A Gen Z man secured his lifelong dream of owning his own home—but realized too late there was a major problem.
Harrison Keefe, a content creator and podcaster, lives in New Zealand, telling Newsweek he’s worked towards owning a home since he was a child.
“Some kids wanted to be astronauts, teachers, I wanted to be a homeowner,” he told Newsweek—and so he took jobs “no one else had the stomach for,” until finally, at the age of 25, he was in a position to buy a home.
But despite having the money, things weren’t exactly going smoothly, as he viewed “up to 50 houses within three months,” and was becoming “impatient” with the process.
“Then I stumbled across this house. I couldn’t believe how cheap it was compared to the others,” he said.
The home Keefe now lives in was “triple the size” and half the price of others he had viewed, with plenty of space, a swimming pool, tennis court, and even kennels for his two Rottweiler dogs.
There was something Keefe missed on his viewing of the home, however—not helped by the fact he was “extremely hungover”—the house is directly under the flight path of a nearby airport.
“I don’t think the real estate agent took me seriously. I would ask questions and he would give very vague answers,” Keefe claimed. And it got worse when the “hangover was getting the better of me,” and he says he ran into the bathroom.
“When I was in there, this loud rumble happened. It felt like the room was shaking but I blamed the headache, I thought it was getting so bad I was hearing things,” he said.
But he wanted to “hurry up and close this deal”—so he told the agent he’d take it, and was “thrilled” to finally own a home.
That happiness was short-lived, however, as after moving in, relaxing by the pool and watching his dogs playing, Keefe told Newsweek he suddenly heard a noise—and his dogs started “barking, aggressively.” The plane came so close, he grabbed his dogs and thought he was “about to get crushed by a freak plane accident”—until he realized it had landed on a runway just meters from his home.
In a video posted to his TikTok account @haztrology on January 3, Keefe demonstrated what life in his new home is like. He stands outside his new home, and as he hears a plane begin to approach, he cheerily points out: “It’s a plane!”
But things are clearly about to go wrong, as the caption over the video reads: “The realtor said I’d barely notice the planes.”
The video continues, and the sound of the engines gets louder and louder, as Keefe falters and says: “It’s pretty close. It’s actually really close. It’s actually right there.” Suddenly, the plane comes into sight, and as the noise becomes absolutely deafening, Keefe slams his hands over his ears and starts swearing repeatedly.
The plane passes low and directly overhead, before coming in to land at the airport next door.
Keefe’s video had a massive response, being viewed more than 2.2 million times, as one commenter joked: “You weren’t suspicious when instead of an address you have a terminal and gate number?” And one laughed: “Maybe you misheard them over the sound of the plane.”
Another, who identified themselves as working as a flight attendant, suggested Keefe could “rent it out by the room for commuting crew! We have a two-hour call-out to be at our gate. This location is PERFECT.”
“You’ll never need to pay for airport parking. You can just walk from there,” another said, while one admitted: “I’d pay a metric ton extra for that view of the planes from my house!”
Keefe told Newsweek he called the real estate agent, only to be told he had left the company, and while he was “furious, upset,” he “had to learn to put up with it.”
Now Keefe says he lives with at least “15 flights a day” going over his home, which is even more frustrating as he works from home, and “the dogs go ballistic every time: ripping up the couch, gnawing at the curtains. For some reason the planes fill them with rage.”
“I can’t hang any pictures on the wall because they fall off and smash. Shelves are a nightmare, everything comes off so they sit empty,” he said.
“I’m sad, but that’s just life,” he said. “You have to find the funny in tragedy. So that’s why I made the video, to make light of the situation and make people laugh at me.”
He loved the humorous comments, and said he felt “supported” by viewers—and for now, he’s planning on staying put, following his dream of some day raising a family in his own home—”even though, if I have a baby, they’ll have to sleep in earmuffs.”
As he put it: “If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.”
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