Tarek El Moussa Recalls Worst-Ever ‘Flip or Flop’ House: ‘Infested’
Tarek El Moussa has come a long way from his early days flipping run-down houses in Orange County.
The HGTV star began fixing up distressed homes in the wake of the 2008 mortgage crisis. Though he’s now a real estate pro, he admits that when he first started out, he didn’t always know what he was getting into. Case in point: a “disgusting” flip that was literally crawling with pests.
‘Flip or Flop’ star recalls disgusting cockroach house
In a recent Instagram post, the star of The Flip Off recalled a nightmare property he worked on with his then-wife, Christina Haack.
“I’ve flipped so many disgusting houses,” he said, but the “nastiest” was one he dubbed the “cockroach house.”
“There’s a house we did, season 2 of Flip or Flop, and I didn’t tell Christina about this, but this house was infested with cockroaches,” Tarek recalled. “So I had her open the front door of the house knowing damn well that there was thousands of cockroaches on the walls and the ceilings. Those cockroaches fell onto her head. If you watch the show, you actually saw her cuss on HGTV. So that was a setup by me.”
Swarming cockroaches weren’t the only icky thing Tarek and Christina found in a home early in their renovation careers.
“If you’re a true HGTV Flip or Flop fan, you know this one: the turkey episode,” Tarek said. “We walked in, and there was an actual turkey in a plastic on the kitchen counter from like 1960. And it had been sitting there so long, the juices of the turkey actually hardened over in the air. We’ll just say it was so disgusting that Jeff the contractor ran out of the house throwing up.”
Tarek El Moussa’s budget fix in his HGTV debut was actually illegal
Tarek went on to discuss a few other “wild projects” including his first-ever flip – a “nightmare” condo in Santa Ana, California.
“That’s why we got the show. I didn’t know what I was doing,” he said.
In another post, The Flipping El Moussas star also shared a rookie mistake he made when fixing up a home with an abandoned pool in the very first episode of Flip or Flop.
Rather than spend more money to either repair or completely rip out the pool, he decided the simplest thing to do would be to fill it up with construction debris and other trash. The problem? That’s actually illegal.
“I knew nothing about construction, nothing about flipping houses,” he said. “It turns out, you cannot do that … you will get in trouble with the city.”
For more news and exclusive interviews, follow Showbiz Cheat Sheet’s Instagram.
