What did you discover about your house after moving in?

[Woodstocks]

I recently moved into a new house and as it was still the height of the market, there wasn’t much time to decide and investigate. What crazy things have you discovered in your house after buying it that wasn’t obvious when you first viewed it?

I rent and moved into our current home in 2015.

We were told there was a shed in the back garden which we were pleased about as we were moving to a smaller home.

Except when we actually got to look in the shed, one of the back walls was gone completely, the other 3 were rotten, and inside what was left of the pile of wood pieces pretending to be a shed was about 5 years worth of rotting rubbish and a load of empty beer bottles.

Landlord claimed not to know about it and refused to take responsibility so we had to pay to have it removed. Later took it up with environmental health and they made the landlord pay us back

I viewed my house on a dark winter’s evening. It took ages for the sale to go through and when I eventually moved in it was bright sunny day. Was thrilled to find a sea view from the rooms at the front of the house. The house is on a hill but it hadn’t occurred to my I’d see the sea. It was a very lovely surprise!

We moved into our last house on 21st December. The house was completely empty except for a human body sized black plastic bag lying down in the corner of the loft wrapped up with parcel tape.

DH opened it whilst I watched through my fingers. Inside was a fully decorated artificial Christmas tree complete with fairy lights. Plugged it in and Christmas started right there.

It was absolutley spotless and decor immaculate. 5 years later its not😂

The neighbours on the back have a gate that leads into an area next to our garden, they use it for access 1/2 times a year but are always respectful ask first and bring round some jerk chicken or curry goat and macaroni pie so not bad at all.

We found a random window sandwiched in between the outer wall and the inner wall.

Chains hanging from the ceiling in the master bedroom and big mirrors. The previous owner was a prison officer and god knows what he was getting up to with his wife

Houses built in the 60s with a 24 foot by 12 foot living room had one electrical socket at each end of it.

Mice!

...That a troop of raccoons believed the house was theirs and that we were intruders.

I discovered that the boiler needed replacing and also found a pair of mens boxers in the attic 😁

The most amazing floors, fine herringbone parquet in the living and dining rooms and quarry tiles in the hall and kitchen. There were tiger pine doors and panelling right up the stairs. All of these were put in when the house was built a hundred years ago. All had been covered (and accidentally protected) in the tackiest ways e.g. the doors and panelling had chipboard nailed to them and badly painted over. The quarry tiles were screed and covered in laminate. It took a lot of work to bring all the original features up to standard but they look fantastic.

He certainly brought his work home with him!

That the front wall gets exceptionally damp in winter. No wonder it smelt of fresh paint when we viewed it!

Rat infestation.

A concrete WW2 air raid shelter, sunk into the ground, at the end of the garden.

Same

That cream cottagey big floor tiles in kitchen and hall (whilst looking nice ) are an absolute bugger to keep clean most of the year

A large cellar, which had been blocked off during previous renovations.

The radiators weren’t connected to anything, and the lovely old roll top bath had been painted on the inside with gloss paint! And a toad colony or whatever it’s called, living under the shed but when it rained they all came and sat in the lawn and back door step looking in! Still in the same house 30 years later and love it!!

A dish of mandarin oranges in the fridge.
The filthiest oven with a grill pan that had to be thrown immediately.
Bare live wires dangling from the wall in the hall.
Empty whisky and gin bottles under the floorboards.
The bedroom extension was unsafe and we had to put in an RSJ.

Loads more. I never really liked that house.

Current house was built by a builder, apparently. Lots of bodged things.
Some from the kitchen:
-wiring for presumably under cabinet lights leading nowhere

• about 30 cms gap between worktop and top cabinet. Only the kettle fits under, not the knife block, coffee/bread machine plus it's too close to the gas hob
• whole kitchen worktop was raised for some weird reason. I'm 160 cms tall, I'm cooking food at chest height
• extractor too close to the gas
• only two of the 5 hobs work

I could go on longer.
Wife must have insisted on drawers though, lot of pan drawers. That's good about it.

Gas leak

A big stash of 1970's porn magazines in the loft!

A weed dealer lives next door. It stinks.

Wasn’t that much of a shock though, the only place we could afford to buy in is a dump.

Oh, and the kitchen ceiling fell down three months after we moved in. There was no shower curtain when we moved in. Turns out, the pervious occupants never used one. They had just kept paining over the black ceiling below and changing the bathroom lino so the damage wasn’t noticeable. So that was fun.