So angry at sellers, left the house FILTHY

[Oldperithia]

I feel so sad for DS and his GF. They’ve saved and sacrificed so much for 3 years to scrape together a deposit on a house. Finally were able to buy a small 3 bed semi. Viewed it, offered 5% under asking and it was accepted.
They’ve been no trouble during the process whereas the older (60’s) sellers (who are apparently moving to Spain) have dragged their feet throughout the whole process to give them as much time as possible.

Well, DS and GF finally got the keys yesterday and were so excited but that soon turned to dismay when they got there to find everything really dirty, like they’ve not cleaned for months.

Carpets, skirtings, blinds thick with dust, walls all grubby and marked, light fittings greasy dusty, light switches black with dirt, the kitchen thick with grease and food stains and spatter over cabinets and cooker. Wasp nest in the roof.

Floors are sticky and grimy, the whole house is just dirty.

How do people live like that and how do they think it’s acceptable to leave like it for the next person.

We will all muck in and help clean and decorate but I feel so sad for them, it’s really taken the shine off the whole thing.

I know that they are fortunate to be in this position but it’s still made me so angry. If you know of an older couple moving to spain soon know that they’ve lived like dirty pigs and they’ve no thought for the people they’ve sold to. I hope karma bites them!!

I would be complaining to the estate agent… take photos and seek advice about claiming back the cleaning fees and disposal of wasps from the sellers!

We e moved 6 times over the years. Houses have never been very clean when we moved in. Don’t know why. We always had our houses professionally deep cleaned before we handed the keys over.

Maybe we were the foolish ones 🤷‍♀️

That’s not really the point! The point is that regardless of their hard work and sacrifices to save for a deposit they’ve been left a house that needs a deep clean, repair and rent-o-kill to come into before they can move in… because the previous owners were disgusting people with no morals!

I find it odd that people would leave a place in such a mess.
I was upset when I moved into my first house that the grass hadn’t been cut for months and was waist height! And the cooker hadn’t been cleaned since we looked round but they were simple quick fixes!
I have both times I’ve bought my houses looked round one last time though before exchanging contracts.
Hopefully your son and his girlfriend have learned that in future they need to look deeper … did neither sets of parents look round before buying? Both my houses I looked the first time and then once we’d had an offer accepted I took my parents round to have a look and get another set of eyes.. thankfully both times the houses have been in pretty good repair although we still missed the odd thing that needed fixing as soon as we moved in.
man’s the house I’m in now the sellers took all the blings down which they’d agreed to leave…. And couldn’t catch their cat so initially left it behind and returned for it later… think that was their plan all along as moving house with a cat and keeping it in while moving into new place would’ve been a headache.. it wasn’t an issue although I appreciate honesty so a simple…. Sorry but for ease we’ve left the car so that we can unpack and will be back for it tomorrow once we are in and can safely keep the car from escaping and becoming lost would’ve been appreciated. But I guess some people would’ve said no.
On another note I’ve helped lots of friends clean their old houses…. They’ve literally been packing boxes into the garage ready for the removal men the next day, or piling boxes up in one room and I’ve been hoovering and sugar soaping walls in other rooms to leave it clean for the new people buying the house…. I’ve bleached mouldy windowsills and bleached and descaled toilets and showers etc… one friend had an army of helpers cleaning as her house was pretty vile for anyone to move into … but we got it much better than it was and hopefully the buyers weren’t horrified at the way they found it …
Your sellers sound awful and I’d honestly be complaining to the estate agent about it. You can’t do much about the wonky switches as your son should’ve looked more but the cleanliness issues, I’d be raising a complaint to be forwarded to the sellers. Maybe at the very least they’ll feel ashamed…. Maybe you’ll get some compensation

You missed my first comment earlier on in the thread. The point is, it’s not a new home. Everyone’s standards are different. Many of us have been there and so roll up your sleeves and put some graft in. Each time I’ve sold and bought I’ve ended up cleaning my own house for the sale and then having to clean my purchase house too because it’s been filthy. And I mean FILTHY, disgusting, to the point where I couldn’t sleep in the main bedroom for weeks because
it turned out the owner was incontenant. Currently, I’ve had no bathroom at all for over 3 weeks because I’ve been refurbishing it and inadvertently hired a cowboy but you just get on with it. I didn’t take to the internet to moan about it, I roll my sleeves up , on my own without any help whatsoever on every move, inc my bathroom, and get on with it. It’s life. How ever will these people learn to get through life’s hiccups at this rate?

I've had a few houses like that, both purchased and when my parents purchased when I was younger. One house my mum bought was absolutely filthy, nicotine dripping down the walls, filthy carpets, all apart from 1 torn up and skipped. This was winter. By the time summer hit, I saw movement in the carpet that was left, it was larvae 😱😱😱 my mum pulled that carpet immediately, and we lived with bare floorboards for a few months - disgusting!!
I have to say I don't scrub homes when I leave, but I do hoover, wash windowsills etc but usually it's a quick turn around as it's all in one day, remove your own stuff and take to new place

I forgot to mention that according to the neighbours our new house (with the cat & fleas) had apparently been empty for some time and been a squat before the people we bought from moved in and renovated it. We eventually decided to decorate one of the bedrooms for DCs nursery and removed the old carpet and found a very CSI-style human shaped outline on the floorboards very much suggesting someone had died on the floor in that room and been left for some time.

We were never troubled by spooky happenings in that house but moved the DC nursery to the other smaller room!

Back there again today but we’re now home as we’ve kinda run out of steam after 3 days. 90% of the way there now. Todays finds were nail clippings in the bedside drawers, a mountain of hair and dust in the bannisters groove at the edge of the stairs, very dodgy sealant around the toilet that lifts and there’s lots of hair and black stuff all in the hole under it. Leaves behind the radiator, and it took 5 clean bowlfuls of hot water just to clean the floor in the downstairs loo. Brown behind the toilet. 🤮

DS was there on his own this morning for a short time and we had a chat and said in future, when you’re making such a large purchase please ask us to pop and take a look for a second opinion (they’re both very independent). I’m not sure how they managed to miss a lot of the red flags, he said they were most concerned with location, a south facing garden, parking and size of the house / potential which is fair enough. If it had been clean it would have just been decorative stuff but the sheer level of utter filth and dirt has shocked me.
These are fit older people with an adult daughter, I’ve had a look at their FB profiles and they look tidy enough and she was working in catering!! Yet their house is like a squat. It’s shocking how some people live I guess.

I wonder if the oven has a pyrrolytic cleaning setting? It’s amazing and highly recommended!

Just reading about it has made me feel sick! I'm sorry for you all having to deal with it.

It's exceptionally disgusting and obviously a great pity they didn't notice the state of the place, but they had their heads screwed on thinking about location, parking etc so it's not all bad.

I think facebook stalking them is too much.

Would you really have dissuaded them from buying a house because it was filthy and needs new flooring? How much needs spent on it would you say? I know a new bathroom is expensive but did they budget for it?

The point is it was left in a disgusting state - why shouldn’t OP moan about it? You say everyone’s standards are different- the previous owners had no standards by the look of it. Perhaps there should be a clause in every contract saying a house must be left to the standards listed, otherwise an invoice for professional deep cleaning will be sent to the previous owners! The OP and her family did roll their sleeves up and get on with it!

Ridiculous. Even brand new homes come with snagging = work of some kind / not a perfect life. Events like this prepare people for other challenging obstacles in life. Toughen up. I work in the industry involved and quote honestly, this is small fry. I find it hard to believe that the purchasers didn’t spot this “utter filth” when they were viewing the property, if it really was that bad. How did they miss all this “filth”?? Anyone can see a dirty home when they walk into it. Or is this whole thread just click bait.

I agree with this. I’m not sure what help you turning up on the the second viewing would’ve been. They should still have bought the house for the sake of cleaning it for three days if everything else was right about it?

In some ways it's a rite of passage and thay are lucky to have their parents' care and help (it's a time when everyone pitches in especially when they have achieved this at a young age). Well done to you all.
It's shitty people don't care and can live in filth.
It will be a family story at some point. And it's great to know they have family support to get it looking good.
I would highly recommend fish and chips and Prosecco!

Edited for typos

Todays discovery has been ripping up the carpets to find the underlay saturated with still wet dog piss.

This is now within the realms of sending a solicitor letter surely?

You can try, but unless there was a specific clause in the contract which stated the condition the property would be left in, it’s not going to go very far. And if the carpets and underlay have been ripped up, the intention was to replace them regardless, hence you can’t feasibly claim to be out of pocket.

Did they have a building inspection done? That should have uncovered some of this, and their own eyes other aspects. There’s always goi g to be a few things people inadvertently miss, but no way they could have missed it if it is as you say. How are you going to chase people legally with this, or will someone certify it pretty much is all completely new/recent damage post buying and building inspection?

Did it not stink in that house when they viewed it?

No, strangely it didn’t stink, it’s really weird. I’m wondering if they’ve wet cleaned the carpets and the underlay has been re-wetted?

All part of the fun of getting a new place and will be nice memories of everyone working together for them to look back on.
When we moved into our house our in laws helped loads as did friends and it took two weeks to get it all clean and nice but I look back in that time foldly although it was stressful at the time.
We kept our helpers well fed with bacon butties, chips from the chip shop and plenty of tea and cake.

Contact their solicitors and tell them - it's usually in the contract that you leave the property clean and tidy with no rubbish.

Claim for a deep clean.

I take it it wasn’t like that when they viewed it.
Honestly some people are just like that and simply don’t see that they are living in filth. It may not have been deliberate but yes they should have made an attempt to clean it before handing over the keys.
Good on the mums for offering to help!

Everyone who leaves a house says they left it spotless. Everyone who buys one says it was filthy. I find it a bit odd though that you are making so much fuss on behalf of two grown adults. Do you think you might be putting a dampener on their move?