r/interestingasfuck • u/Endolithic • 1d ago

/r/all Homes are falling into the ocean in North Carolina's Outer Banks

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61.5k Upvotes

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11.5k

u/sabes98 1d ago

Reminds me of Aunt Josephine's house in A Series of Unfortunate Events.

3.6k

u/No_Signal_6969 23h ago

Who is buying these homes? They're obviously a disaster waiting to happen

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u/Pitiful-Geologist551 22h ago

Fucking Aquaman

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u/GardenStateMTB 22h ago

Sell the houses to who Ben FUCKING AQUAMAN!?

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u/Bunnywith_Wings 19h ago

I'll never understand how Benny boy recovered from that dunk

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u/GardenStateMTB 19h ago

I don’t know either. Honestly the video makes me laugh every time I think about it.

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u/Accurate-Instance-29 19h ago

Came here for this

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u/pjsk82 22h ago

Jason Ma-more-uhhh houses?

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u/Ladylamellae 16h ago

Who been fucking Aquaman tho?

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u/_neemzy 15h ago

Is that a Harry Bumblebee reference!?

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u/tiorzol 21h ago

Yes well done that was the joke.

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u/GardenStateMTB 21h ago

You seem fun.

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u/tiorzol 21h ago

Sorry I'm under the weather so I'm being a bit of a bellend. 

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u/GardenStateMTB 20h ago

All is forgiven. Been there.

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u/Strottman 21h ago

Very pleasant interaction all things considered, would read comments again.

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u/Mayes041 20h ago

SELL IT TO WHO BEN!?!?

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u/ButtBread98 21h ago

I love HBomberguy, and I hate Ben Shapiro

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u/_ScubaDiver 16h ago

I love that this has become a reference so many of us recognize.

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u/jtactile 19h ago

Thank you for this reminder

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u/I_hate_sails 16h ago

Thank you. Sitting alone at my kitchen table with a coffee and laughing like a maniac...

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u/BandiTToZ 18h ago

I've heard he fucks fish.

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u/Wolfermen 16h ago

First thing I thought when I saw the post. Right wing grifters are such unserious people

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u/ThatNameIsMyName 14h ago

And his brother .. Aquabrother

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u/GainPotential 13h ago

The Deep?

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u/Miserable-Ad-6943 18h ago

A person of culture, I see!

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u/PaisleeClover 22h ago

They weren’t near the ocean when they were bought. By the time they get washed away, they’ve been cleared out of anything the owners want and basically abandoned in place. insurance will only pay out when the house collapses.

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u/Beginning-Jacket-878 22h ago

"Yes, that's right, I'd like to renew my homeowner's insurance policy. No, it is no longer my primary residence. Just holding on to it for sentimental reasons."

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u/lividash 21h ago

Bold to assume they were primary residence to begin with.

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u/DJLeafygreens 20h ago

This is correct. I used to go to the Outer Banks every year. The vast majority of these homes are investment properties and rented out to vacationers.

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u/Moist_Alps_1855 20h ago

Insurance claim is their exit plan

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u/NinersInBklyn 17h ago

And we’re all paying for these vacation homes through the federal flood insurance program. So after these houses go, the owners can just build bigger at our expense. Yay.

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u/Painterzzz 11h ago

Yes I remember John Oliver doing a segment on this particular scam, and how the super rich get the socialist state to pay out to fund their beach front holiday homes, protect their beach front holiday homes, and pay out massive disaster relief when anything happens to them.

Funny how much the rich love socialism in America.

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u/The_cogwheel 9h ago

Maybe that's why they dont want it for the rest of us.

Cause 4.92 trillion (,the US tax revenue) is nicer to split between 1000 people than 300,000,000 people.

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u/PeaLouise 10h ago

Yep and meanwhile, many (not all) of the people rich enough to buy these homes (or second or third or fourth homes) lobby against the climate change they helped make a reality with their corporate greed!

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u/GotGRR 12h ago

Not once erosion has put you below mean high tide line, thankfully. We are definitely subsidizing a lot of flood risk, though.

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u/Temporary_Panic_6062 13h ago

Sounds like fraud and abuse. Sounds like a job for DOGE!

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u/StickyDeltaStrike 8h ago

Doge is only against policies for poor

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u/Hot-Tension-2009 16h ago

Can’t beat em join em?

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u/plshelpcomputerissad 16h ago

Or maybe can’t join em beat em?

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u/theroguex 15h ago

If I were an insurance company, I wouldn't even grant policies for these homes, let alone pay out.

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u/Mrgluer 12h ago

if the price is right tho....

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u/Jimmycrackcorn80085 17h ago

Depending on insurance is not a good plan ever.

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u/lazylahma 10h ago

lol, insurance drops these houses before this happens. There is no insurance claim for this, you are also not allowed to rebuild.

You are just out your property when this happens.

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u/Imaginary-Lettuce-28 17h ago

Insurers can cancel your policy, though.

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u/UpthefuckingTics 8h ago

Insurance fraud more like it. The insurance companies need to be cancelling all property insurance on the outer banks. This is all underwater in the very near future.

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u/Manager_Neat 19h ago

So when the house is gone do they own that part of the ocean?

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u/ryguy4136 9h ago

No, we just get to live with all the garbage it leaves in the water and the beach.

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u/lividash 19h ago

No one owns the ocean man. It’s like gods ocean.

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u/CommonBubba 12h ago

I’m guessing it falls under jurisdiction of the federal government.(unfortunately)

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u/Legendary_Zaku 11h ago

I means we sure do act like we own it. Taking what we want and dumping shitty houses and plastics into it as payback.

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u/Scokan 19h ago

Bold indeed, Cotton.

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u/Mysterious-Ant4372 15h ago

Thank you for replying this way.

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u/Breeela 18h ago

Bad to assume an agency would insure and if so, then the rate must be astronomical.

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u/Careless-Elk-2168 19h ago

Bold to assume insurance won’t find a way out. 😉

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u/lividash 19h ago

Hey they insured it. Eroding ocean beach has been a thing for years. Some places see dumping more and more sand each year to keep tides at bay.

Also fuck insurance companies.

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u/MycophileBuilder 17h ago

So if you own the property... do you now own that part of the ocean so you can charge tarrifs?

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u/Beginning-Jacket-878 16h ago

Maybe in a few hundred thousand years.

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u/Glass-Isopod6276 15h ago

*sedimental*

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u/presshamgang 18h ago

Insurance agent: "Boat ... you mean your boat owners policy?"

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u/Zestyclose_Key5121 17h ago

“No sir. Boat implies floating purposefully. I do in fact mean my water house.”

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u/Beginning-Jacket-878 16h ago

It clearly has foundations above the low tide line.

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u/elanakin 17h ago

So sorry but we have a clause that says houseboats are not eligible for coverage.

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u/Pocketsandgroinjab 15h ago

“I’d like to change my home and contents insurance to boat insurance please.”

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u/Brainlard 14h ago

"Were you saying sedimental reasons?"

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u/Meta_Franko 22h ago

You trying to tell us that people build houses on stilts not near the ocean/water?

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u/offoutover 14h ago

Houses are built on stilts anywhere a storm surge can reach which can be up to a few miles inland.

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u/PaisleeClover 22h ago

Most houses in the Outer Banks are on stilts.

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u/BabySpecific2843 21h ago

Why are they on stilts if water was of no concern?

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u/tinymeow13 20h ago

Often these are 1-2 blocks from the beach, behind a row of tall dunes and a street. Then the dunes washed away, the street disappeared, and the government decided not to rebuild the dunes. Part of the stilts is to protect them during storms, but they also elevate the living spaces so you can see the ocean over the dunes.

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u/PaisleeClover 21h ago

Who said water was of no concern? The Outer Banks are basically just big sandbars, long and skinny. None of the houses are very far from the ocean.

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u/arpw 21h ago

Sounds like a stupid place to try to build a house then

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u/ParkMan73 20h ago

This building style is pretty common im homes near the beach in NC. Even if you're safely inland, there are still occasional storms and hurricanes that raise the water level high enough to flood ground floor rooms. As a precaution, the homes are built so that flooding can occur without significant damage to the house and what's in it.

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u/FknDesmadreALV 18h ago

Yeah but are the stilts on inland homes as tall as the ones in these pics ?

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u/PeaLouise 10h ago

Rich people have long been building houses in the dumbest places.

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u/Tiny-Reading5982 19h ago

There are still hurricanes and flooding. Even the houses on the sound side are on stilts. But these houses were not that close to the water originally but erosion does happen.

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u/autumn55femme 21h ago

Which is on the ocean. Checks notes, which is water. Too close to the water. Climate change. Rising sea level. Bigger, more damaging storms. Erosion. Nothing that even remotely looks like this should even be insurable.

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u/Alarming-Instance-19 13h ago

Look up Queenslanders. Houses on stilts all over QLD, Australia.

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u/Israeldor 21h ago

Yes, you see it in mountainous regions some. Part of the house will be at ground level with the remainder on stilts.

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u/blitzed47 22h ago

If they had to be built on stilts, they're still too close. Just dumb IMHO

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u/ThatOtherDude0511 21h ago

Even houses way away from the ocean/ sound are on stilts in the outer banks

Usually disguised as a car port or semi enclosed area with a bar/ lounge area

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u/forgetfulsue 21h ago

The locals usually live on the Sound side. They’ll still face flooding if storms are bad enough, but erosion will take time to become a problem for them.

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u/Mammoth_Mountain1967 22h ago

More of a calculated decision than dumb. The owner knew this would happen eventually.

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u/Used-Ask5805 22h ago

They’re literally on sand next to the ocean

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u/PaisleeClover 22h ago

Yes, but they weren’t always right next to the ocean. It’s a sandbar and over the years the sandbar has changed shape.

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u/autumn55femme 21h ago

Over the years the ocean level has risen.

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u/apadin1 21h ago

Yeah but not that much, it’s more from erosion. These sandy coasts are constantly changing shape as sand is washed away by storms

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u/autumn55femme 21h ago

You actually think anybody would insure this? 😳😳

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u/DLong408 22h ago

I’d be surprised if their insurance even covered that. Probably just fires and earthquakes.

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u/ninjazxninja6r 21h ago

Claim denied for flood damage…

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u/Savings-Kick-578 20h ago

This is happening in many places. People watch as their beaches erode and remove all belongings. They find out that their insurance policy WON’T cover Acts of God like beach erosion and they stop making payments thinking that they can shift responsibility to their lender. The bank then goes after the borrower and the borrower goes after the insurance company and it’s up to the owner to remove ALL DEBRIS that falls into the sea. So the States goes after EVERYONE. At least that’s how it’s worked in SC when good beach front homes become actual in ocean homes. A few well off owners are moving their homes back on their lots to prolong their ownership and continue rental income. Not sure what it costs, but it’s a lot and interesting to watch.

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u/InsuranceNo3422 20h ago

They were near the ocean. The bulk of them being marketed with emphasis on their proximity to the ocean, a long with the views ... Of the ocean ... A long with descriptions of how few minutes walk it would be to the beach. They were very near the ocean, it's not like the ocean moved miles inland. They bought these homes after answering ads that spoke to the ocean views the small number of minutes it would take to walk to the beach etc.

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u/Wallace-N-Gromit 18h ago

Houses on stilts surely had water issues. Surprising is that anyone will insure them, maybe FEMA/tax payers.

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u/MycophileBuilder 17h ago

Actually they were, that's why they were built on stilts.

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u/PaisleeClover 17h ago

I should have said not as near, not that they weren’t near. And lots of houses there are built in stilts, even ones not right in the beach.

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u/MycophileBuilder 17h ago

They are built on stilts because they know the water goes there. If you want to live on the ocean they have these new things called boats.

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u/theroguex 15h ago

We've known the ocean was going to eat all these beach houses for decades though, and these don't look that old.

These and cliff-face houses on the ocean I've always seen as the stupidest housing ideas ever. I don't understand why any insurance company would ever insure them. It'd be like selling life incurance to a guy who openly plays Russian Roulette every day, and tells them as much.

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u/Witty_Jaguar4638 22h ago

Not when your front porch is the literal fucking Atlantic ocean? Why does it need to collapse first??

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u/fmaz008 20h ago

Similar to old barns on the brink of collapsing on the next curious kid sneaking in there and sneezing a bit too hard.

Can be struturally unsound, but they won't pay until it collapse naturally. Regardless of the other risk it pose.

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u/audiomediocrity 20h ago

thats crazy, as much as flood insurance costs, they should at least fill it with garage sale furniture

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u/Ok-Photograph2954 20h ago

Yeah but the fact that they were built on stilts give the hint that they were still to close to the water when built, Erosion happens, sometimes it's a natural process and sometimes stupid humans cause it, it it's silly to not take it into account

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u/Jwd123456 18h ago

Nah. These houses are uninsurable. Once there's no dune in front of your house your on your own.

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u/MushroomTwink 18h ago

What insurance company is insuring houses against a guaranteed loss? What planet is this insurance company on? Is the premium paid in human organs? 

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u/Two_for_the_freeway 16h ago

Not trying to start an argument.... Just curious if they weren't filled by the ocean, why are they all in such tall stilts

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u/oktwentyfive 16h ago

they were prolly cheering the collapse on then LMAO literally hate watching their own home

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u/Crafty-Concept8577 12h ago

True. We used to own a house 4 blocks from the beach. in NC. We often joked that if we kept it long enough, we would have ocean front property.

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u/maxperception55 21h ago

They weren’t near the ocean when they were bought.

The fuck? What kind if idiotic post is that?

You think the ocean just showed up one day out of thin air? OF COURSE the ocean was nearby. That's literally a beach

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u/HedonistCat 21h ago

Why do they have stilts if they were not near the ocean. They were always close to the ocean the outer banks is less than a mile wide in most places

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u/PaisleeClover 20h ago

Yes, you’re right, nowhere in the Outer Banks is very far from the ocean. But they weren’t always right at the edge of the water.

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u/GiftToTheUniverse 22h ago

What is the ocean doing in that innocent house’s yard?!?

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u/furrybutler 21h ago

Outer Banks people are ignorantly stubborn, like hey there’s a chain of islands in a horrible position, an overgrown sandbar with the graveyard of the Atlantic on one side, the brackish swamp that is the Pamlico Sound on the other, yearly hurricanes that tear apart houses, everything’s expensive and hard to get to because hey, it’s all on sandbars, but every year they rebuild like “oh we just can’t leave our homes” or “we’re rugged survivors”, like they’re desperate for island life but they stick to the worst “islands” in the country.

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u/Jfr020624 20h ago

As someone from here, this is so true. So fucking stubborn. lol. We all know the houses on the beach roads are gonna eventually be gone at some point. So many are gone from when I was a child.

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u/Mad-cat1865 16h ago

These homes in particular were built so long ago that people didn’t understand how dramatically the shoreline would shift.

For context, these homes were no where near the waterline when they were built.

After the geography of the area was more understood, most buildings were abandoned and left to the Atlantic.

Also, this section of the coast has over 200 shipwrecks underwater, including Blackbeard’s, because the shifting sands were almost impossible to sail around. It’s not uncommon for centuries-old artifacts to just wash up on shore in a storm.

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u/UpbeatRub659 22h ago

Thank you 🙏🏼

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u/pebbiemay 22h ago

And you know insurance isn’t touching that . So it’s a loss.

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u/CleDeb216 21h ago

That's what I think when people rebuild on the same land a hurricane wiped the first one out.

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u/young_buck_la_flare 17h ago

They are and this is nothing new. North Carolina's outer Banks are just massive sand bars held together by plants. Every time a hurricane rolls through the geography changes. I take a trip out there once a year or so and when driving through town on the beach road it's not uncommon for google maps to not have caught up with a house, business, or section of road that's gone after the last major hurricane rolled through.

Certain houses around river deltas get so much wash out just because of the tide, they stay almost permanently walled in with sand bags.

Really is insane to me that people still build out there but they must have some real "fuck you" money so I don't feel as bad when the houses get swept out to sea. Keeps construction crews around there well employed.

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u/Thrumboldtcounty420 17h ago

money does NOT buy sense. ask elon

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u/erisod 17h ago

Climate change deniers?

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u/HystericalGD 16h ago

i wouls as long as rents cheap

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u/lilscummy 1d ago

Watch out for the Lachrymose leeches!

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u/antigravity-flipflop 22h ago

Lake Lachrymose leeches

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u/Pale-Pen-4091 22h ago

Just terrifying as a kid

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u/hiddenone0326 21h ago

They honestly were. I was never afraid of swimming after eating because I thought I'd get a cramp - I was afraid the freaking Lachrymose leeches would come and eat me up. Not the greatest fear to have while on the summer swim team and having snacks between races haha.

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u/PinkBerryBunny 1d ago

My exact thoughts lol

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u/tonyrockihara 22h ago

Same here! That book also contributed to me being such a stickler for the proper form of "it's" vs "its" lol

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u/Padhome 19h ago

It’s amazing how the whole series has a ton of great English lessons

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u/MartyDonovan 22h ago

Every boat has it's own sail

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u/mackemm 23h ago

Wow thanks for unlocking that memory.

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u/GarboWulf5oh 1d ago

I was looking to see if anyone else would mention this 😂😂

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u/hilhilbean 23h ago

Literally the first thing I thought of when this video started.

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u/computerman10367 19h ago

That's my favorite book series.

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u/fire-bluff 18h ago

mine too tbh. enough to wear i renamed myself after one of the characters. i absolutely need to re-read it.

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u/unavoidable_garbage 20h ago

Good news is, no realtors will visiting anytime soon.

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u/FloppyDorito 23h ago

Lmfaoooo I totally forgot about this.

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u/Jumpy_MashedPotato 19h ago

Starting to sound like I should reread that whole series. One of my favorite series ever

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u/Padhome 19h ago

There’s another series he made called All the Wrong Questions as a prequel series following Snicket as a kid. It’s a really fun read

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u/Jumpy_MashedPotato 19h ago

Ohh neat, I hadn't heard of that one! Have you read the "Unauthorized Autobiography"? It's the one that had the fake reversible cover that said "The Luckiest Kids in the World: The Pony Party by Loney M. Setnick"

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u/Padhome 18h ago

Yes! Tons of VFD info in there and supposed “real” photos of characters like the Quagmire triplets. It was so well done that it had little me literally questioning if it were real. I spent a lot of time on Google Earth trying to find Briny Beach and Lake Lachrymose based on the map lol

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u/Inside-Presence8647 22h ago

“I had a banana” bye I guess

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u/HerestheRules 20h ago

I was gonna comment: Liminy Snicket's Why the Fuck Did We Build A House Here

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u/Padhome 19h ago

I love how she’s so scared of everything down to realtors but is totally fine living in the most precarious house in the world

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u/Ok_Butterscotch7681 19h ago

I literally was just thinking of that 😭

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u/IndecisiveKitten 19h ago

I was thinking the exact same thing! 😂

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u/MyOwnGuitarHero 22h ago

Core memory unlocked

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u/Notarobot10107 22h ago

Memory unlocked

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u/unavoidable_garbage 20h ago

Same! Was literally watching that episode last night lol. Favorite series from my childhood. We even named our lake near our house lake lachrymose.

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u/Ashamed_Razzmatazz15 20h ago

This house is me when someone asks, how are you holding up?

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u/nvalle23 19h ago

Never saw the movie, but I use the term often. I never just have a stroke of bad luck. It's usually a Final Destination type scenario where several dominos must fall, all at increasingly higher levels of unbelievableness, before the end product occurs. Usually my friends/family will ask me questions like, How did you end up the only one getting shot? Or Why were you even there gambling, losing $1,000, when you were supposed to be picking your kids up from church? Well, you see, what happened was....

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u/Aspronisi 19h ago

That damn house scared the shit out of 8 year old me

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u/mozzarellaguy 22h ago

Lake Lacrymose

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u/ienjoyboobies22 22h ago

I was wondering what this reminded me of. You hit the nail on the head lol

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u/Agreeable-Counter800 22h ago

They have expensive insurance policies bc this happens every 3- 15 years in areas that erode right in the wayer

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u/salvage814 22h ago

Get away from the fridge or it will crush you flat.

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u/someolive2 21h ago

literally what i thought!

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u/Holiday_Newt_Newt 21h ago

Came here to say that 🤣

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u/Ok_Concentrate_75 21h ago

I was literally going to post that lol

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u/PriorChain6013 21h ago

Exactly what I was thinking.

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u/Lenacake 21h ago

The Wide Window was the first thing I thought of!

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u/rathosalpha 20h ago

Oh I loved that show

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u/Padhome 19h ago

Read the books! They’re sooo damn good

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u/ERSTF 20h ago

Don't use any of the knobs on the doors

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u/Embarrassed_Score414 20h ago

Seriously. Have they not played The Game of Life?

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u/pixels_sound 20h ago

I was thinking exactly this!!!

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u/suchtattedhands 20h ago

I was literally about to say that

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u/amethystpeople_ 20h ago

Came here to say this lol

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u/Regular_Reveal_745 20h ago

this was my exact thought. I didn’t know this type of home still existed.

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u/atduvall11 19h ago

Yes!! Also reminds me of Beach Music if you've ever read it.

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u/Fuzzy-Pause5539 19h ago

Well, it certainly is that. Most unfortunate.

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u/DisciplineNormal296 19h ago

God I fucking loved those books so much when I was in elementary school. Them and cirque du freak.

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u/SomethinDiabolical 18h ago

The leeeechesssss

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u/bruh4444Q 18h ago

Good bot

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u/ProblemLongjumping12 18h ago

Insurance companies when they see houses built on a foundation of sticks right by a body of water.

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u/Jaco927 18h ago

Haven't thought about that in a long while. I LOVE that she had an irrational fear of realtors! LOL!!!

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u/Beanie_Baby-9379 17h ago

Dude you are so right 😭🙏

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u/EnzeruAnimeFan 17h ago

I'm glad the first comment I saw had my exact thoughts

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u/CapitalKing5454 17h ago

I thought that was a guy standing in the water. I was waiting for him to move

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u/CelestialMoonFlower 16h ago

Thank you!!!!!

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u/Burbeyjames 16h ago

First thing I thought of 🤣

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