Have you ever come home from holiday and opened you front door on disaster?

[longearedbat]

Or something unexpected? The only time it happened to me was when my electrics went off while I was away. I was hot and tired, it was early evening and I knew there was a cold tin of lager waiting for me in the fridge. Couldn't wait. However, I opened the front door to the most horrendous smell. I would say the freezer had been off for the nearly 2 weeks I had been away. I spent the rest of the evening disposing of rotten food and the pool of mouldering blood and gunk in the bottom of the freezer.
I always think of that (now very old) episode of 'One foot in the grave', where they come back to find their house had burnt down. I always breathe a sigh of relief when I see ours is still in one piece, and can't relax until we've had a good check round. (That might be just me though being a bit of a worrier).

On one occasion we came home to our door having smashed in, we assumed burglars, turns out it was done by firemen/police do to a leak in our flat which had flooded our downstairs neighbour.

On another occasion, our car had been stolen and used in an armed robbery.

Me and DH came home from 5 days in Glastonbury to find our entire flat crawling with ants. Literally thousands of the things! Total infestation all over the floor, walls, counters, even in the bed sheets!!! Just what you want when you're looking forward to the luxury of a home after being in a muddy wet tent for the best part of a week. Still hurts to remember

Came back from a weekend away to find our bedroom ceilings had completely fallen down. We had old lath and plaster so the dust was horrendous and I’m badly allergic to horsehair which is a component of it. Our henry hoover has never worked so hard after we had scooped up the worst of the chunks. Had to throw out carpets, curtains and the mattress, plus the expense of getting new ceilings fitted.

We’ve had a few

1. Came home in the middle of winter and the boiler was broken so we were freezing while we waited for a new one

1. Laying in bed first night home and our ceiling is buzzing. A swarm of bees had moved in while we were away and were living in the bedroom ceiling

1. Car sitter leaving the door to the coir matting open and the cat using that as a toilet all week! How she didn’t smell it I have no idea

1. Got back last week (now live in US) and an opposum had been living in our garage and had peed all over the laundry that was waiting to be done

Came home to stench and discovered a fox in our loft bedroom. Alive.

Had come in through cat flap the night before (after cat sitter left). Cats v anxious (understandably) and had peed everywhere. Fox had too. Got a microchip cat flap after that.

Another year, home and the carpets seemed to be moving. Massive flea infestation.

Next cats will be going to catteries from a young age - current cats are v elderly and would not cope.

Came back to find the front door open, nothing taken but it was on a path in a town that lead to a car park so people walking next to it all day, well 2 days we were away!
Once went away in feb and diligently turned everything off apart from the fridge freezer. Poor cat was a bit cold when I got back, I did have a sitter who said it felt a bit cold but didnt think to check with me why!

We went away for Christmas one year. Df used to turn all supplies off while we were away. Gas, water and electrics. (didn't have a freezer) One year the gas wouldn't go back on again. We arrived back late night the day before New Year, with New Year a Saturday.
Couldn't even get through to the gas company until Tuesday. Then they had to deal with all the other idiots who'd done the same but arrived back early enough to contact them on the Friday.
It was over a week in sub-zero temperatures before they came out to look. No heating or hot water, or oven/hobs (no microwave either)

Good news is it cured my dad of switching everything off for ever.

Cat poo in the bath.
I think she must have missed us.

My aunt once returned from a month long cruise to find a sparrow had flown down her chimney at some point. It had merrily crapped itself on every soft furnishing before expiring in a corner.

Fairly minor compared to these, but we came home after a week away in high summer to the worst smell I have ever encountered in my life. It transpired that DS had spilt a full cup of milk on the kitchen worktop as we were getting ready to leave and DH had mopped it up with a muslin, which he had then put into the net bag hanging on the back of the kitchen door, which we used to store small items of laundry. It had then hung there maturing in full sun for the entire seven days we'd been away, and it took me forever to trace the source of the smell.

Oh, and another time I came home to my old flat to find my cat sitting at the foot of the back steps crying piteously and a completely different cat lounging on our sofa. A friend had supposedly been popping in to feed my cat every day, but this strange cat must have got in through the cat flap and she'd assumed it was mine, and had been feeding and fussing it and shooing my poor old cat away :( The interloper wasn't even the same colour as my cat, but my friend hadn't noticed despite the fact that there was a framed photo of my very distinctive-looking cat in the living room. I had weeks of territorial battles and spraying inside the flat after that one!

I came back once to find I had been burgled and the house was totally empty. And I mean totally.

They even took the radiators and light switches. Didn't turn the water off before taking the radiators so the house was inches deep in water.

And went away for a weekend once and accidentally shut the cat in the walk in wardrobe. Cat shit everywhere!

came home & found ants had invaded fridge - which was a good 20 feet from the back door (through dining room) I discovered (in desperation) that neat liquid Milton kills ants in fridge & that ants don't like automatic wash powder (which I then left as a barrier line along the backdoor bottom frame)

I was away that year when there were protests about fuel prices that caused delays in tankers getting through that in turn caused panic and a run on petrol. I came back to petrol rationing and huge queues.

Sounds stupid as I think this is the only time I can remember this happening in my life - but now whenever I go on holiday, I make sure I am leaving my car with a full tank of petrol.

Yep, defrosted freezer here too. My landlord lived in the other half of the house and decided to switch the electric off while we were away to save money.

We once move house the day before we went on holiday, (holiday planned months before and then a nightmare chain and completion had to be that day or not at all).

Got back from 2 weeks on holiday to find that when the previous owners had moved out, they had disconnected the washing maching but the pipe had been left dripping. Kitchen floor was very wet, but not all that much actual water because all the kitchen cabinets had soaked it up like a sponge and had turned to mush in the process. Cost us a packet as we had to have a new kitchen, and the insurance company refused to pay out.

Interesting. Someone on another thread the other day said they couldn't understand why anyone would want housesitters. Here are a whole batch of reasons.
I'm a housesitter, by the way. Love doing it. Peace of mind for owners and care for cats, too (not dogs, not me, others do).

We left our house in Spain to come back to the UK for a month to escape the high heat of August. The freezer door must have been left ajar. On our return the place reeked. Amongst other things in the freezer were 2 packs of prawns. The floors were covered with thousands and thousands of dead flies with thousands more live ones flying round. After a thousand mile drive through France and Spain it was the last thing we wanted.

I ran my dishwasher just before I left, it had finished but I didn’t empty it.
It hadn’t rinsed or drained properly, and two weeks of very warm weather meant the smell was quite awesome. Bleaugh.

A colleague of mine came home to millions and millions of flies and a horrendous smell after she had been travelling for the school summer holidays.
Sadly the elderly loner in the maisonette above her flat had died and literally decomposed through the ceiling. Neighbours either side had noticed the smell but not called it in.
Haunts me.

We returned home yesterday to find that the freezer had been turned off before we left. The culprit? Me! Oops. It makes me feel a little better to hear that so many other people have done it too!

We came home once to hundreds of wasps flying around the house. Unbeknownst to us, there was a nest in the loft, and they had chewed through the ceiling. It was terrifying.

Arrived home earlier than expected to find that my psycho ex had been living in the house, having conned the neighbours into giving him the spare key. He was out, and had endured that we couldn't get in, meaning that I had to leave my kids (then 3 and 5) in the car in the dark while I went round to the neighbour's house to sort it out. As soon as I got in I called the police and reported him. I texted him to tell him I'd done this and that his belongings were in the wheelie bin, and he sent me a barrage of texts - initially stuff like 'I'm really sorry, I had nowhere else to go' but when I didn't reply turned into stuff like 'You are evil and are doing all you can to keep me out of the children's lives'. The stupid thing is that, at the time, if he'd asked me beforehand if he could stay in the house while we were away, I would probably have said yes.

Thankfully he is completely out of our lives now.

Twice.

First time was a boiler broken. The winter of 2010/11 when it was -10C and we had a young baby. Military quarter and they said because we had an immersion heater and two fan heaters, it didn't merit an emergency plumber.

Second time, fridge freezer packed up 3 days before Christmas. Lost about £500 of food. And it wasn't insured because the fridge was over 10 years old.

Bees nest in my bedroom...or it might have been wasps. I was little. Thousands and thousands of them everywhere on every surface. A bedroom of bees.