EXCLUSIVE: ‘Property Brothers’ Stars Drew and Jonathan Scott Lay Bare Horrors They Found in the Only House They’ve Ever Deemed a ‘No-Go’

"Property Brothers" star Drew and Jonathan Scott have filmed more than 650 episodes of real estate reality TV, tackling hundreds of run-down, derelict, and downright disastrous homes and turning them into real estate gems.

Between them, the brothers have faced the worst of the worst in design disasters—but, they tell Realtor.com, only one property has proved so horrifying that they have been forced to turn their backs on it, having deemed the house too risky to even attempt a renovation.

As they prepare to launch new seasons of two of their hit shows—season 11 of "Celebrity IOU" on Dec. 28 and season 2 of "Don't Hate Your House With the Property Brothers" on Dec. 29—the twins have opened up about the most shocking properties they've come across in their storied careers.

"This is back in the format of our show where we would tour with people when they were first looking for a house, and so the homeowners were looking for properties," Jonathan, 47, explained, while his twin brother Drew noted: "As soon as we walked in, we were like, 'This is a a no-go.'"

"They were set on this one house that had been built on an old landfill and the house was sinking," Jonathan added. "And so, it had massive structural problems. We told them: 'This is not the house, do not buy this house.' And they did it anyway.

"And then they decided that they didn't want to fix the problems properly, they just wanted to level the floor out. But then you'd have like a 6-and-a-half foot ceiling height at the back of the house."

What's more, Jonathan says the plans that the clients ultimately came up with "would have been illegal," because they weren't prepared to secure the proper permits to carry out the work—further motivating their decision to walk away.

"So that is the only episode of our shows, 650 plus shows, where we started filming it and got all the way to that, and then we eventually canned it because we weren't going to do an illegal project," Jonathan shared.

On the whole, the Scotts are reluctant to ever walk away from a project, particularly when the homeowner involved is obviously desperate for help.

Over the years, they've seen more than their fair share of property nightmares—from new builds that haven't been completed properly to shoddy DIYs that have fallen to pieces.

But there is one dwelling that has stuck with the brothers more than any other: a home in New Orleans that had been damaged in hurricanes—only for a contractor to take advantage of the homeowner and take all the money she had.

"I literally think of this renovation at least once a week," Jonathan admitted. "We did a show called 'Brothers Take New Orleans,' and worked on a house that this woman had. When the hurricanes came through and the flooding, her house was damaged.

"She hired a contractor who took the money, tore the house apart, and disappeared with all her money. She not only had no money left to finish the house, but she was living in a rental unit, mattress on the floor for years."

Jonathan and Drew found the woman "through a local charity" and worked with her to transform her home, collaborating with locals to bring her vision to life—a task made all the more complicated by the shotgun style of her home.

"The shotgun-style homes are long and narrow," Drew shared. "So basically your living room leads to your kitchen, leads to the bedroom, leads to the other bedroom, leads to the bathroom.

"So imagine having to go to the bathroom in the night, you have to go through someone else's bedroom. There's no hallway. 

"So we took these two attached shotgun-styles, and we split them front and back instead. So both units were wider, but it was more functional because you didn't have to go through bedrooms to bathrooms.

"They were blown away. We fully furnished it. I'll never forget the reaction. She said we changed their lives. So, yeah, it was very meaningful."

As for those who are trying to renovate homes without the help of the HGTV stars, the twins have some very sage advice, particularly for anyone attempting to redesign dwellings on a budget.

Jonathan noted that homeowners shouldn't jump to renovations as the first answer to an in-home issue, saying that there are often other factors at play that can be more easily solved than by resorting to construction.

"You want to make sure your capital is going in the right direction," Jonathan advised. "One of the most important things we always note, when we walk into a house where someone says, 'We're just bursting at the seams, we can't deal with this, we need to move into a bigger house or do an addition.'

"We'll look and we'll say, 'No, you don't have a problem with the square footage of your house, you have a problem with too much stuff!'

"They've got to declutter and get storage added in. It's amazing how much more you can fit in a closet if you have a proper closet organization system.

"And you can buy these things yourself online and put them in. I mean, there are companies that will do it, but they charge a substantial amount. Meanwhile, you can do all this stuff yourself and get three times more out of your home than you're currently getting."

Meanwhile Drew said that properties should always be viewed as a "blank slate," explaining that the layout of a property is the foremost factor that everyone should consider before anything else.

"We don't just look at the walls where they are. We always look at it like a blank slate," he said. "There are many ways to tackle a project.

"We always just find the most maximized way, because if you have maximized function and flow, you can enjoy the home. If you just have a pretty house, you renovate and you put beautiful things in the same old bad layout, you'll never enjoy the home."

Drew added that there are plenty of people who are "so fed up with their house," but he urged that there is almost always a solution to be found if you are willing to invest a good amount of time and energy.

"Everything we do, we want to make sure it's going to thrive for this family and any future families that move into the house," he said.

"'Don't Hate Your House,' for me, it's one of the most relatable shows on TV because everyone lives somewhere, whether you rent or whether you own, and most people have something in their house that drives them insane. And there are so many people that are so fed up with their house, they hate it."