This viral California 'nightmare home' has a distressing amount of storage space

People are divided over a real estate listing in a California ‘Gold Rush’ town with some unusual features.

The Placerville home first caught the eye of Twitter’s Zillow Gone Wild, with bibliophiles lusting over a library area with vast floor-to-ceiling shelves. However, the rest of the property has people calling it “a nightmare home” and questioning its “creepy” design.

Even the USD $1.05 million ($1.55 million) price tag for a California mansion has people baffled, as it is extremely cheap.

The listing was then picked up by TikTok account Zillowtastrophes, who did a virtual tour through the home, which has racked up over 4.9 million views.

Labelling the home “very odd,” the video points out the extremely remote location before describing it as having “one of the strangest interiors [they’ve] ever seen”.

The listing describes the home as one-of-a-kind with views, solar and an “abundance of space” as it’s set on an 18.6-acre parcel.

We first realise the scale of the home in the kitchen, where floor-to-ceiling cabinets and shelves mean there’s “a home for every dish, pot, and cookbook”.

The huge space shares the same bland and pale colour palette found throughout the home, with unusual individual gas cook tops set into the stone counter.

Of course, there’s a large pantry and floor-to-ceiling storage throughout the entirety of the space.

“This is possibly the worst layout for an actual functional kitchen that ive ever seen [sic]. High school freshman drafting classes would fail this in half a minute. Terrible,” one user tweeted.

“It’s more of a lab than a kitchen,” another wrote, referencing the stove tops. “Very unusual.”

Zillowtastrophies noted that “you could feed dozens, if not hundreds, of people in here.”

Then we move through the home to the zone that has people questioning who lived here and what the property was used for.

“Here’s where it starts getting a little weird,” says the TikTok narrator, referencing a library room with more floor-to-ceiling shelves.

While the library itself has gotten the nod of approval from bookworms, it’s the space beyond that has left people scratching their heads.

Through a corridor showing more storage space with locked cabinets on one side and glass cabinets on another, we make our way past a reinforced door to an enormous 185 square-metre space “affectionately called The Room,” according to the listing.

“What on Earth is this for? Why do you need this much storage?” the video narrator asks, audibly disturbed.

Making your way back upstairs, there is a ballet studio, more closets, an office space and another bedroom with tons of storage.

Theories on who would build this kind of “storage home” were rife in the comments.

“Any cults looking for a spot? This is it,” a user commented.

“That just makes me think a sneakerhead married a bookworm,” offered another.

“Makes me think of the compounds in that Keep Sweet Pray & Obey about the Mormons on Netflix. Looks like where they would have kept their records,” noticed one TikTok user.

“I’m from NorCal and the town this house is near has a bunch of Mormons so it’s probably designed for a huge family,” added another.

But all these theories are incorrect.

According to NY Post, the unique space isn’t as strange as expected, explaining that the owner of the home just had a shopping addiction and needed space for her keep.

“Among the items were more than 25,000 books, thousands of DVDs and VHS tapes. The warehouse referred to as ‘The Room’ wasn’t yet filled but was in anticipation of filling up with all her things,” the publication writes.

According to records, the house owner passed away last August at the age of 89.

“She loved her books. She was a single woman,” listing agent Kelli Griggs told The Post. “It was built for her personal needs — for her books and memorabilia.”

“When I first walked in, I thought I was dreaming. It is truly special,” Griggs added. “It’s best used for a warehouse for a classic car collector or anyone who wanted to have a home-based business.”