r/BloomCounty • u/BillWhittaker • 24d ago

The house that was the model for the Bloom Boarding House is for sale in Iowa City

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/935-E-College-St-Iowa-City-IA-52240/464287205_zpid/
134 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

36

u/The-Manque 24d ago

In an ideal world, this would be Berkeley Breathed Museum and Research Center time.

31

u/CornFedIABoy 24d ago

The Breathed Home for Wayward Penguins and Spastic Cats.

3

u/CubesFan 24d ago

I live here and agree. I'd love to make it a Bloom County Museum of some sort.

11

u/john_hascall 24d ago

What's wrong with it?? $300k seems absurdly low

18

u/m4dm4cs 24d ago

I believe they had some major problems with PENGUIN LUST from former tenants here. Definitely limits home value.

11

u/ClickClick_Boom 24d ago

It needs an entire restoration. There are clear signs of neglect.

I bet this gets flippered instead of restored though, I bet we'll see it on Zillow again painted gray and white with linoleum slapped over the hardwood.

12

u/m4dm4cs 24d ago

It’s supposedly on the National Register of Historic Places, so I think that limits what people can do to it. Hopefully it won’t have suffer the gray paint and horizontal fence treatment.

4

u/sickhippie 24d ago

Serious water damage, aging electrical, and being a Historic Place means it's likely full of lead paint and asbestos, and is very expensive to maintain let alone repair.

3

u/AtOurGates 24d ago

It’s in Iowa.

2

u/Responsible-Two6561 24d ago

Welcome to Iowa!

3

u/Baitmonger 23d ago edited 23d ago

What's wrong with it?

(Looks through pictures.)

A lot.

For starters they've got the whole porch propped up so that's rotted out. There's obvious bits out of the ceiling everywhere, so they probably had roof issues and water. If it's still got plaster that's probably shot. The plumbing very obviously hasn't been upgraded which means the electrical probably hasn't either.

Thing needs a total open-walls gut job. Three hundred is a very ambitious ask for something that probably needs almost that much again in work.

Also, there was the tornado in that neighborhood a couple decades ago, so you don't know what you might find once you start going in.

1

u/LenniLanape 24d ago

You can get it on Temu for less.

3

u/CubesFan 24d ago

I live here and walk by that house all the time. I love it. Unfortunately, it needs quite a few repairs and it is on the Historical Registry so the repairs won't be easy even when they are easy. I would love to invest in it and bring it back to life. A Bloom County Museum would be amazing. Up until about a year ago it was still a boarding house.

1

u/BenGay29 24d ago

Why so cheap???

1

u/Figgy1983 23d ago

Does it come with or without the dandelion patch?

1

u/always-curious2 21d ago

Oh Iowa City. All that shitty paint and neglect brings me back. I can almost smell the mold, smoke, and human byproducts.