-Our next guest is a very talented actress you know
from shows like "Parks and Recreation" and "Good Girls."
She hosts "Ugliest House in America,"
which airs Sunday nights on HGTV and streams on Discovery Plus.
Let's take a look.
-There are some bugs in there and --
-A lot. -A lot.
There was spiders, all kinds of stuff.
-Yep. -Lizards.
-Lizards?! -Lizards.
-In the house?! -In the walls.
-So this is why you ripped up this room?
-Mm-hmm.
-Oh, if it was my house, I'd kill it with fire.
[Hushed] Burn it to the ground!
-Please welcome back to the show
our friend Retta, everybody!
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Welcome back, Retta!
You are -- You're one of our favorite guests,
and the last couple of times we've been talking virtually.
So it's so lovely to have you back here in studio.
-It's nice to be back.
[ Laughter ]
-This is such a fun idea for a show.
This is -- A third season's just been announced.
-Yes. -When they first reached out
and asked you to host this show, were you excited about the idea
of being a host? -No.
-Okay. -No. I don't --
I have anxiety about hosting.
I'm like -- I don't know if I'm giving it my all.
And then HGTV is like a different beast, you know.
I used to hate hosting comedy shows.
-Yep.
-I was like -- it's hard to be a cheerleader all night.
[ Laughter ] So when they asked me
to do this, I was a little bit nervous.
And then it's like, "You're making fun of people's homes."
And they were like, "Relax. They submitted their homes."
-Yeah. -So...
-I guess you don't have to be a cheerleader
when people literally think they have one of the ugliest homes.
-You're like, "Yeah. You're right. This is trash."
[ Laughter ]
-Now, in the clip, they were talking about having
a lizard problem in their home, a insect problem.
Is this a recurring theme in the homes you see?
Animals? Animal life?
-Yes. -[ Laughter ]
So, first season, this one family is telling me how --
They're like, "Yeah, we were just sitting down watching TV
and a snake fell out of the ceiling."
And I was like, "What?!"
[ Laughter ]
And then we go to the living room, we start --
And something falls from the ceiling.
And I [bleep] myself.
[ Laughter ] I nearly passed out.
And I was like, "What?!"
And it was just a piece of the ceiling.
We started season 3 a little while ago.
Two days ago, I'm in a house, and this family tells me
that the daughter and father were bonding
on the fact that the daughter likes snakes.
-Okay. -And I was like,
"Wow. Is that right?"
So then they were like, "Yeah," and they kind of got into it.
And it was one snake, and then it was two.
And then my producer was like, "Ask how many snakes."
And I was like -- Which made me panic.
I was like, "Ask how many?!
He said two. There's more?
I feel like I already got the answer."
I was like, "How many snakes do you have?"
They were like, "26."
I was like, "What?!"
[ Laughter ]
And then he was like, "You want to see?"
And I was like, "Homey, no. I don't want to see."
And all through the tour he kept asking.
I was like, "sir! No!"
-At least -- I feel like at least his snakes
were probably in some sort of case
as opposed to a ceiling snake.
-That is true.
But there's nothing but stories of -- about snakes escaping.
-Yeah, that's true.
-And that's what I wanted no part of.
-Yeah, when they were like, "Here's all twenty si--
There's only 25 here."
[ Laughter ] -Exactly.
-"Oh, yeah. The big one's missing.
The big one's definitely not here."
-You're always short on snakes. -You drive house to house.
Has it been fun to be on a road trip for this show?
-Again, no. -Okay. Your honesty.
-Because we basically check into a hotel at night.
We wake up, check out, go to work, shoot all day,
drive two to four hours, check in, go to sleep,
wake up, check out -- it's that. -Yeah.
And I guess part of the drive is you can't be like,
"Don't worry. We're on our way to see a super-ugly house!"
What's the ugliest non-animal,
non-snake-themed thing you've seen?
-Well, one of the things that makes me crazy
is I can't get over the fact
how popular carpeting in bathrooms was.
-Yeah. -Carpeting.
-Mm-hmm. -Not rugs.
Carpeting. -Yeah.
Like, it seems like carpeting -- it takes so much longer
to put down that it's crazy that while they were, like,
cutting it out around the toilet someone wasn't like,
"Oh, this is a terrible idea.
I feel like we should stop right now
while I have this X-ACTO knife out."
-And not every bathroom has a fan.
So I get in there and I'm like, "Have you checked for mold?"
And they're like, "No, we..."
I was like, "You never checked for mold?"
And I was like, "We gotta wrap it up!"
[ Laughter ]
But there was one house -- it was on Sunday's episode --
where they built the house around a red rock.
So for three stories up there's just a giant rock.
And they didn't seal it well.
-Oh, wow.
So there's, like, some breezy feelings off the rock?
-And critters. -Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
-Yeah. -Critters love a rock.
[ Laughter ]
Do you at least stay at nice hotels over this tour?
No. [ Laughter ]
I feel like this is the longest streak of no's
I've ever had with a guest.
-No. No, because sometimes --
A lot of these places are just way out in no-man's land.
-Yeah, sometimes super-ugly houses
aren't right next to the Four Seasons.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
So we're looking on Yelp.
We're like, "Two stars! Hallelujah!" You know?
-What's the second star for?
They're like, "They felt bad for us."
-Exactly. -"Yeah, the first star
was because we had a door,
and the second star was because they felt bad for us."
-"The first star is that we had running water."
[ Sighs ] God. It's -- It is a true challenge.
But I feel like I shall persevere.
-What about -- Have you lived in ugly houses yourself,
like, independent of the show?
-Well, I mean, so, my parents' current house,
when they bought it -- It was my parents' first house.
-Yeah. -You know, they were immigrants.
They did not have a lot of money.
So they bought their first house.
They were so happy and so proud.
And we were like, "We're moving to a house!"
And then my parents took us to see the house,
and I walked in.
The funk from when they opened the door.
And I was like, "What is this?"
And my mother was like, "Well, they had six dogs
that never left the house."
Never left the house. -Never left the house.
-No. So they did everything -- -Some lazy dogs.
-And carpeting.
-Carpeting. Oh, no.
-That was about as thin as this now.
Because it had been shag, and then it made its way --
[ Laughter ] And it was really crazy.
So, I remember my parents were so proud.
I just remember, like, crying on the ride
back to our apartment, like,
"Oh, my God. I can't believe..."
I mean, they did, you know, work before we moved in.
And I'm allergic to dogs.
So I was like, "I'm going to choke to death in this house."
But they cleaned it up. -Alright. That's nice.
-I made it to "Seth."
-I found out -- When I was young, I found out
I was allergic to dogs, and we had a dog.
And my dad was like, "Yeah.
We're just going to get you an inhaler."
He was like, "I'm not getting rid of the dog,
but I can get you an inhaler.
You want an inhaler?
You want to be a cool kid with an inhaler?"
[ Laughter ]
-Did you get multiple dogs? -Not only did we get
multiple dogs, but I'm on my like 100th inhaler.
[ Laughter ] Now, I've seen --
Your current home on Zoom looks very lovely.
And you've sort of leaned into sort of smart technology.
Is that -- -Oh, yeah.
-I can't do it. Do you like it?
-Yes. "Yes"!
-You do? Oh, we did it.
[ Applause ]
We did it. Home stretch.
[ Applause ]
-Yes. I kind of can't live without it.
It's like, you know, the first time you fly first class
and then you have to fly coach again.
You're like -- [ Breathes deeply, sobs ]
"No more elbow room?"
Well, I literally get in bed -- I mean, at this point
I did disconnect the alarm system from it
because I was like,
"That's real risky to be like, "Turn off the alarm!"
When somebody comes in, it's like, "Turn off the alarm!"
-Yeah. -And then they got me.
[ Laughter ]
But I do -- Every -- I talk to Google and Alexa.
-You have two. -In each room.
In case one's being a little, you know, problematic.
-Withholding.
-I'll be like, "Oh, really, Alexa?
How about I talk to Google?"
"Google, turn on the lights!"
And she does. -Wow. That's really nice.
They do say set A.I. against each other.
[ Laughter ]
What a delight to have you back here in person.
It's always so great to see you. You guys, that's Retta!
"Ugliest House in America" airs Sunday nights on HGTV
and streams on Discovery Plus.
We'll be right back with Iman Vellani, everybody.