When Lauren Hegenbarth listed her family’s rural Wisconsin home for sale online on Friday, she hoped the spacious bedrooms, huge lot and newly renovated decor would catch the eye of some potential buyers. Never in her wildest dreams would she have thought that the house would land on it Zillow gone wild — a popular account that highlights particularly wacky houses for sale on social media — not to mention she would be the reason why.Welcome to Poundtown‘ became a nationally trending topic on Twitter on Monday.
“I never thought in my life that I would go viral for anything,” she tells me. “I don’t even use Twitter and my home is trending there today. Like, what the hell?”
This $420,000 (lol) Onalaska, WI is a good example of what happens when Michael’s obsession goes one mark too far pic.twitter.com/aBDPZ0VnQY
— Zillow Gone Wild 🏡 (@zillowgonewild) April 18, 2022
Hegenbarth and her husband began buying and trading homes in 2013, and the home in Onalaska, Wisconsin that Hegenbarth affectionately calls “the Poundtown home” is their fourth. “I’ve always loved decorating and designing, and I just started getting excited about it when we started flipping houses since we do most of the work ourselves,” she explains.
Born out of this passion for home decor and design, Hegenbarth started a small online shop, Sleepless Beauty Designs, to sell her homemade signs and decorations, which explains why there are few walls in her home that aren’t adorned with words like , “Welcome to our beautiful mess”, “Welcome to our crazy fun loud happy home”, “Welcome home”, “We are so glad you are here” and just “Welcome” to name just a few to name.
“People say I’ve overdone the signs and that I have to quit Michael’s, even though I never go to Michael’s,” she tells me. “When I go to a store it’s Hobby Lobby or TJ MAXX, but I mostly make my own signs!”
Sure, of all the signs in the house, there’s only one sign that “tops them all,” as ZillowGoneWild put it: the “Welcome to Poundtown” sign that hovers over the headboard of her and her husband’s bed in the master bedroom.
“My husband went to New Orleans in November on a 90-day labor assignment, where he helped repair homes for those whose lives were destroyed by the last hurricane,” Hegenbarth begins. It was at this time that the idea for a new bedroom sign began to germinate. “I saw the OG Poundtown sign in a group on Facebook and I was like, ‘Yeah, I love that. I have to do that,'” she continues.
For radical clarification, “pound town” is a euphemism for intercourse, and the sign welcomes visitors to the place where this occurs. “I wanted it to look like another cheesy decor sign and then when you read it, BAM! Raunchy and hilarious.”
Hegenbarth created the shield while her husband was away so that she could surprise him when he returned. “He absolutely loved it; it fits our sense of humor perfectly,” she explains. “Also, two out of three of our children can’t read and when our eldest read it while I was working on it, I just told her it was a funny quote from a movie and she never asked for it again. She does not care; She’s clearly used to the facility.”
For anyone else who’s witnessed the “Welcome to POUNDTOWN” bedroom sign firsthand, Hegenbarth says most put up with it. “Our whole family has seen it and thinks it’s hilarious. We all have the same sense of humor too, and my sister even placed an order herself,” she tells me. “Although one day I posted a picture on Facebook of my husband and dog sleeping in bed together without even thinking about the sign.”
However, when the couple put the finishing touches before the house was put online, Hegenbarth didn’t expect the sign to garner national attention. “I was really hoping our agent wouldn’t notice the sign and force me to take it off, so I was upset when he didn’t,” she says. “I always thought it was cool to appear on the ZillowGoneWild site because it’s one of my favorites. But I honestly have no idea how they took it.”
Although she assures me that the whole thing wasn’t a well-orchestrated viral marketing stunt for her burgeoning home improvement and interior design business, she managed to garner the unexpected attention. “It’s definitely not for everyone,” she laughs. “It’s been a crazy, unexpected Monday, but I’m just taking the positives from the experience and going with it while ignoring all the negatives – like the fact that I’ve already had a lot more orders for new ‘Welcome to POUNDTOWN’ signs !”
Quinn Myers
Quinn Myers is a staff writer at MEL. He covers internet culture, technology, health, masculinity and the communities that thrive within it.
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