Most random find in a new house?

[ContraryToPopularBelief]

So we picked up our keys for our new house today. The sellers have been so nice. The house is super clean and they've left thoughtful things like a hedge clipper and lawnmower. All good.

However... on the back of one of the bedroom doors there is a sheep's skull!!!! 😱

Utterly random! So what's the most random thing your found when you moved in to a new house?

8-9years ago, December, 4 days before Christmas, freezing cold several feet of snow covered the country. Moved from our home in the south up to the Midlands, we were going to rent before looking to buy. At 4pm on the drive up estate/letting agents called, sorry you cannot go into the rental property tomorrow as planned as there was no gas safety certificate (or some other fabricated nonsense). I had to cancel the delivery of all our furniture and worldly goods the next day to the day after, which cost us about another £400. Thankfully we had friends to put us up. Finaly we arrive at the rental property together with our delivery people to find the supposedly empty house still full of furniture, the owner just having gotten out of bed! He then rushed about getting friends to bring a small van over to empty the house, so they were taking stuff out, while our delivery men were bring stuff in, it was so farcical. In the end our delivery guys ended up taking the owners stuff out for him! All our house plants had died from being on the delivery van for 2 nights in sub zero temperatures, and finally when the owner left and we had all our stuff in, I went to the kitchen and opened the fridge freezer and yes it was completely full of the owners food! He came back for it the next day after I complained yet again to the letting agents, so I could do my Christmas food shopping! I think I was traumatised for several months after.

Last house - several massive radiators in the loft, a set of steps down to the foundations where the space had been used for a coal scuttle and the previous owner’s botched DIY effort to split one room into two.

This house - grime and filth everywhere, a hole in the wall on the stairs hidden by a rug hung on the wall , a mouse problem and a lot of electrical sockets packed out with newspapers

Years ago in a rental, the owners' son's PhD. We needed the space so it got binned. With hindsight we should have at least told the agents. Still, never heard a word about it.

In our first owned house, someone had carefully dumped an old conservatory in a gap behind the fence. Lazy buggers. We hired a skip and had a good chuck out.

This house, cleared some bushes from the back of the garden and found another 6 foot of garden, an old wall and compost heap. The old lady we bought off just found the large garden too much towards the end and let it go.

And yes, dusty knickers behind the radiator and old scarves under the horrible built in wardrobes when we ripped them out.

Going to sort the kitchen this year. Hopefully not too many surprises to be discovered.

When we moved into our very old house a couple of years ago, whilst unpacking we found bones in a cupboard (that used to be the entrance to drains). A leg bone, pelvis and part of a jaw still with teeth! Teenage kids were horrified and wanted to call the police 😂. Sent photos to the bone identification unit at the Natural History Museum who confirmed it was a sheep! They are still there, as after all this time I didn’t want to disturb. Occasionally, the dog chases something around the living room, perhaps a ghostly sheep 😱.

Our first house together, DH and I, having lived in flats, were excited to have an attic to stash things in (I know, what a pair of easily pleased loons we were back then).
DH went up into it, with a torch, and found an old tea chest with funky/garish 70s wallpaper and curtains, as well as odd bits of material.
I still have one of the bits of material, I cover my rather scratched old dressing table top with. The wallpaper we gave to a mate who had it in his home until he left to get married a few years back, and the curtains were put back in the attic when we left.
The best thing we found though was an old record player and box of records in mint condition. We still have them now as we were already keen collectors at that point (at a time people were giving vinyl away in favour of mp3 players). We did try and track down the last owners down but no luck.

Friend bought a run down, worst for wear cottage. She'd wanted it forever From the outside it looked derelict and had for as long as I can remember.
However, it was lived in and she bought it as a 'project' when the occupant died.
The washer was located on the landing and plumbed into the bathroom water pipes via a large whole in the wall. Around the pipes had been stuffed with old PJs to stop them vibrating.
In the loft, there was no conventional insulation, just 'bricks' of solidified newspapers packed between the joists - may what a fire hazard!.
Garden shed was filled from floor to ceiling, tins of paint, jars of screws and nails and enough wood to build a ship. Best was a well used dartboard with a picture of Edward Heath (wearing drawn on sunglasses and mustache) in the centre. Why? Just why?😃

Old conservatory in two different barns, 4 goat skulls in one field, lots of random (some dangerous) problems, lots of livestock wire and on the driveway lots of broken up paving slabs, York stone and the gorgeous coloured tiles they’d pulled off the walls after accepting our offer 😱
The took the fitted wardrobe - very odd shaped space so doubt it would fit anywhere else without work and took all the old aerial photos of the house they were adamant should stay with the house

A trumpet

Which the seller came back for... well he walked round and came in and saw it and picked it up and took it away 🤷🏻‍♀️

When we bought our first house 20 years ago we did everything we could to help the move go smoothly as the sellars had a young baby and she was also heavily pregnant - we even let them stay an extra night when we had officially bought the house, even though our Solicitor advised against it (something I would never do now - we were so naive) and she repaid us by complaining to all the neighbours that were awkward and had rushed them out, which got us off on a bad foot with our new neighbours - then they damaged all the wallpaper moving their furniture out - it was as if they could not care less, they also made us pay extra for carpets etc and then took everything with them, light bulbs, toilet roll holder etc. However, when we went into the loft we found a couple of bin bags containing very explicit love letters and photos sent to her husband from another man (the photos were of her husband and the other man together in extremely compromising positions) - he must have hidden them up there so she would not find them. My dh just binned them. When her kids were older they moved back to the area and went to the same school as mine and her & her mate (one of my neighbours) used to look down their noses at me when we stood outside the school gates but I would never have said anything about the letters/photos as I actually felt sorry for her.

Loving this thread.... Place marking xxx

Part of me is hoping someone reads this and realises that they forgot their caravan, porn, furniture, shrines etc and will be popping round....

A length of 2x4 with nails through the end and "The Punisher" written on it in marker pen

Fascinating thread!

Pornographic polaroids under the carpet of the owners ex wife and her affair ( which led to the marriage breaking up). Just grubby.

Behind a kick board under the kitchen cabinets was a stash of photos, some of a topless woman, (not the wife), and some photos of a girl in a park a bit blurry as it had been zoomed in , but she wasn't one of the girls who lived there...

a gun in the loft and a lock on the outside of the bedroom door.

when they moved the furniture out I noticed they had just stripped the wall paper and painted round big items of furniture, so you could see where they once stood.

And the biggest hairy scum line in the bath that took hours to scrub off. I think they had bathed the dog in there.
And a carpet full of fleas.

@handmethegin did you call the police?

Teasie the police were already acquainted with the previous resident.

Our house has two lofts. One we can't access because we don't have the right ladder so god knows what's in it. The other is all boarded apart from the chimney breast which has two swastikas painted on it. 1890s house

An extra 40 foot of garden, 10 year out of date beer, and 1970s mustard sofas.... And a load of dust!

Some potatoes growing in the cupboard at the top of the stairs

None in ours however whrn my late mom moved to a knew home, we cleared out the new house loft as it had a load of junk in it. In it we came across a gun! Yup you read that right. Phoned the police to deal. Turns out the previous owner (house had been repossessed) was a bit of a wrong un

random,,, i found a 6" troll on a beam in basement....

Not so much a find but when moving into a new property the previous tenants had PAINTED the hob white because they couldn't get it clean. I couldn't believe it and roared laughing!!!

What is it about airing cupboards? Ours had a space behind it which we didn't find until we started renovating upstairs a few years later. Inside was an old hand sewing machine and a picture. The sewing machine was useful for years - payback for taking all the lightbulbs with them, tight **s.

Oh, and in our first rented flat, an electric feed into our cellar and electric meter from next-door-neighbours house! Meter man uncoupled it for us. Neighbour turned out to be 'well known' to the police.