What To Know
- Tarek El Moussa admitted to making an “illegal” renovation decision during the pilot episode of Flip or Flop.
- El Moussa revealed the incident occurred while deciding what to do with the backyard pool.
- El Moussa, his wife, Heather Rae El Moussa, and ex-wife, Christina Haack, will return for Season 2 of HGTV’s The Flip Off later this year.
Tarek El Moussa made some mistakes on his journey to becoming a house flipping pro, including an “illegal” one.
The HGTV star took a trip down memory lane on Wednesday, May 27, in an Instagram video. “So, if you have a pool in your backyard, I gotta tell you this,” he began. “You can’t just throw all a bunch of junk in there and then fill it with dirt, because you will get in trouble with the city.”
El Moussa went on to share a “story time” from filming the pilot of Flip or Flop with his ex-wife, Christina Haack, in 2011. The series, which ran from 2013 to 2022, followed the former couple as they transformed distressed properties in hopes of reselling them for a profit.
“For those Flip or Flop fans out there, you guys know the house was kind of on a cul-de-sac, it backed to this park, and had this huge pool in the backyard,” El Moussa recalled. “And if you remember this pool, it was empty, it had no equipment, and it was just a big hole in the ground.”
El Moussa noted that he “knew nothing” about the construction of flipping houses at the time, but remembered that he and Haack felt like “experts” after their first renovation. “[We thought,] ‘Man, we are experts.’ We had beige walls. We had brown floors. We had beige cabinets, brown counters, and the whole house was literally travertine,” he quipped.
The pair quickly realized they were not experts as they figured out how to tackle the home’s run-down pool. “It was very, very expensive to fix the pool. I had to redo the coping, the plaster. I had to redo the equipment, the draining, everything,” El Moussa explained. “So, I decided, ‘Well, we’re just gonna fill the pool with all this junk.’ Why? ‘Well, there’s a hole in the ground. It’s my ground!’ So, my plan was to demo the house, throw the junk in the pool, and then cover that junk with dirt, and then call it a day.”
El Moussa concluded the video by revealing why his plan to fill the pool was the wrong approach. “It turns out, you cannot do that. It’s actually illegal,” he shared.
In the post’s caption, El Moussa added, “You CANNOT just throw junk in there and cover it with dirt. It’s actually illegal. This is the story from the VERY FIRST Flip or Flop pilot episode… the La Habra house that started it all. I thought I was a genius. Turns out I was just a guy with a hole in the ground and bad ideas.”
Fans reacted to El Moussa’s funny story in the post’s comments, with one user writing, “The first episodes were inspiring AND funny. My husband always wanted to know why were you wearing flip flops while doing actual Flip or Flop.” Another added, “I remember watching this one! You had friends there helping you fill the pool with materials. Miss Flip or Flop; it’s one of my favs.”
Someone else shared, “Yeah, you need a permit and have to do it the right way, which is also very expensive. Might as well fix the pool.” A different person posted, “Every new home we have owned had construction debris underneath the topsoil. This absolutely should be illegal!”
Fans will soon see Tarek, his wife, Heather Rae El Moussa, and Haack take on more flipping projects on Season 2 of HGTV’s The Flip Off, which will premiere later this year. The series, which debuted last year, saw the stars compete to score the highest financial gain for their respective house flips.
The Flip Off, Season 2, 2026, HGTV