When House Flipping Gets Downright Foul: Inside Zombie House Flipping's Smelliest Challenge Yet
Most people walk into a potential home purchase hoping to catch a whiff of fresh paint or a realtor's strategically placed candles. Tommy Harr and his family? They walk in expecting the worst — and on the latest episode of their hit A&E show Zombie House Flipping: Family Business, the worst comes in the form of an overwhelmingly "very stinky" abandoned hoarder house in Columbus, Ohio. For seasoned house flippers, a bad smell isn't a dealbreaker. It might just mean there's money to be made.
Who Are the Zombie House Flippers?
Tommy Harr, 31, is not your average real estate investor. Over the course of his career, he has completed approximately 400 house renovations — many of them involving so-called "zombie" properties, a term used to describe homes that have become stuck in the foreclosure process and are left abandoned, deteriorating, and unloved. These are the properties that most buyers avoid, and that's precisely what makes them so attractive to Harr and his tight-knit crew.
The show, which premiered in May on A&E, follows Tommy and his entire family as they hunt for distressed properties across the Columbus, Ohio, area. It truly is a family business in every sense of the phrase. His youngest brother, Will, is currently training to become a project manager under Tommy's mentorship. Brothers Jake and their father Chris handle pre- and post-construction inspections, ensuring every flip meets quality standards before it hits the market. Rounding out the team is their mother, Katie, who brings her dual expertise as an interior designer and real estate agent to each and every project. Together, they form one of the most compelling teams in real estate television today.
What Is a "Zombie" Property?
Before diving deeper into the family's latest nightmare flip, it helps to understand what a zombie property actually is. When a homeowner defaults on their mortgage, a lender initiates the foreclosure process. Sometimes, however, that process stalls — due to legal complications, lender delays, or abandoned proceedings — leaving the home in a kind of legal limbo. No one is maintaining it, no one is living in it, and no one is officially responsible for it. The result is a property that slowly decays, becoming an eyesore and, in many cases, a public hazard.
These zombie homes are concentrated in regions that experienced heavy foreclosure activity, and Columbus, Ohio, has historically had its share. For investors like Tommy Harr, these unloved properties represent a unique opportunity: buy low, renovate aggressively, and sell for a healthy profit. It takes experience, nerve, and a very strong stomach.
The Episode: "Smells Like Money"
In an exclusive clip from the forthcoming episode, fittingly titled "Smells Like Money," the Harr family steps foot into a ranch-style home that immediately announces itself through sheer olfactory force. The property is a former hoarder house, and the years of accumulated clutter, neglect, and abandonment have left behind an odor that is, in Tommy's own words, "very stinky."
For most prospective buyers, a smell that powerful would send them sprinting back to their cars. But for the Zombie House Flipping crew, it's a data point — one that needs to be assessed, understood, and ultimately eliminated as part of the renovation process. The question they always ask themselves isn't "Does this smell bad?" but rather "Can we fix this, and will the numbers work when we do?"
The Real Challenges of Flipping Hoarder Homes
Hoarder houses present a unique set of challenges that go far beyond simple cosmetic updates. Here are some of the most common issues flippers face when tackling these types of properties:
- Structural damage hidden beneath clutter: Years of accumulated belongings can conceal serious problems including water damage, mold growth, compromised flooring, and pest infestations. You often don't know what you're truly dealing with until the cleanout is complete.
- Deep-set odors: Smells from hoarding situations — whether from animals, rotting food, moisture, or general decay — can penetrate drywall, subflooring, and wooden structural elements. Remediation may require partial or full demo of affected surfaces.
- Extensive cleanout costs: The sheer volume of items left behind in a hoarder property can dramatically increase the cost and timeline of a renovation. Dumpster fees, labor hours, and hazardous waste disposal all add up quickly.
- Biohazard risks: In extreme cases, hoarder homes can contain materials that require professional biohazard remediation, adding another layer of expense and complexity to the flip.
- Permit and inspection complications: Inspectors may flag a long list of code violations that accumulated over the years of neglect, requiring investors to bring multiple systems up to current standards before the home can be sold.
Why Experienced Flippers See Opportunity Where Others See Chaos
The genius of Tommy Harr's approach — and the reason shows like Zombie House Flipping: Family Business resonate so strongly with audiences — is the ability to look past the surface horror of a distressed property and see its underlying potential. A house that smells terrible and looks uninhabitable can, after a thorough renovation, become a beautiful, move-in-ready home that commands full market value.
Experienced house flippers train themselves to evaluate properties on the basis of their bones: the lot size, the floor plan, the neighborhood trajectory, and the structural integrity of the home. When those fundamentals are solid, the cosmetic and sensory nightmares become obstacles to overcome rather than reasons to walk away. In fact, the worse the initial condition, the more negotiating leverage a buyer like Tommy Harr often has — which means a lower purchase price and a higher potential margin once the work is done.
House Flipping in Columbus, Ohio: A Market Worth Watching
Columbus, Ohio, has emerged as one of the more interesting markets for real estate investors in the Midwest. The city benefits from a large and growing population, a strong university presence, and a diversifying economy, all of which help sustain housing demand. At the same time, pockets of the city still carry the legacy of foreclosure activity from past economic downturns, meaning zombie and distressed properties continue to be available for investors who know where to look.
For flippers operating in this space, the Columbus market offers a combination that is increasingly hard to find in more competitive coastal cities: relatively affordable acquisition costs, a healthy pool of buyer demand at the other end of the transaction, and enough inventory of distressed homes to keep a full team busy throughout the year.
What Viewers Can Learn From Zombie House Flipping
Beyond the entertainment value of watching a family navigate the chaos of a foul-smelling hoarder house, Zombie House Flipping: Family Business offers genuinely useful insights for anyone curious about real estate investing. Tommy Harr's 400-renovation track record is a testament to the value of experience, process, and having the right team around you. His family's complementary roles — from project management and inspections to design and sales — demonstrate how a well-structured operation can move through the challenges of a difficult flip with efficiency and confidence.
The "Smells Like Money" episode, in particular, is a reminder that in real estate, as in life, the opportunities that others find repellent are often the ones worth pursuing most aggressively. Where most people smell a problem, the best house flippers smell profit — even when they have to hold their breath to get there.
Zombie House Flipping: Family Business airs on A&E. Check your local listings for showtimes and tune in to watch the Harr family take on their smelliest challenge yet.