I live in an old home and most of my issues are electrical. You can't run the vacuum and AC at the same time or the breaker will switch off, or run the clothes dryer and AC at the same time. So I have to remember to do laundry or clean during the coolest part of the day during the summer.

My house is...old, and the door knobs don't all work. Our front door knob is a push-me-pull-me kind of thing and to shut our upstairs bathroom, you have to wedge a towel between the door and the frame...we try not to let guests use that one!

My flat is on the top floor (my 2nd floor, your 3rd!) which is great for views but amazingly, that wasn't the main reason why I fell in love with it when I first saw the place. No, what really won my heart was what I jokingly call my "split-level" kitchen. It occupies the top two landings, with the sink on the lower, little landing and cooker, fridge and work surfaces on the upper level and a terrible lack of storage (overcome with shelves erected next to the sink and a 'repurposed' linen cupboard in the livingroom) but I love it and even though all the to-ing and fro-ing between sink and cooker ought to drive me nuts, it doesn't bother me and besides, it keeps me fit.... and gives me one hell of an appetite by the time I've finished cooking!

My mailbox is in the backyard, so I have to remember to tell people where to look if they are dropping something off for me. And, if there is a sub mailman, I find the mail in the oddest places!

Also, if you close the bathroom door, you can't open the top drawer of the vanity, the doorknob is in the way!

My home was designed by MacGyver, it seems. Or Rube Goldberg. There's a "method" to everything from opening the front storm door (pull lever in, to the left - THEN away from you), to propping up the lid to our chest freezer (spare 1x2 on top). And don't get me started on why my stove is located behind the kitchen door... who does that?!?

and the outside light on a timer switch - that doesn't work
and the 3 remotes for the TV
and the 4 (yes, four!) switches in the bathroom - in the wrong order
and...

my house has haunted windows. when shut and locked, they stay put, but when unlocked, they can open an inch or two by themselves. when open, the top half of the window can slide down (all the way down!). like me, they are annoying but cute.

the front door can only be locked/unlocked from inside the house. no big deal, it just means that we go out the back door, or leave the house unlocked. or both - usually both.

sometimes when the heat kicks in, one of the air ducts flexes. it's loud. like thunder.

i love my house.

I feel like a bunch of quirks should come to mind, considering my house is from 1921, but I really can't think of any. Or maybe I'm just used to them. There are the usual creaky floors and drafty windows.

Wait, I think I have one. The strangely gigantic toilet in the basement, with rickety walls around it. It's not even a half-bath. Just a very large toilet.

Oh man this post is full of errors :(

The light and fan switches for my bathroom are far from the door on the left wall next to the shower. No one can ever figure out where they are are turn them on.

there is a second electrical box for the garage and outside area that is hidden behind the wall in the laundry room. We finally found it last year (after 4 years of looking) and we installed a hidden door- but no one else would ever find it!

Can't have lightbulbs in the living room ceiling fixture because i replaced a ceiling fan that had a pull cord on/off before realizing that there is no wall switch. and of course, it was 'on' when i changed the fixtures. and can't just shut off the breaker in the basement because that light's on the same circuit as the light in the addition . . . which makes no sense, come to think of it. but whatever. i hate overhead lighting.

the hallway light doesn't work, the basement workshop light turns on with a switch upstairs, and i nearly electrocuted myself on a wire hanging above my laundry tub just the other week.

hmm. i think i need to scrounge up some electrician money.

doubledutch, I understand what you are saying!!

Our amateur-built country cottage is a wild child that has NO straight anything. The floors, walls, ceilings, doors, bath, joints are ALL out of plumb (if you ever read "Asterix and Cleopatra", think of architect Numerobis's houses).

If you heat the little black stove in the living-room, you have to leave the room.

If you cook anything that fumes, all the smoke gets mysteriously trapped in the bedroom located ...at the other end of the house.

This house is a joke for at least a hundred reasons, that's why we love it so much.

My apartment is the top floor of a house that was built in 1904 and renovated from the studs up in 2004, so it's got 21st-century quirks (mostly due to shoddy construction) on top of 20th-century quirks (mostly due to age). That doesn't mean I don't love the place, though, because I do.

Here is a partial accounting:

* There are multiple soft spots in the floor where the hardwood underneath the berber carpets has deteriorated. This sometimes alarms visitors.

* Unless I'm cooking or baking, the kitchen is always 10 degrees colder than the rest of the house. This was perplexing at first, but now I'm thankful for it: the room is cool in the summer and doesn't get stiflingly hot when I'm cooking a big meal.

* After the remodel, all of the walls were simply coated with primer instead of actual paint, so cleaning them is impossible unless you paint them first.

* When my ears are underwater in the bathtub, I can hear everything the downstairs neighbors are saying in their living room. (They have informed us that they hear a loud "whoosh" every time we flush our toilet.)

I am dying at the bathtub remark!

also @ doubledutch: if you own this is likely fixable and has to do with your sash weights. you can look up window repair.

My house has odd stairs, they turn tighter than a spiral in some areas. The basment stairs also have an overly tall top step. There is a handle on the frame to hoist your self up onto the next level.

The stairs to the second floor only have 5' of clearance and only for part of the stairwell so you have to stoop coming and going.

Multiple doors must be latched and then shoved closed.

etc.

My bedroom door doesn't close. I think it was hung improperly and is about 2" from closing completely.

I don't even go upstairs because it's what I call a "handy-man's special". The original owners from the 40's "renovated" it himself and it's very amateur. The half-bath is atrocious and looks like it will fall through the floor any moment (it wont).

My double-hung windows leave gaps and sink down even when locked. In order to fix it, I've folded a piece of paper and wedged in there to prop them up and keep the wind out.

My basement takes on water if it rains a lot

The original owner had a handicapped shower installed when she became elderly. It once had a beautiful vintage bathtub - now I've got a circa 1988 handicapped shower :-(

I've got a random pencil sharpener in the stairway. This, however, was something that endeared me to the house immediately.

One notable quirk of our pre-1920's apartment - there are SEVEN keys to it.

#1 - Storm Door
#2 - Front Door to Entryway
#3 - Door to Apartment
#4 - Skeleton Key to lock the doors to all of the rooms
#5 - Apartment's back door
#6 - Back door of building
#7 - Key to basement

I need one of those massive keyrings that jailhouse guards always use.

Almost all of my door knobs in the interior of my 40-50s top floor duplex won't latch. The ones that do have a 'system' like someone else said... like my bathroom door... you have to pull the knob up and then left until you hear the click.

You have to cross the room to turn on lights in a couple of rooms.

You have to flip the switch a couple of times in the bedroom to get the light to turn on. (probably easily fixed)

Most of the receptacles are the 2 prong non-polarized outlets, so some of our modern electronics can't work in certain receptacles or have to have adapters (which is risky)

Also, the usual creaky wooden floors, painted shut windows, drafty, etc.

our refrigerator shutters audibly and physically at the end of its cooling cycle. it terrifies our house guests until we tell them what it is! (and yes, we know - probably time to replace. but we're renting...)

and the door to the back patio doesn't have a knob. you have to be sure to dead-bolt the door on the other side of the laundry room!

None of our door knobs turn. There's a button in the middle of the knob that has to be pushed to open the door. Its second nature to us, but every time a guest goes to open the bathroom door they think it's locked. We forget to remind people.

I know my house has quirks- but so used to them I am that I can't think of much- everything seems "normal" to me. I guess our doors are odd- backdoor is a slide bolt lock and it gets stuck sometimes so you have to hit it down with your fist to lock it, in my brothers room you can't step in a certain spot because the floorboard has cracked and if you step in it- well your foot goes through the floor (its second nature to us to miss that spot. We'll fix it eventually). And I suppose some people get confused with our front door, you have to pull this little lever out to open the door. Hmm... this post has got me thinking.

The back door is probably the weirdest - you must slam it to get it to shut and latch, but then if it's pushed too far in you can't lock it...so you got to try to slowly edge the door forward without unlatching it.

The faucets in the place you have to turn the opposite way you normally would...and the ones in the bathroom are swapped. So with that and the crazy funky way to turn on the shower - I won't even begin to describe how - it can be a pain just to get ready in the morning if you aren't used to it.

I have very noisy radiators in my apartment that gurgle and moan and hiss. My shower is the kind where you have to pull down on the little ring inside the tap in order to switch the water to the showerhead--something I'd never encountered before. The hot tap water is boiling hot and can burn you; the cold tap water is like ice. The grout in the tile floors in my hallway and kitchen is crumbling and bits of it get kicked all over the place by my cat.

-three of the light bulb sockets don't work
-several of the window cranks are loose (and when the wind blows they can be ripped free of their bolts entirely)
-the toilet is reluctant to flush unless you hold the handle down
-the fan above the kitchen stove sounds like an airplane taking off
-in winter, the entryway closet is about 15 degrees colder than the rest of the house
-the back door is extremely difficult to lock from the outside... takes four or five tries every time
-the garage door's motor likes to intermittently stop working when the weather gets too cold
-and my least favorite thing... when the window air conditioner unit was installed, one pane was removed, but the unit didn't fill the whole resulting space... so the remaining 9 inches is covered by nothing but sheet plastic held in place with duct tape. Classy.

slowdown - Ok thats hilarious about your shower (on how to turn it on) since it is exactly the same with mine. We must have gotten the same genius designing them.

I love that this post was 1st person singular.

Thank goodness for Post-It notes...they enable me to leave notes on the different quirky appliances when someone visits/housesits. It is only when I am leaving these notes that I realize I am in need of some help with these items....Most embarrassing: you have to use pliers to turn on the hot water in the master bath. Thankfully, I am the only one who uses it.

Amazing how you just learn to live with this stuff isn't it? Great post, btw. Ours is an old Edwardian with a few quirks. There is no key to the back door. It just has to be bolted from the inside. It is a frequent annoyance and yet, I have lived with it for five years! I just fixed a closet door that had no spring and thus wouldn't open when shut all the way. I just left it slightly open all the time and cursed if someone shut it. Then got out the screwdriver and jimmy'ed the bolt to open it again. So many other things like plywood stuck over old vent shafts. . . tape over a broken window pane. I will get on it soon!

@ChrisGal: When I first moved in, I went without a decent shower for three days before the previous tenant kindly responded to my pitiful e-mail asking her how the darned thing works.

slowdown -- We got ticked the second day and kept calling over and over and over til the office sent the maintenance team and then it took them probably a half hour to get it.

Now it's second nature to use to take a shower using it - but it's annoying if you have company.

I live in a house that was built sometime around 1890. They didn't have fridges so, my fridge is in front of my side door. The floor of the summer kitchen in the back dips down in the middle by about 7 inches...I am not kidding. There is no fan for my stove, but not to worry...the smoke alarm is right above it. Only my husband can force the downstairs windows closed, so in the summer they are permanently open and in the winter permanently closed. Half of the upstairs room have no heating ducts. None of the upstairs rooms have closets. Correction: One of the upstairs rooms has a closet due to turning a dead end hallway into one. My basement's concrete floor stops about eight inches from the field stone walls. Beside the walls is a small dirt trench that funnels into a drain and in the spring I have a very happy sounding creek running through my basement. The fireplace was removed at some point, but not the brick chimney that runs up through the master bedroom. My goodness I could go on....

Remodelling
Summer kitchen: 1950's
Dining room: 1970's
Kitchen: 2006
Bathroom: 1980's
Living room: 1940's
Office and master bedroom: 2009
Spare room: 1990's

In my last house, we had a switch in the kitchen to turn on the electricity in the sun room. The bathroom light switch and lock were on the OUTSIDE of the bathroom. One light had no switch and no cord, so you had to twist the light bulb to turn it off (ouch!) or on. The door had to be slammed so high winds didn't blow the extremely old storm door into the living room (which happened once...we lived for six months - until moving - with a hole in our door so anyone could come in anytime). The heater had to be turned on and off with the breaker box controlling the heater because the thermostat was broken. The doorbell didn't actually work (we had a sign that said "Please knock. Doorbell is broken.") and the smashed doorbell houser in the hall with little wires protruding. We also had an older thermostat that was not even supposed to work. My favorite thing about that house, though, were the light switches in the bedroom and living room. The bedroom was a beautiful metal lace type pattern with silver behind. The living room had two flags, cannons, and 1776 engraved on it. The windows were all painted shut and we had no AC.

Obviously, my landlords were in their nineties and couldn't fix things and wouldn't hire someone to do it. And we either weren't allowed or capable to do it.

Gladly, we moved out of that house in January and live in a wonderful apartment with very responsive leasing company. Quirks in this house include a few drawers in the kitchen that DROP - easily fixed.

These comments are too funny. I've lived with my fair share of "quirks" in various places over the years. Favourites include:
- A shower head so low that I had to sit in the tub to wash my hair.
- A window to a light shaft with a dead cat at the bottom and no way to get the cat out.
- A medicine cabinet over the bathroom sink that would swing open of its own accord causing many head whacks when standing up after washing my face.
- The narrow little door I found behind my fridge that led to stairs to the roof, from which I had a beautiful view. From the stairwell I could see that the other units all had the same door but I never told the neighbours, I didn't want to share.
- A garret apartment with a crawl space on one end. One wall of the crawl space was covered with bits of coloured glass, old (1930's) magazine clippings, notes and photos. I loved crawling in there to read and think.
- The sunroom/living room that sloped so drastically my room mate and I stole a bunch of doorstops from the uni and used them to prop up our furniture.
- The outlet and light in my hallway that seemed to run off my neighbour's panel.
- The 8' x 14' kitchen that had the fridge, sink and stove crammed in a line along one short wall and nothing else in the room. This was especially odd considering there was a separate dinning room, living room, and office so there was no need to try and save space.
- The 20" wide x 16' long hallway that no furniture would fit down.
- The 30" stove that must have gone into the kitchen before the house was "renovated" because when the stove broke and needed to be replaced we couldn't get it out the too small back door or down the 20" wide hallway to the front door.
- The thick concrete slab that renders my back yard 18" higher than my neighbours' to either side. I inadvertently tower over them.
- The walk-in closet in my living room. Why is it there?
- The 70" ceiling in the mudroom off my kitchen. It's the only way to access the yard and garage. Holy head-banging! Built by Lilliputians, apparently.
- There are so many more but I loved/love all of these places. They were home and they were the right place at the right time.

Reading these comments makes me feel better about the mysterious switch-operated outlets (we've figured all but 1 of them out now!) and the 20" wide passage into the "bedroom" area in our studio. Oh, and the freezer door that can't be opened all the way (makes cleaning it very difficult).
Not so bad compared to some of the "quirks" mentioned here... :)