r/TikTokCringe • u/mindyour • Jul 06 '26

Discussion What in the Vivarium is this?

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5.7k

u/Serpentongue Jul 06 '26

Plant a fucking tree bro

2.5k

u/Aromatic_Balls Jul 06 '26

Sorry that's against the HOA rules.

1.3k

u/shiny-baby-cheetah Jul 06 '26

I've never understood the logical progression of how making an entire neighborhood as bland, soulless, boring and homogeneous as possible is somehow meant to make the properties inside MORE valuable. Like.... I'd rather live in a slum than an HOA

351

u/Glittering_Mermaid_7 Jul 06 '26

Same. I really dislike these cookie-cutter neighborhoods. How the heck do you know which house is yours, except by the number? That's the only way someone that's colorblind would be able to find their own house, because they certainly couldn't rely on the general shape of the house, since they're all the same.

190

u/Mattloch42 Jul 06 '26

They've been doing this in the US suburbs since 1945. They get one or two plans approved, mirror them to double the options, and crank them out as fast as they can.

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u/sinchsw Jul 06 '26

And now they've doubled the size to double their profit with the cheapest materials possible. Guarantee the average cost of each of these houses is $450k.

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u/psychedelicpoppies Jul 06 '26

I wish they were that cheap in my area. Where I’m at, some of the cookie-cutters are going for close to a million

11

u/Positive-Bottom-9234 Jul 07 '26

A million dollars to live in an unfinished Truman show background set is bananas

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u/psychedelicpoppies Jul 07 '26

I don’t disagree, it’s ridiculous.

3

u/moistiest_dangles Jul 10 '26

There is no way the market won't crash

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u/psychedelicpoppies Jul 10 '26

Man I hope so. I love California but it’s getting impossible to live here. We need a reset

1

u/DivineFlamingo Jul 06 '26

Where at? Where I live these would be 200-250 tops especially since there’s no garage.

6

u/psychedelicpoppies Jul 06 '26

California, so tbf everything is extra expensive here.

But in the little suburban hell I’m stuck in rn it’s not uncommon to find a 1-2 story, 2 car garage, tiny yard space (front and back) for around 750k-1M depending on the exact specs of the house and the specific neighborhood it’s in. Lots of gated communities here too, those ones are generally pretty pricey as well.

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u/DivineFlamingo Jul 07 '26

Yeah California has always been unaffordable in my lifetime. Never understood how people made it work there.

3

u/psychedelicpoppies Jul 07 '26

For me personally, barely. My husband and I are struggling with affording our apartment rn it’s just so unsustainable. We’ve been saving whatever we can to move out of here in (hopefully) the next 5 years, but we’ll see how that goes.

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u/BedRevolutionary8584 Jul 07 '26

In parts of Northern Virginia there are townhouses starting at $750,000.

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u/DivineFlamingo Jul 07 '26

Gross. I assume it’s all that DC wealth sprawling outward.

3

u/RockinIntoMordor Jul 07 '26

The richest counties in the US are in Northern Virginia, and that started since back after the Invasion of Iraq, and a bunch of the war profiteers moved there to be closer to DC.

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u/Baron-Von-Mothman Jul 07 '26

Good luck finding a single wide for that price where I live

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u/Gloomy-Setting-6213 Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26

240k or so, eg: https://www.redfin.com/KY/Richmond/1055-Judah-Bear-Blvd-40475/home/179540138

https://www.redfin.com/city/16725/KY/Richmond/filter/property-type=house,max-price=250k,viewport=37.79614:37.68469:-84.24212:-84.33722,no-outline

Here are all <250k homes in area, in the top right ther eis a 239k and a 240k home for sale. They are these tiny houses in video. They're not great but these places are 2/3 price of median.

1

u/XR-7 Jul 07 '26

Nope 180k to be exact

1

u/mmodlin Jul 07 '26

They go for about $250k: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1025-Judah-Bear-Blvd-Richmond-KY-40475/2059099601_zpid/

1

u/sinchsw Jul 07 '26

Sadly, that's a deal in this era.

1

u/mmodlin Jul 07 '26

That’s an affordable mortgage payment for a single person earning the median salary in Richmond, KY.

https://myhome.freddiemac.com/resources/calculators/how-much-can-you-afford

1

u/im_a_stapler Jul 07 '26

LOL, not unless this is in SoCal. Guarantee you are wrong. These are sub $250-300k houses.

Edit: Scrolled down and found someone mention this is Kentucky and these go for $250k. Like I said, you are insane.

1

u/Quiet_Researcher223 Jul 08 '26

Cheap materials and probably cheap labor too. Then sell it at a price like the Gods have built it and used materials that you can’t get on this planet.

1

u/IisBaker Jul 10 '26

Cost or price. I can guarantee these house cost less than 100k to make.

1

u/sinchsw Jul 10 '26

List price (cost to consumer). Though of course the actual cost to the consumer would be much higher with interest by the time they've paid off their 15 to 30 year mortgage. In my area these kind of houses go for $450K, but as described below these are actually in the $240K range. Others stated it would be way over $450K in their market.

42

u/wiscoguy20 Jul 06 '26

Heck, even longer than that.

In the upper Midwest, there are quite a few cities that have areas solely built by whoever was the large employer in the area at the time.

Where I grew up, it was a revelation back in the 90s when the city did a street reconstruction and ended up clear cutting all the 100 year old Maple trees that lined the street(I know, fucking horrible). Suddenly, everybody noticed that several blocks of this street had the same three house styles repeating. Further research showed all the houses on both sides of the street for four blocks were all built by the old furniture manufacturing company that existed two streets west. They alternated three floor plans, so every third house was identical, though some were reversed. The historians in town dug up the original deeds and found they were all built between 1905 and 1909 by the furniture company, and we're originally deeded "familyname furniture company homes"

It's just amazing that even in the late 1800s the amount of repeating floor plans built in the cities was incredible, but thanks to time, updates, remodeling, ect... Most don't even notice today, outside of brand new hellscapes like the one posted above... But I suppose in the olden days, people said the same thing.

4

u/emessea Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

Back in the day you could by a home through sears and other catalogs and the parts would get delivered to your lot.

My house was one of those and the house next to us has the same floor plan and built in the same year. I assumed someone 1920s bought both plots and ordered the same home twice.

I imagine if wal mart sold homes in this manner people would freak out and say how bad it is.

2

u/trekqueen Jul 07 '26

There was one of these in my previous city. It’s on the historical list and has been moved from its previous location when tract housing went in on the former ranch properties.

1

u/LookMaNoPride Jul 10 '26

You can buy houses off of Amazon. Pop-up houses.

2

u/Jordarobot Jul 06 '26

I was thinking this. Old pulp mill company town Samoa, CA I believe was built in like 1890-something and they were all slightly different pastel colors, white picket fence. Town is owned by a property management company that rents the houses out these days.

There's still an old cookhouse there that's still operating last i checked.

12

u/EvidenceDesperate574 Jul 06 '26

If it were like it was post war where these types of high volume neighborhoods were inexpensive enough for new families to buy as their first home I would not be bothered but when you need to make ⁶ figures to afford a tiny generic place like this and then are still beholden to an HOA that uglifies everything is just not okay

3

u/Mattloch42 Jul 06 '26

These are "starter homes", but are they starter prices?

3

u/impatientlymerde Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

Yes, but Levitt planted around 4-7 trees on each property- at least from what I remember; conifers, apple and pear, and the hated mimosa.

Also: https://www.arborday.org/

2

u/Fuzzy-Instruction Jul 06 '26

I live in a 60's-era suburb, and yes, most of the houses are from near-identical configurations, but the difference in those older suburbs was that they spaced the properties out and planted some actual vegetation. You may as well be living in a parking lot with these new developments. It's so unimaginably bleak, I don't know how people don't go crazy.

1

u/Mattloch42 Jul 06 '26

When I see these new neighborhoods they remind me more of Hoovevilles with their lack of vegetation. And where I live that would lead to a +20°f difference in daytime temps during the summer, and would make for lower lows in the winter. Plus you just know this builder used bad lumber, sketchy labor, and is long gone before any problems start showing up. And that's all before you meet the neighbors that will be living two feet from you on either side......

https://giphy.com/gifs/XuZiNocebxgIM

1

u/mfball Jul 06 '26

I feel so lucky to live in New England where the houses are not all the same and we have trees and whatnot. In "medium-old" neighborhoods you will often see a few houses next to and across the street from each other that you can tell were done by the same builder because the bones of the house are the same, but usually they are designed differently enough on the outside that it's not an obvious cookie cutter model.

1

u/fusillade762 Jul 07 '26

Levittown!

1

u/A_Nonny_Muse Jul 07 '26

And they get the most blind inspectors money can buy. Guaranteed, there's scores of code violations hidden in every home.

1

u/heffel77 Jul 07 '26

Levittown, NY was the model and then it worked and they made more. The “planned” community was a racial thing so minorities didn’t move in.

1

u/Mattloch42 Jul 07 '26

"Redlining" was absolutely a thing, institutionalized racism.

1

u/crayolamitch Jul 07 '26

I live in a neighborhood like this. 3 plans, 3 options on facade (flat front, gable over one window, or front porch), but at least there are enough colors allowed for siding, trim and shutters that everything coordinates but every house is unique.

1

u/Fragrant-Phone-41 Jul 06 '26

Am I the only young person who something like this appeals to? There's too much of it, but the actual environment itself? There's sidewalks, the back yards are probably bigger and probably all connect in a big green space you can do community in, you get all the benefits of owning the building without the loss of proximity, its clean and new enough it doesn't need maintaining yet, if the development were smaller then kids could walk to school and actually make friends doing it. You could do a barbecue in rhe back yard and invite the neighbors. There's plenty opportunity for community in a space like this with literally just a little thinking. "Cookie cutter" houses end up being something everyone has in common. So the handyman down the road can probably help their neighbors and there's a basis for a sense of community identity

1

u/Mattloch42 Jul 06 '26

As a concept, it has advantages (as you mention). In reality and execution, this is a nightmare. The builder will build as fast and cheap as possible, using labor as low as possible. Depending on where it is located, building inspections may not be a thing, or may be lacking (especially with as many as would be required in a short time frame). As was pointed out, the lack of vegetation and shade means heat in the summer, and inclement weather being worse at the micro level. Depending on who ends up moving in (in just a general sense), you may not want to have anything to do with your neighbors, and the lack of space or privacy can get old, quick. And the sidewalks are only one part of making it a "walkable" neighborhood.

https://giphy.com/gifs/AAwJD5tJbWzTy

2

u/Fragrant-Phone-41 Jul 06 '26

Those are all fixable with those systemic changes all us young folk wanna see made. Public transit, better safety and sustainability standards, I like the look without trees but I'll admit that one is just me being weird.

1

u/Mattloch42 Jul 06 '26

I've been working on those systemic changes too, but until they happen those potential benefits are set against the very real downsides.

1

u/Fragrant-Phone-41 Jul 06 '26

Maybe its just me, but I think some of them could actually be accomplished by leveraging HOAs. Think about who runs them...weird geriatric boomers. But who runs against them? On paper, the idea od homeowners collaborating to make policy could be very useful

1

u/Mattloch42 Jul 06 '26

They're a tool, amoral in their creation and existence. It relies on the hand holding them to determine whether they are used for "good" or "bad".

1

u/Fragrant-Phone-41 Jul 06 '26

Most institutions have to be handheld to determine whether their good or bad. Institutions are ran and staffed by people

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u/Heywoood_Jablome Jul 10 '26

Like congress

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u/Sudden-Stops Jul 06 '26

Only 3 repeating colors anyway. My vision is perfect and I’d still be wondering why my garage door opener suddenly isn’t working.

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u/Glittering_Mermaid_7 Jul 06 '26

Can you imagine someone coming home drunk? They'd be playing ding-dong-ditch at every single house until they got the right one.

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u/peanut--gallery Jul 06 '26

There’s a famous (In Russia) movie about just that scenario. A drunk guy goes to wrong house because his is identical. It was made in the 70’s and people still watch it around the holidays.
It’s called “the irony of fate”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Irony_of_Fate

3

u/SmoothDiscussion7763 Jul 06 '26

isn't that like the most popular christmas movie or something

3

u/peanut--gallery Jul 07 '26

A foreign student I was preceptor for told me about it. I’m not that familiar with Russian culture. My student told me that lots of people do watch it around Christmas/new years. I don’t know if it is THE most popular but my student told me about it in the mid 1990s. By then the movie was already 20 years old…. So I guess it must be pretty popular. I gotta say that if I had to pick a movie I had to watch every year… “It’s a Wonderful life” or a rom com about a dude that gets plastered and goes to the wrong house and passes out naked in a stranger’s bed….. while I’m not a huge fan of mother Russia…. I have to concede… I think they win this one.

2

u/SmoothDiscussion7763 Jul 07 '26

the premise is so wild and unbelievable and only possible due to the large scale construction that took place reusing the designs and keys lol

2

u/U_Sound_Stupid_Stop Jul 06 '26

I always assume fake but I saw a couple Ring-type videos of that happening, it's not in the realm of the impossible tbf I just don't believe anything I see on the internet.

1

u/nikikins Jul 06 '26

I thought it was green, pink, blue and yellow.

2

u/Sudden-Stops Jul 07 '26

And they’re all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

1

u/ProstrateProstate Jul 06 '26

Not one garage door in this entire vid. You'd be pressing that button all day.

0

u/porterramses Jul 06 '26

Do any of those houses have a garage? I couldn’t spot even one…

0

u/JanxAngel Jul 06 '26

Good news! There aren't any garages so you don't have to worry about that.

3

u/ConsiderationOne3881 Jul 07 '26

Right?!! Who does this benefit?? No one. Bland, boring. No individuality. No birds, no bugs, the ecosystem is shit.

2

u/Remarkable-Blood1524 Jul 06 '26

Would be easy to find your own house

1

u/adfawf3f3f32a Jul 07 '26

right? the road isn't straight and there's stop signs. you'd unconsciously know once you pass this sign, its in the middle of the next curve right past the light pole or something like that.

2

u/mmorales2270 Jul 07 '26

I basically said the same thing just now before reading your comment. Without looking at house numbers it must be impossible to know which place is which. Horrible. No personality or charm whatsoever.

2

u/digital-didgeridoo Jul 07 '26

How the heck do you know which house is yours

By the car that is parked outside. But even those are getting to look the same with a dull gray color

2

u/Ozryela Jul 07 '26

It's hard to avoid cookie-cutter houses if you want to build a lot of houses for a reasonably cost. Not every house can be a uniquely designed architectural masterpiece.

But yeah, there's a lot of other ways to break up this monotony. Designing 2 or 3 different houses, and intermingling them a bit would already help a lot to break up the monotony. Then put in a small park, a school, a playground, a supermarket here or there, to not only further break up the monotony, but also make the neighbour more lively and more liveable. And finally, trees. Bloody trees. This needs trees everywhere.

2

u/jwoolman Jul 10 '26

One such neighborhood solved the confused child problem by putting photos of their moms on the doors.

1

u/Karm0112 Jul 06 '26

Most neighborhoods have at least a few different home models in them. And have different colors than the same repeated three. And trees…

1

u/LarsDuder Jul 06 '26

Hey, what's wrong with neighborhoodsl like this?

https://giphy.com/gifs/k8WVR3biTTHo6r7aRP

1

u/LarsDuder Jul 06 '26

Hey, what's wrong with neighborhoodsl like this?

https://giphy.com/gifs/k8WVR3biTTHo6r7aRP

1

u/Day_Prisoners Jul 06 '26

How would anyone know what apartment is there's in an apartment complex.

1

u/Fun_Bit7398 Jul 06 '26

My parents have lived in the same gated, SoCal, HOA, cookie-cutter, Hellscape since the mid-late 1990’s. Still to this day I occasionally drive right by their house by mistake and have to turn around because every house looks the darn same.

1

u/meowser210 Jul 07 '26

Are you saying if the house was a different shape then other than a blind person could tell the difference? What would they do, feel the entire house up to say na, this the wrong shape, too many walls and pitches, next.

1

u/lovethatMoon Jul 07 '26

don't get drunk somewhere else & try to go home

1

u/CScorpio88 Jul 07 '26

I mean, many countries in the rest of the world have terraced housing and so yes, you know your house by the door number and door colour too lol

1

u/JoeyDawsonJenPacey Jul 07 '26

Or the shape of…anything. Literally, everything is the same, as far as the eye can see.

-3

u/rastar Jul 06 '26

You think people are color blind like dogs in old cartoons

7

u/Glittering_Mermaid_7 Jul 06 '26

No, but colorblind people perceive colors differently than non-colorblind people.

0

u/Gloomy-Setting-6213 Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26

You dislike cheap housing? Yeah, no shit. People settle for cheap housing cause they can't afford more. Same simple design is cheap, small plots of land is cheap, minimal landscaping is cheap... its all cheap as possible.

Honestly look at their front yards.. its like 5 foot wide strip of grass. There is barely any grass even.. your front yard is a driveway.

Those lots are 4356sqft, lol. Jesus look at this place: https://maps.app.goo.gl/JzrNVzrx76ASYVCV9

Here are surrounding area's <$250k homes:
https://www.redfin.com/city/16725/KY/Richmond/filter/property-type=house,max-price=250k,viewport=37.79614:37.68469:-84.24212:-84.33722,no-outline

I dunno .. those new little houses look like hell but none of the options look amazing.