The Real 'Shitty Products' in Homeownership Aren't the Gadgets

I stumbled on Pieter Levels' recent post about buying a house and going through 'lots of shitty products'. It's a great list of smart home gear—Home Assistant, LG HVACs, Matic vacuums—and it has that classic Levels mix of strong opinions and practical tips. But reading it, I kept thinking about the data we see at PainSignal. Because while a bad robot vacuum is annoying, the problems that actually cost homeowners sleep are way bigger and way less solved. Let's talk about the real shitty products in homeownership.

First, Levels mentions getting a massive $10,000 water bill from a pool leak. He dismisses pools as overrated. But our data shows water leaks aren't just a pool problem—they're a systemic headache in property management. We track a specific signal where a property manager reported a leak that escalated into $22,000 in damages because detection and response processes broke down. That problem has a severity score of 5.0 out of 5.0 and an opportunity score of 67 out of 100. Think about that: there's a clear market for something that can catch leaks before they become bank-breaking, and it's not being met.

This hits on a theme: Levels' advice is about picking the right physical products, but the real pain is in the invisible stuff—the workflows, the monitoring, the coordination. Homeowners and property managers are drowning in operational chaos. At PainSignal, we track 688 problems in Property Management alone. The average severity is 4.2/5. These aren't minor gripes; they're problems that cost money and sanity.

Take construction. Levels doesn't talk about the nightmare of managing contractors or build quality. Yet we track 716 problems in the construction industry, many centered on disputes and quality assurance. Homeowners get recurring leaks because repairs are done poorly. Contractors disappear with payment. There's no easy way to verify work was done right. This is where the opportunity really lies for builders—especially vibe coders and indie hackers who can spin up software quickly. The need for reliable vendor management, communication tools, and quality tracking is huge and underserved.

Levels also tells you to never connect an LG TV to the internet because it spies on you, and to use an Apple TV box instead. I get the privacy instinct. But our verification found that claim a bit misleading—Apple TV does collect data and can show ads in apps. It's not a clean privacy solution, just a different one. This is a good reminder that even well-meaning advice can be based on incomplete research. Homeowners need better guidance on tech privacy, not just product swaps.

Another point: Levels' list is very much from the perspective of a single-family homeowner with resources. Our data shows that many property problems scale with the number of units. Landlords are dealing with tenant screening, rent collection, and legal compliance. These aren't just "buy this gadget" problems—they're "build this system" problems. For agency devs and seed investors, that's the signal: the market isn't for better light bulbs, it's for smarter property management platforms.

So, while I appreciate Levels' take on smart locks and saunas, the real list of shitty products is hiding in plain sight: fragmented landlord software, unreliable contractor vetting, and leak detection systems that don't talk to anyone. These are the things that make homeowners want to scream—and they're exactly where the PainSignal community is finding the most acute pain. If you're a vibe coder looking for your next project, don't build a better smart lock. Build something that makes sure a $22,000 leak never happens.

In the end, Levels' blog is a fun read. But if you want to build something that actually fixes the real frustrations of homeownership, dig into the operational side. The data is clear: the biggest gains come from solving the plumbing behind the walls, not just the gadgets on the shelves.