Couple Wakes Up to Collapsed Bedroom Ceiling 4 Months After Buying New Home

A Reddit post showing the “horrifying” aftermath of a bedroom ceiling collapse has gone viral on the online forum.

Images of the scene were shared in a post by the user u/kmcatie that has amassed 17,000 upvotes since it was posted on September 21. The images show a hollowed-out ceiling with piles of debris scattered over and around the bed in the room.

Homeowner Catie, 25 and from Pennsylvania, who did not share her last name, told Newsweek: “We purchased the home in March and it [the bedroom ceiling] collapsed in July. It’s the room below the attic. The ceiling collapsed overnight, we noticed the drywall tape peeling and caving around 11 p.m., so we slept in a different room. Nobody was in the room or injured when it occurred.”

The incident was attributed to a blend of “poor craftsmanship” and the attic being “not properly ventilated, so heat and humidity were being trapped,” eventually leading to the ceiling’s collapse, Catie said.

Home renovation spending in the U.S. has increased in the last three years, with the median spend rising by 60 percent between 2020 ($15,000) and 2023 ($24,000), according to a survey of 32,615 users, including 17,713 renovating U.S. homeowners, conducted by Houzz, a home design website.

Homeowners across the country continue to struggle with soaring housing costs. According to a 2024 report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, “millions of potential homebuyers have been priced out of the market by elevated home prices and interest rates.” The home price growth was reported in 97 of the top 100 markets, with higher increases in the northeast and Midwest regions.

‘Poor Craftsmanship’

In a caption shared with the viral Reddit post, the homeowner explained: “The inspector we hired after this happened said it was caused by a combination of shoddy craftsmanship, not having proper ventilation in the attic, and the heat/humidity getting trapped in there. It’s since been repaired.”

Catie told Newsweek that she contacted the previous owners, who claimed that “they had done no work on the ceiling and had no knowledge of it, so the only way it would cave would have been putting too much weight on it, which is obviously not true.”

Despite multiple challenges—including the refusal of the homeowners’ insurance company to cover the damages “because ‘poor craftsmanship’ isn’t covered”—the poster managed to handle the situation pragmatically.

It cost around $3,000 to repair the ceiling and the inspector they hired to confirm the cause of the collapse and to make sure the rest of the house was okay said “everything else looks totally fine,” Catie noted.

The poster reached out to their realtor, but they were directed to contact the previous owners, “who claimed they didn’t do any work on the ceiling during the time of owning the house—we believe they were flippers who only owned the house for a few months before selling [it] to us.”

In a later comment, Catie expressed a mixed sense of trust and frustration regarding the previous owners: “I’ll be honest, we had other issues with the house when we first bought it (electrical), and the previous owners immediately owned up to it and sent someone out to fix it with no problems. So, I do trust him to be honest, maybe my mistake. He seemed apologetic regardless.”

‘Horrifying’

Reddit users were stunned by the scene in the viral post and sympathetic towards the homeowner.

Wildnet523 said “Holy smokes!! That’s a lot to take in.”

Choice-Shoulder-3180 wrote “COULD YOU IMAGINE if you had been asleep in bed when this happened?! Horrifying.”

User pxl_ninja said “Bro, this looks really sucks. It’s good that you weren’t there. And it’s good that you were able to fix everything.”

User chapinscott32 noted “What the f*** is going on with Redditors today. First an exploded glass pane on a staircase. Then an exploded shaving cream bottle all over the bathroom. Now a ceiling just disintegrated.”

Binkbongus said “…these posts have been insane. What a cursed day.”

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