EXCLUSIVE: ‘America’s Worst House’ Host Retta Reveals US Region’s Most Hidden Homes

HGTV host and former star of “Parks and Recreation” Retta traveled the US in search of the country’s ugliest homes for his hit series “Ugliest House in America.” While the comedian has found hideous places in every state, there is one Midwestern state that stands out for being crowned the capital of ugly places to live.

Retta, 55, began touring the haunted properties when the show premiered in 2022 and has seen a number of contestants offered by the “Windy City Rehab” star’s $150,000 home renovation. Alison Victoria.

During season 7, which premiered on Jan. 7, Retta visits the 100th housing estate that is eligible for housing, a milestone that has given her enough insight to determine which part of the country has the worst housing.

“I don’t know that there is a district with worse houses, [but] I know in Minnesota there are a lot of people who want to do it see their ugly home,” Retta told Realtor.com®.

The housing design enthusiast goes on to explain that he doesn’t believe the North Star State has worse housing per capita than other places. Instead, it seems that many Minnesotans are motivated to have their homes appear on the show.

I feel like people are saying, ‘Come in!’ Or, it’s like, ‘Can we get this fix?’ They are very willing to show their bad homes for a chance to renovate,” Retta said. “So Minnesota is a state I feel we’ve gone to a lot.

“We’ve been to St. Cloud many times,” he adds. Every time, I’m like, ‘We’ve been to this hotel four times.’

No matter how many times Retta returns to the area, no two homes are the same. Also, surprises often present themselves in new ways during filming.

Retta recalls the many times she shocked homeowners with her observations of features inside their homes that they somehow didn’t know existed.

“It’s really funny when I come in and say, ‘Oh, my God, why does that have anything to do with this?’ and they’ll be like, ‘Oh, my God, I’ve never seen that’ … and then they’ll go play it and it’s like, ‘That’s really funny,'” Retta recounts.

“This one guy, I think it was in Ohio, he was a guy [who] it looked like he had inherited his great aunt’s home, and I was showing a lot of things,” Retta recalled.

He’s like, ‘I’ve never seen that. I don’t even know how to open that. I’ve never seen it.’ And I said, ‘Bruh, have you seen your house?’

Thankfully, the hosts on the show have a good sense of humor about Retta’s hotties, and many who have watched the show for years already know to expect her biggest peeve: the carpet in the bathroom.

“Sure, that’s a common, obvious thing that I think you should be changing in your home,” Retta said, before revealing that she’s also against the “indoor pool carpet,” which she saw while hosting the show.

In addition, Retta would like to avoid two types of countertop finishes that she finds old-fashioned and difficult to maintain.

“Formica, that’s all, it’s an old home,” he said. “But the worst, the even worse After putting carpet on the bathroom floor, I would say it’s a tiled countertop because you get disgusted by the cracks between the tiles.”

Of course, at one time, Formica and tile countertops were all the rage. Now, looking at homes through a modern lens, Retta calls out a current trend that she predicts will one day go out of style and appear on a future episode of “The Ugliest House in America.”

“Floor plans: I feel like people are starting to want walls, so I feel like that’s going to go the way of the dodo bird, as they say,” shares Retta. “I feel like people will start putting up walls, they won’t want a living room and a den and a kitchen in one room.”

Retta herself regrets the design decisions she made for her home in Los Angeles. She tells Realtor.com that the floor finish she went with in her master bathroom proved to be a safety hazard.

“I want to redo the bathroom I redid,” she says. “The floor we did, I’ve talked about refinished concrete floors, but they’re slippery when wet, and I’ve fallen too many times.”

In addition to her basic bathroom renovation, Retta renovated most of the rooms, the yard, the pool, and the living room when she first moved into her home seven years ago.

As it happens, the place he left untouched is beautiful and he says it will be home on his show.

“My guest bathroom, it’s the only room I didn’t do anything in when I renovated my house because bathrooms and kitchens are always expensive.” So I was like, ‘I’ll save it for later,’ and I kept putting it off,” Retta explained.

“It has palm tree wallpaper, so it’s green and white,” she shares. “It has a green and white tile floor.

“There are two sinks, but they are really small,” he adds. “There’s old faucet hardware, too [they’re] silver—I don’t like silver.”

While Retta sees the guest bathroom as a showpiece, her real guests love its unique look and want her to keep things the way they are.

“The bathtub is square, but it has the shape of a tub in the middle from one corner to the other, and it has glass doors so you can use it as a sauna,” he explains.

“It’s weird, and my friends say, ‘Don’t change it,’ and I’m like, ‘It has to go.'”

He adds: “My friends are always saying, ‘It’s kitschy’. “They were upset that I changed the bathroom in my ADU, and I said, ‘Are you kidding me? They’re like, ‘Yeah, but it’s kitschy. It’s like a time capsule. “

Whether Retta is at home in LA, moving back to Minnesota, or looking for badass accommodations in other states, it seems that America, the beautiful, is in the eye of the beholder.

“Ugliest House in America” airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on HGTV.