tell me your house moving stories

[pud1]

after many long years of waiting we are finally moving on friday.

we have been in our 2 bed flat for 10 years and its been far to small for about he last 6 years. we just was not in the financial position to move due to having no equity. we had been saving hard.

my mum and dad both died last year, it was horrendous. they did not have any savings and were both only 59. they did however have life insurance so i have inherited enough for the deposit.

i am torn between excitement for the move and the feeling of " i would rather have my mum and dad". i will be eternally grateful to them both.

anyway, i am rambling. the point of my post is that i am mid packing and am getting bloody stressed so i was hoping ( selfishly ) that you could share your moving horror stories so that when things get stressful i can think " well at least XYZ hasnt happened"

[lavendersun]

No horror stories pud but you sound lovely. I am sure that your parents would be thrilled for you.

I wish you lots of luck for a smooth move and hope you are very happy in your new home.

[Notyetthere]

Not me personally but I read on MSE about 3 yrs ago where someone moved in and found the vendor had dug up the tuff in the garden and taken it with them

[Notyetthere]

My in-laws moved into their last house and found all the light bulbs gone and some of the light switches.

[StuffEverywhere]

A friend of mine moved into a house half filled with junk and dirt and furniture that they had to remove before being able to move in. All on the same day as moving in with their own stuff. It was awful, very stressful and beyond tiring.

[LittleCandle]

My lovely new neighbour found a fridge full of mold and a shit in the toilet...

[Notyetthere]

Ok a good news story. We bought our about 3 yrs ago and the move went very well. We were in rented and our vendor wasn't in a chain either.

On the Friday of completion, solicitor called at 10am that the funds were transferred and that we were home owners! That was a shock as I had read so many horror stories of money taking ages.

When we arrived at the house, it had been cleaned from top to bottom, the lawn had just been mowed the day before, the sun was shining and there was a bottle of champagne in the fridge with a happy new house card from the vendor. It was a great start to our move. Dad had borrowed a van from work so he helped us move with the move. We had also placed an Tesco groceries order for the Saturday after morning delivery so that we didn't have to worry about food shopping while sorting out boxes.

[MadisonAvenue]

Firstly, I'm sorry to hear about your parents and I bet they'd be thrilled to bits to think that you were finally moving.

I don't have a horror story but our move happened very, very quickly. We went for an exchange with a house builder a couple of years ago - we bought their house, they bought ours - and I came into the site office to sign the agreement late on December 23rd. Everything then came to a standstill due to the Christmas holidays and we couldn't even contact and appoint a solicitor to act for us until after the New Year holiday, which was January 4th. We'd managed to get a mortgage application in, by phone, on New Year's Eve though. Due to the builder's exchange policy they wanted a quick completion. Thankfully the mortgage was approved by mid January, the solicitor was lightning quick at getting things (searches etc) organised and we completed on January 28th.

[GinaBambino]

I'm so sorry for the loss of your parents. They would be enormously proud of you for getting your own place I'm sure!

I'm moving now. We bought a house which we thought we could move straight into. Boy were we wrong. Walked in the house and was git by the smell of wet dog/piss and faeces! Every surface had dog hair all over it and the carpets and doors upstairs were ruined, no light bulbs anywhere and we found out we were on prepayment gas and electric so we couldn't even see anything, boiler was meant to be 5 years old is actually 16 and company who made it went bust 15 years ago, bathroom was leaking, toilet not fitted properly and neither was the bath (which didn't show up on either survey). Oh and wd also had bailiffs turning up pretty much evety day for the first 3 weeks. Seller and her exh had just disappeared! Cue much crying by me (I'm heavily pregnant so doesn't take much) and much stressing by DP. 6 weeks later we've painted, had new carpets and new bathroom fitted, kitchen is cleaned, new boiler gets fitted tomorrow (hot water yay!) and we have the nursery and our bedroom full of furniture. It was a hard slog but the house feels more like ours now and in a way I'm glad it happened so I could do what I wanted before we moved in!

Ahh that was quite therapeutic! Sorry for ranting. Good luck with it all, most house moves go quite smoothly, we just had a stupid seller. Oh and if they have a pond ask them to take the bloody fish with them!

[DayToDayGlobalShit]

So sorry for the loss of your parents.

I would say they would be happy that you are using the money to move and find a lovely family home.

[ILoveMyMonkey]

I'm sorry about your parents.

Here's funny story for you. As a teenager we moved on a day when me and my mum both had stomach bugs caused by bacteria in the water supply, the movers packed around us while we laid in bed, arrived at the new house and laid on the floor while everything was moved in.

This was followed a few days later by a visit from my grandparents who also got ill, unfortunately we had a septic tank that was blocked so my poor dad was knee deep in shit bailing while my poor nan was the other end of the pipe adding to it 😂😂😂 - I bet that wont happen to you .

Good luck with move.

[Notyetthere]

ILoveMyMonkey

[Pinkheart5915]

Sorry to hear about your parents.
I'm sure they'd be pleased you'd put the money to good use and it was helping your future.

My moves have always been ok but I had a friend that arrived at his new apartment to find they'd take all the light bulbs, the toilet was blocked, they taken the numbers off the door and smashed a window on there way out

[pud1]

thanks all

i am hoping that our sellers will leave it in a good state. they are a lovely old couple who are moving into a bungalow.

i am concerned that the removal company actually turn up. the basis of this is that my friends removals company didnt. she was left with no choice but to hire a va and rope as many people in as she could.

[JT05]

Sorry for you loss, as others have said, your Mum and Dad would be both proud of you and happy that you have a new home.

My 'funny' is when the removal men loaded our furniture from our sweet, immaculate cottage. They told me horror stories of dreadful properties people had moved to. They weren't laughing when they unloaded up 6 steps into the 3 storey wreck that we had just bought!

I'm sure it will all go well for you.

[scarlets]

I'm sorry about your parents, that's so young. However, I reckon a lot of people have accessed/climbed up the property ladder via bereavement, so you're not alone. Bittersweet.

An acquaintance of ours went to look at a lovely new development - they couldn't really afford it, but were offered the "show house" at a lower price when they tried to haggle with the lady in the sales office. It all went smoothly, they moved in, and started to unpack, only to feel that something wasn't "right". Then, at bed time, they realised that because it was a show home, there were no interior doors!

[halphgracie]

My home moving hell x 2; I sold an amazing 1900s street terrace which me and my family had lived in for 15 years; I had renovated it from scratch knocking through into a massive front room diner area and decorated the entire home immaculately and had next to nothing owing on it. It was a palace; we decided to move for a neighbour who was swearing and shouting a lot and we sold for less than what we would have liked, around 8k less; but we purchased what we thought was a nice 1930s semi in a lovely area with lots of middle class families and a house that had lot of potentially and was very substantial. Our moving date was a complete horror, we were practically turfed out of our home at the final hour due to legal completion messing up, the second we move into our new home I notice a few things, the first being the roof look different to other properties in the area firstly, my suspicions were quickly realised when I found out that it was in fact asbestos roof tiles, examining the roof further I found that it has daylight coming in from lot of different areas, cracked tiles, missing tiles, had been taped with flashing tape in several areas, had leaked so bad it had rotted the rafters and cross lats that were like paper, the smell in the loft was horrific with all that must have gotten in. This was far from the end, next we found out the property had no earth wires and the attack has what could only be decribed as a rats nest of junction boxes all stuffed under a load of stinking fibreglass, it had a lead water supply, needed new double glazing(leaking seals and units), had a leaking flat roof, had a leaking garage with corroded tin roof, had an old back boiler that was unvented and had to be condemned, required replumbing completely, loft timbers had been cut to run wires through, all plaster in every roof had not been taped so started cracking badly everywhere, had rising damp, rainwater also flowed into the foundations and then would evaporate up into the property causing the worse internal condensation I have ever seen on windows and in the roof space. Then it still required the usual landscaping, kitchen bathroom etc etc, it was a complete disaster from the move in day. It had and still does have me a complete and utter nervous wreck just thinking about it. Estimates were coming in for repair at 25-30,000 (from tradesmen who just fueled my panic. In a panicked state I approached a house builder and part exchanged it for a new build, which is probably an even more stupid thing I could have ever done regardless of the issues in that money pit. I am now stuck in a new build characterless box paying through the nose/can barely afford for a mortgage in a house I hate; I look back on the mistakes I made and it all just seems like a nightmare that I will one day wake up from. If there is a lesson anyone can learn from my house buying hell is, if you are happy and settled embrace it, 2 - ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS get a full structural survey completed no matter how good something looks. 3 - don't make emotional decisions especially when you are sad, scared or stressed the mind will trick you its for the best when it really isn't. I now have to lay in my bed that I have made and try and hope for a mini housing boom that will see me get out of this a little less unharmed financially.
All in all I wish I had never left my first little street house, its a life lesson that will scar me for a long time and doubt I will ever get over.