EXCLUSIVE: ‘Rehab Addict' Star Nicole Curtis Lays Bare Horrors She Found Inside Disgusting ‘Crackhouse' Renovation: ‘It Was Terrible'

Yahoo

01-07-2025

Historic home renovator and 'Rehab Addict' star specializes in reviving old houses that have hit rock bottom—yet even she was left floored by the horrors she discovered inside her latest property project.
Curtis, 48, has rehabbed countless dilapidated homes across the Midwest over the past three decades, many of which have been featured in her hit HGTV series, which returned to screens in June after a three-year hiatus prompted by a 'setback' in the host's personal life.
In the new season of the show, Curtis pulls double duty overhauling two neglected homes at the same time—despite the fact that they are located 1,500 miles apart.
The first dwelling she tackles is in her home state of Michigan, while the other is in Wyoming, marking a first for the home improvement veteran.
As one might expect, traveling to each of the abodes adds another layer of difficulty to an already arduous process. However, as it turns out, the distance was the least of Curtis' challenges.
Because the home that she was greeted by in Detroit was unlike anything she had ever seen in her many years in the industry, proving to be in such a disgusting state that Curtis jokingly refers to it as 'the crackhouse.'
In fact, of all the homes that Curtis has seen and overhauled over the years, she is quick to put the crackhouse at the very bottom of the pile.
'I say I have three bad houses on my list. We had Campbell Street [in] Detroit. That was [affected by] fire, tornado, you know, everything you can imagine,' she says.
'Then I had my hillside project in North Minneapolis, which [had been inhabited by] squatters. And we were working in 22 degrees below zero, we got frostbite. It was terrible.
'Then you come to the crackhouse. And by far, it was [the most] terrible.'
Speaking to Realtor.com® from inside the crackhouse, Curtis recalls the shocking state the home was in when she acquired it, revealing that trespassers had taken over the place and turned it into a drug den.
'We had people in here; they were squatting,' she says, before detailing evidence of their drug use.
'I mean, you had drug paraphernalia—I'm staring at a closet that we called 'the needle closet' because they just smashed a hole in the door of it and then they would pitch all their used stuff in there, so yeah, it was bad,' she shares.
'The garbage, there's a fireplace behind me, the garbage was piled up higher than that.'
Beyond discarded used needles and trash that had accumulated all over the abandoned abode, Curtis reveals sanitation issues were also abundant.
'They weren't using plumbing in the bathrooms, but they were still using the bathrooms,' she explains.
Those unbelievably unhygienic conditions rendered Curtis speechless.
'That alone, you know, I can get into old house dirt and stuff like that, but when you get into, like, that kind of stuff, I mean, we thought at the very least they had mechanics, right?' she says.
'Like, who lives in a [house without plumbing?] I don't know why, I was very naive.'
And the Detroit dwelling's disarray didn't end there.
'There was no roof! So, like, the water was pouring in,' Curtis adds.
These major problems were indeed major surprises for Curtis—particularly because she did her due diligence before buying the property, only for many issues to arise, then worsen, during the lengthy purchase process.
'You know, sometimes when I buy some of these houses, it's a long process,' she explains. 'Especially when we buy something on auction, it can take six months to a year to actually get.'
Until ownership is official, Curtis has learned the hard way to leave the homes she buys alone so she doesn't risk losing any part of her investment.
'If anyone knows my history in the city of Detroit, we definitely make sure we have our deeds in a row,' she said, referencing a past experience where she lost out on a huge sum due to a deed mixup.
'So I had acquired this one, and it just was something that I'm like, 'Oh, well, we don't have the deed to it yet,' and until everything [is official], I don't put one dime into it and I don't step foot on it,' she reveals.
That said, Curtis didn't expect the Detroit abode to devolve into 'an actual squatters den' during that wait time and was shocked to find out how bad things got there while tending to her other project out of state.
'I had bought this [other] house in Wyoming thinking I had plenty of time to leisurely enjoy Wyoming, and I was out there like two minutes and then we got this call,' she recalls.
Curtis has since made ample improvements to the home, but admits that there is still a ways to go to restore it to its former glory.
'It's still bad! I mean, it's not as bad as [it was],' she insists. 'Our houses take years because I'm really a purist about finding authentic pieces, so it's not something you can do very fast because I have to get all these pieces.'
Meanwhile, the Wyoming property presented Curtis with its own unique problems.
'Wyoming was, again, I was very naive,' she acknowledges.
'We were two hours from a major store. You forget a supply, you're like, 'I'm going to lose a whole day going back to get it.''
But whether she was dealing with logistical drama in Wyoming, or the overwhelming grunge at the crackhouse, Curtis and her longtime team relied on tried and true methods to work through any new issues at both old houses.
'You know, with any renovation, I always say you got to have patience, you've got to muddle through.
'Some of these people I've known since I was like a teenager—Not saying that there isn't some heated moments, you know? There's a lot of fisticuff moments where we work through it.'
'Rehab Addict' airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on HGTV and streams the next day on HBO Max and discovery+.
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