoarder yard. >> push it in the pool. dump everything in the pool. put dirt on top. >> take an unforgettable tour of the ultimate real estate challenge. >> the smell is almost indescribable. >> that's next. i started part-time, now i'm a manager.n. my employer matches my charitable giving. really. i get bonuses even working part-time. where i work, over 400 people are promoted every day. healthcare starting under $40 a month. i got education benefits. i work at walmart. i'm a pharmacist. sales associate. i manage produce. i work in logistics.

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sport utility of the year. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. it's real estate 101, buy the worst house on the block, fix it up, you could make a mint. but what happens when you open that front door and have no place to step abc's cecilia vega steps into the ultimate real estate makeover, when you buy a hoarder house. >> reporter: something's rotten in some of the most desirable neighbhorhoods in southern california. >> we don't just have a hoarded house here backyard piled with stuff today. we have a hoarded yard. >> reporter: hoarding. it's a problem guaranteed to send even the most eager house hunter running for the hills.

>> when i first walked this property i had a path swimming pool with trash through here. but now that's not even there anymore. >> whenever you see in the paper, "great bones," that's code for "hoarder." >> reporter: real estate mogul barbara corcoran. >> listen, when you are a real estate broker and you find yourself about to get a listing owned by a hoarder, it's your worst nightmare, all right? hard to sell, hard to advertise, impossible to show. >> so we're not even in the kitchen, right? we're on top of the kitchen. >> reporter: but mission impossible just happens to be right in roger faulkner's sweetspot. >> i'm looking for the worst house on the block. so if your house is in disrepair, it's cluttered up, i'm looking for your house. that's how i'm going to make money. >> reporter: he's a developer who specializes in real estate rehab, and he just made a screaming deal on a house that would leave most buyers just screaming. >> oh my god! no one lived here. come on. this can't be real. this is a tear down. push it in the pool. dump everything in the pool and put dirt on top. that's what i would do here.

>> reporter: but roger ran the comps and found similar, clean houses selling for up to $500,000. for him there's treasure in this trash. >> we picked this house up around $320,000. we're gonna, minimum, i have to put $75,000 to fix this house and bring it up to code. and then on resale, it's around $475,000. >> reporter: faulkner says he'll take it down to the bones. replacing everything but the studs and the roof. >> you could say, "oh my god," you know? my biggest thing is that people were living here. and i feel sorry for them. >> i'm going to head for the back bedroom off to the right here. >> reporter: this is kira. somehow, she, her daughter and ailing mother called this home. >> you hear this word "hoardin"" thrown around. and you don't really think that that's what you're doing. you think it's collections of this or collections of that. >> reporter: she blames both she and her mom's lifelong struggles with depression and other health problems for their inability to stop accumulating stuff. >> it kept growing and growing and growing. and i didn't want to admit that

i had anything to do with it. >> reporter: they didn't want to sell. but impending foreclosure left them with no choice. still, kira can't let go. >> no, no. it's only been a week and a half. you know, it's so fresh. >> reporter: it's typical for hoarders to want to stay in their homes. living amid the fire hazards and biohazards. >> you can't understand the smells that i've smellt. >> reporter: and that's a major problem for darren johnson, a fire inspector in orange county. >> some type of mold. not sure what it is. >> reporter: he's part of a hoarding task force. >> this is not right. >> reporter: ahh! >> he's got rodents running everywhere. >> reporter: i don't want to know. i don't want to know. >> the mousetrap has a dead mouse in it. >> reporter: stop! >> we receive probably eight to ten cases a month. >> reporter: just look what darren found here behind the lush gardens and beautifully appointed exteriors of an upscale townhouse community.

>> i don't consider myself a hoarder. >> reporter: meet 72-year-old nancy. she lives amid decades of dust, cobwebs and, to put it mildly, clutter. her kitchen has everything. from last night's chardonnay to, well, we don't even want to go there. >> reporter: what do you consider yourself? >> i consider myself the grand poobah of the procrastinators club. i'd look at it and go, "i'll do that tomorrow." >> reporter: her bed is like the rest of this room, piled high with letters, bills and clippings from really old newspapers and magazines. she's kept this one since 1981. >> magnum p.i. was big back then. >> reporter: we asked hoarder home buyer roger faulkner to tour nancy's neighborhood, look at photos of the worst of her hoarding and do the numbers. >> the full value of this is $500,000.

but without getting inside, i'm gonna have to do a gutshot and say $350,000. >> and the worst part about it is you feel so badly for the homeowner because you know they are never going to get as much money out of that home as if they could possibly clean up. >> reporter: nancy says her home is not for sale, though the choice isn't all hers. inspector johnson could nail a red tag on her door right now, and she'd have 30 days to move out or sell. but that's not his style. >> writing a ticket, red-tagging a house, kicking them out of their own house, that's not success. >> i'll state it over and over. we really, really need you to pick up the pace. >> reporter: he charms, cajoles, and warns nancy he'll be back in a month expecting the combustible clutter to be gone. >> nancy has been a very tough case. >> reporter: in nancy's case counselling, and inspector johnson's gentle nudges, seem to

have made a noticeable difference. it's been a month since he's seen her place. >> holy cow! you could not walk in this room whatsoever. this looks great, nancy. it's a room. >> i know. i can actually get to my desk. >> reporter: but will nancy's home improvements make a difference in roger's earlier estimate? >> without getting inside i'm gonna have to do a gutshot and say $350,000. >> reporter: apparently not much. >> your property is worth in my mind around $360,000 in its current condition. >> reporter: she absorbs the raw truth, but nancy isn't selling. >> no, i don't want to sell. >> reporter: because she has a dream. what's next for you nancy? if i come back in six months, what am i going to see? >> i might not be there yet, but my aim is house beautiful. >> reporter: or at least not house horrible. down in san diego, kira's deal meant she had to hand over the keys without taking the time to

move everything out. still, she's grateful to have found roger, a buyer crazy enough to taken on the mother of all fixer-uppers. >> i'm hopefully the solution for everybody. i can come and buy this property. i can rehabilitate it and sell it to a nice family. i can bring the values of the community up. >> reporter: for her part, kira gets a fresh start, relocating to another state. >> i think i'm gonna come out on the other side a bit beaten and weathered. but i'm gonna come out of it. >> announcer: next, could this real estate be real? >> welcome to my home. >> announcer: a plane becomes his cottage in the woods. yes, there's a shower. or how is this for a small apartment? pump my dumpster? >> nicest garbage can in the world. >> announcer: you live where? when we come back. now it's stirred. let's get a cookie sheet.

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everyone wants their home to have a personal touch, that's why we call it home sweet home. what happens when that home is unlike anything you've seen before? nick watt was invited over, and wasn't the first to ask, you live where? >> reporter: if you fly over these woods today, you're sure of a big surprise. nope, it's not a plane crash. hi. >> hi, welcome to my home. >> reporter: it's, um, bruce campbell's house. how do i get in? why didn't you just build yourself a nice little log cabin or something? i mean, i've got to say driving up in the car i couldn't help but burst out laughing. >> it is different. i'm an engineer, and i love toys, like, like so many men do, and this is a good, big toy.

>> reporter: this was once a perfectly normal greek passenger jet. olympic airlines. until campbell, a pleasantly eccentric electrical engineer, bought her for 100 grand, flew her to oregon, where a house mover inched her into her new forest home. i mean, you've gone for the kind of open-plan feel. >> yeah. >> reporter: it works. >> i'm single. i don't need walls. they just get in the way. >> reporter: campbell has rigged up the toilet so it works on the ground. >> it flushes. >> reporter: oh yes, and the shower. well, that's a custom addition. campbell, who is still remodeling, right now sleeps in what was coach on a fold-out couch. at night do you have to put down every window shade? >> no. i don't worry. the squirrels don't complain. >> reporter: guests can recline on the original aircraft seats. and enjoy the totally disconcerting view out of campbell's front window. to me that's the view that a pilot is going to see just

before he dies. >> yeah, yeah. >> reporter: out on the deck. and for outdoor fun, well, there's this. have you every bounced on an aircraft's wing? do you think this is going to catch on? >> well, i do. i really do. and i'm disappointed that it hasn't caught on already. >> reporter: aircraft are decommissioned every day and mostly consigned to the boneyards. campbell thinks we should all live in them. he does. would you? okay, if not a plane, what about this? would you live in a trash can? we're in brooklyn, and here we have a drab green dumpster on the outside -- inside -- holy smokes, if it isn't a fully functioning home. greg kloehn, an artist from california, turns into top cat when he's in the big apple for work. he lives in a garbage can. >> it was just an idea that hit me all of a sudden. >> reporter: it's his brooklyn pied-a-terre. >> got all my socks, underwear,

shirts. i have a lot of bedding in here. pillows, blankets. here's the refrigerator. it's just a cooler with ice. >> reporter: what if his wife comes with him? >> she's just been down here for a week. we stayed in the dumpster together. >> reporter: the place is just 6' x 6' x 5 1/2 feet. how he sleeps -- a two-person bed lying this way with a comforter on top. or, if you're really tall, you can go diagonal and still stretch out. yep, i know what you're wondering. and here's your answer. yep, the toilet. it's a marine-grade toilet, one that you would find in a boat. and if you look closely, you can actually even see the sidewalk. the empty dumpster cost 900 bucks. brand-new. no garbage smell. and kloehn spent another 2.5 grand pimping her up. granite countertop. gleaming grill. roof terrace. and yes, like campbell, mr. kloehn also jerry-rigged a working shower, if you don't mind sidewalk strangers catching a glimpse. total cost $3,500, which is like a month's rent on a one-bedroom

apartment here in hipster nirvana. >> no rent, no mortgage, no property taxes. >> reporter: and you can park it pretty much anywhere. no one bats an eyelid at a dumpster. no one would ever imagine it's actually a house hiding in plane sight. >> it's probably the nicest garbage can in the world. >> reporter: yep, it probably is. and is this, on bainbridge island, washington state, the nicest tree house in the world? looks like a cuckoo clock. >> cuckoo, cuckoo. >> reporter: but inside is the most ridiculous tree house i have ever seen, the fairy-tale brainchild of heidi danilchik. >> well, first off i have a lot of wonderful friends and relatives, and they were getting tired of my couch. so i needed a place, a guesthouse. >> reporter: she got one. inspired by the swiss chalets of her childhood vacations, this place sleeps four. and i'm talking four adults. >> hot and cold running water, gas fireplace.

>> reporter: this is not your apple crate in the branches tree house in grandma's backyard. this is a tricked-out house in a tree with a china hutch and killer views. all built by tree house workshop. that's pete nelson's company, the star of the animal planet series "treehouse masters." and here's the bad news, nelson says a phat tree house will cost you at least 100 grand. >> i feel bad throwing around a 100 grand like that, but that's kind of like where i'm finding we're mostly -- >> reporter: yeah? >> in that range to start with. >> reporter: right, right, right. >> and it goes up from there. it's terrible. >> reporter: nelson has built tree houses costing up to half a million bucks. and was your husband 100% supportive during the entire process? >> my husband was away at work. >> reporter: my oh my, that's a shock to come home to.

a 50,000-pound tree house looking like something out of "lord of the rings." it doesn't harm the tree at all? >> no, the tree, i tell you, the tree likes it. i think they do, i like to think

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