What's the worst/most ridiculous thing you've found when you got the keys to your property?

[xandersmom2]

We got the keys to our new house last week, getting ready to move in later this week.

So far we've discovered:

• they only left us half a set of keys. When we questioned we were told 'oh, we never had a key to the back garage door or the patio doors in the living room'. Eh? They lived there 5 years!! No real biggie, locksmith has already been to drill them out and replace them. But honestly.....
  
• random boxes of trash in the loft
  
• the integrated fridge freezer doesn't work. When we questioned this (we wondered if we needed to flick a switch or a breaker to make it work) the vendor immediately 'lawyered up' and we got a call from his solicitor to say 'nowhere in the contract does it say the fridge freezer is in working order so we're not fixing it'
  

None of these is going to spoil the joy of us finally getting our own home, but it got me wondering: what's the worst/most ridiculous thing you've found when you got the keys to your new home?

[xandersmom2]

Oh! Just thought of another one: the back gate (which they'd always had open when we viewed, 'so you can wander around') actually doesn't shut. Lovely.

[2tired2bewitty]

Ooh, that is a bit sneaky about the gate OP!

The previous owners of our house were into crystals and other woo. When we moved in we found little glass jars containing a bit of water and some copper coins and covered with cling film behind all the bedroom doors. Weird.

[QOD]

A shotgun, in my dds wardrobe

[Ginmakesitallok]

All the last owners possessions including their 2 dogs.

[MattBerrysHair]

My dsis found cat poo smeared up a wall and trampled into a carpet when she got her first house

[bigchangesabound]

We had a couple of canoes left hanging in our out door car port! Apparently they were left by the people before the people we bought from!

[GirlDownUnder]

^

Skiddy underpants under the seat pad of a dinning room chair.

Luckily for us, they didn't leave the whole set. Just the one seat. With extras.[santa]

[Hoppinggreen]

A Rottweiler
Luckily it was quite friendly

[cherrytree63]

A collection of used ear buds in the bathroom cabinet.
A dirty commode.

[Ilovewillow]

Some corkers here! We found a grandfather clock in the hall and an aerial photograph of the house!

[Farfromtheusual]

• No keys for any of the windows.
• No key to the back kitchen door. Luckily we were planning on replacing it anyway as it was a very old drafty wooden door. Only took 30 seconds to get through with a crowbar.
• The 10 bags of asbestos and a load of other rubbish in the garage that we had assurances would be removed before we got the keys. Their excuse was that it was all there when they bought the house so it wasn't 'their' rubbish even though they'd lived there for 7 years 🤔 DP wanted to go and dump it all on their driveway but I didn't want to start a war about it, we'll just be taking them to small claims court for the removal costs as they signed a bit in the contract to say all the rubbish would be gone.
• The usual things you find, leaky toilet, taps not working, leaky shower, creaky floorboards, and various other bits of bad workmanship.

[MrsPussinBoots]

I was really pissed to find the front door lock broken so couldn't actually secure the property. Looking at this thread I realise I was lucky!

[Robinkitty]

Windows smashed, wooden floors scratched, carpet ruined with black stuff, half their belongings including beds, garage full of food and crap, broken bannister, broken shower etc etc etc

[Zeitgei5t]

Underpants behind the bathroom wall
A DIY greenhouse where parts fell off and smashed if it was a bit windy
When we had our boiler changed discovered the old boiler was just hung on some plasterboard!

[Tiddlywinks63]

Glass door from a music centre cabinet
Live corn snake in a vivarium pet shop removed it thank god
Filthy cat hair laden carpets, smelt of cat pee everywhere
The so-called interior decorator Mrs had painted/wallpapered around furniture and fittings, very badly smallest bedroom had black ceiling, dark purple walls too

What fun

[Chaotica]

The owner had let her three dogs live there on their own for the three months it took for the sale to go through, without cleaning. (She had at least taken them out for walks.)

She had half done all the DIY herself... dangerously.

[oldestmumaintheworld]

A sackful of dirty nappies in the back garden. In one of the hottest summers for years.

[TitaniasCloset]

Who are these people that leave their dogs behind? And what happened with the friendly Rottweiler?

[letitsnowsnowsnow]

A tortoise.

[NewtsSuitcase]

That they'd carpeted around the beds...

[HeadfirstForHalos]

We found a huge 80s porn stash hidden in the wooden paneling on the staircase in our first house. In this house we mainly found knickers behind radiators and an ornamental sword in the loft!

[HeadsDownThumbsUpEveryone]

Probably not the worst every but as first time buyers we got:

• No screws in any of the door handles (when you open the door and look the edge where the tiny screw are, yep they took them all!)
• 2 huge holes from where they had pulled down a curtain rail.
• Mail, oh so much mail the feckers still have yet to redirect the stuff!!
• Dodgy wiring.
• No oven (despite it being written into the agreement that they would leave it us)
• A very large poo in the toilet (well at least it wasn't on the carpet)

[LemonysSnicket]

There were no outdoor bins .. it took the council 10 weeks to provide some. We had to use the cousil estates bins which were round the corner. This was all 11 flats in our block and the estates bins were overflowing ... felt really bad for the residents.

[tigercub50]

Nothing too bad but just things that had obviously been done on the cheap or not properly finished off. The previous owners hadn’t told us but they’d kindly taken all the upstairs curtains with them. The smoke alarm wasn’t installed correctly & the tv aerial was just sitting on the beams in the loft.

[Jappydooda]

Spiders, spiders, spiders and more spiders. It's taken me two years to get rid of all the spiders that hide under the floor boards and skirting boards.

Grime - everywhere had a thin layer of greasy grime - especially in the kitchen.