‘We’re done’: Breaking Bad house owners driven away from home by fans after 52 years
New Mexico property owner has to put up with hundreds of visitors a day
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Your support makes all the difference.The family who own Walter White’s Breaking Bad house have been driven out by the hundreds of fan visits the property receives each day.
In the award-winning drama, which ran from 2008 to 2013, the suburban house, situated in New Mexico, was home to Bryan Cranston’s lead character and his family.
The exteriors and back garden of the Albuquerque house – though not the interiors – were used to portray the home of White.
Ever since the show’s huge success, fans have become “the ones who knock”, with an average of 300 cars coming by the house each day.
Homeowner Joanne Quintana said that these people, keen to see the show’s real-life locations, have impacted her family’s quality of life and forced her decision to put the house on the market.
It is now officially being sold for $4m (£3.25m), which is almost 10 times the median sale price in its neighbourhood (£421,000). The house has four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a garden with a swimming pool.
Quintana’s parents initially bought the house in 1973, but after they recently died, Quintana and her brothers decided it was time to let it go as opposed to pushback against the droves of fans.
“This was our family home from 1973, almost 52 years,” she told local TV station KOB4. “So we’re going to walk away with just our memories. It’s time to move on. We’re done. There’s no reason to fight any more.”
Back in 2015, Quintana’s late mother, Fran Padilla, said that many fans had come by to recreate a scene from Breaking Bad where White throws a pizza on the roof.
“We’ve had pizzas on our roof. We’ve had pizzas on our driveway; pizzas until we’re sick of looking at pizzas,” Padilla told NPR.
Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan previously issued a plea for fans to leave the family alone, saying: “There is nothing original or funny or cool about throwing a pizza on this lady’s roof.”
The family was also forced to install more security measures at the house after someone left a package addressed to Walter White at their door in the early hours of the morning.
“My brothers said, that’s it, we’re done, fence is going up,” Quintana told KOB4. “That’s too close for comfort.”
It is expected that the house will be purchased by a fan wanting to have the home as a prized artefact, or someone turning it into a business opportunity.
“I hope they make it what the fans want,” Quintana said. “They want a B&B. They want a museum. They want access to it. Go for it!”
David Christensen of eXp Realty Luxury told The New York Times: “We clearly believe that the likelihood of a lovely family of four buying the home was really not statistically possible.
“It was going to be somebody who saw the bigger value in terms of how to give something that the fans would like and might bring some additional value to the neighbourhood.”
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