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!!

Our first house , the sellers took the lightbulbs,loft insulation and dismantled and took a hot water boiler that had been part of the original fittings . They left behind an old stand alone cabinet in the kitchen. They hadn't cleaned either because the bathroom stank of rotten eggs . Some bleach sorted that out !

Empty a house that’s been lived in for years and there’s going to be dirt. Marks on the walls? Did you expect them to repaint or something.

Im sure the two of them can clean - not sure why ‘the mums’ have to get involved (and why not the dads?).

It’s a house that’s needs a clean. You all need to get some perspective

I agree that it's wrong and shouldn't happen, but unfortunately it has since the beginning of people buying and selling houses. Your DS and GF will just have to suck it up unfortunately - most of us have been through this to some extent.

It's absolutely disgraceful. I don't even understand how someone could send off their home in that way? Do the previous owners not even have respect for the home they have lived in for so long.

So sorry to them OP. I'm sure you will all work at it to make it a beautiful home. ❤️

Im with you, I can’t leave a hotel room for breakfast or dinner without checking it’s ok and bathrooms decent. Just in case.

total derail but the smell of sulphur was probably because the loo/bath/shower hadn’t been used for a while. It means the water in the ‘trap’ of the plumbing evaporates and stinky gas from the drains can get through. Just running some water to fill the traps again would fix it.

We just moved into an absolute hell hole, you could scrape it with your nails, the carpet was slimy.
what’s annoying is if you rent if you don’t clean well you loose deposit but if you sell you can do as you please and leave it scummy no penalty!

Get the dads involved too. Double the workforce…

Just jumping in to say sorry this happened but it is quite common sadly. Also one person's definition of "clean" will differ from another..

On the fixtures and fittings form which is a Law Society "advisory" (not sure if contractually enforceable) I think there might be a statement the sellers should have technically agreed to about not leaving waste but that might be about it. I don't think it will specify it needs hospital grade sanitation.

To share our story - We moved into our home expecting it to be a bit grubby around the edges/a few corners might have been missed, so we hired a cleaner for a full day for the day we got the keys /before moving in day. The cleaner didn't even make it out the kitchen it was so grubby!!

The Wheely bins (several of them) were also overflowing outside and there was dog poo everywhere in the garden, (front and back garden). The attic / loft was full of rubbish too. I took pictures of the dog mess and sent it via the solicitors quoting the fixtures and fittings form re waste. The sellers' wife was a bit mortified and came back to clean the dog mess in the front garden while we'd popped out (the gate was locked to the back) which was some remedy to it all, albeit slightly tresspassy in nature...(They didn't arrange a time to "clear" the waste).
Our sellers also took every light fitting with them and left so many holes in the wall (even shelves in the kitchen were taken). Technically with the Law Society fixtures and fittings form they're supposed to leave things electrically safe and leave a bulb in a plain bulb holder if they take light fittings, but our sellers definitely did not(!!) and somehow had sourced incandescent lightbulbs for every fitting they changed (they had prohibited the sale of those lightbulbs by then as well so wasn't sure if this was a point they were making to be a pain!)

They definitely dressed the place up for sale and were irrate we didn't pay their asking price (their perogative to accept our offer, after all!). But over 4 years we have slowly stripped every room back and started again so the place is in a state we are happy with.

@Oldperithia so sorry for your ds and his gf. That's truly horrible for them.

I had similar, left a relationship, scraped together a deposit and bought dd and I our own home. Day I picked the keys up I went in to find shite everywhere. Windows broken, spare keys retained because her son "needed to pick up some stuff".

I went batshit at the estate agent ref the keys and then called my solicitor. The seller had to stump up the cash to have the windows sorted, locks replaced and her son never got his stuff cos whrn he fialed to pick it up agter 24 hours an army of amazing friends filled cars and trailers with their shit and took it to the tip.

It's not fair that sellers get to behave like that, and regardless of how much it is the norm for some, it does take the shine off.

@OneSugar1

They were there up until we moved . They put solid air fresheners all round the bath . About a month later there was a problem with the drains . Turned out the woman was flushing her sanitary towels down the drain and it had caused a blockage .

Presumably this is the condition they viewed it in? What’s the surprise?

As PPs have said - just pay for an end of tenancy clean. Can you help them with the cost of this?

Not usual in a purchase

Sorry meant flushing her sanitary towels down the toilet causing a blockage in the drain .

same thing happened to me couple of years on viewing house it shone like a new pin,they then picked a cheap tortoise slow solicitor who dragged it out for 8 months.no chain involved.on moving day they were still moving stuff 2 hours after i got the keys, then i went in it was filthy,i was very angry i left the house i was selling shining in every room, very dirty trick,good luck

When we bought this (admittedly a doer-upper), the seller was still there when we unlocked the door, mopping the kitchen floor so it would be as nice for us as possible. I thought he was such a nice person to bother to do that, especially when he had a lot of troubles of his own, and he left us some lovely flowers too. It's the little, kind things that people do that make a difference.

Yes, this happened to me. It was disgusting. We also ended up paying for 3 skips to get rid of their rubbish.

Sadly not uncommon. Last summer we scrubbed my DDs house before they moved out then arrived at their new house to find it needed cleaned top to bottom🤦‍♀️. Some people are unbelievable!
If enough of you muck in it will get done and they will soon forget it and build happy memories.

It is quite common although I remember our house before last the lady had hoovered every floor before they left and we appreciated it. My son's house - they left so much stuff - supposedly to be kind but the reality was they could not be bothered to move things. We thought it was quite clear until I started opening cupboard and then went into the loft where so much stuff was there. We coudl have complained or charged but instead I just did about 5 very full loads of a very full to brim volvo estate to the council tip - over an hour's drive away each time x 2 over a few days.

We've just sold a second home and I actually took pleasure in making it look nice for the new owner. I kept going back there in the days leading up to completion, as I kept thinking of little things that could be made a bit better.

As a seller I would refuse to sign any such contract because it opens up the seller to an awkward buyer claiming bits have been missed or whatever.

Out of common courtesy a house should ideally be given a hoover and dust the main surfaces. If a buyer wants a deep clean they should pay for it from their own pocket. However sadly there are a lot of people who have no courtesy.

Everyone will clean as they move in

But there's one thing to have 'normal' dust and dirt and another to have absolute filth.

Aw, that's such a shame. Our house was spotless when we moved in...however, although it looked spotless, we still cleaned everything before moving in. So it may as well have been dirty as I didn't feel it was ours until it had been cleaned by us.

We've chatted to friends about it and theyve all done similar. So as upsetting as it is to physically see dirt, your ds probably would have cleaned it the same anyway. So if they can they should try to let it brush over them and not think any further about it.

I'm genuinely confused, did they not view the house before buying it? And if so and it wasn't like this at that point, how on earth does a house get into the state you describe in only a few months? Or is it simply that when they viewed it they didn't really look at everything properly and somehow missed all the dirt? Genuine question! And regardless of it I'm really sorry their first experience as home owners has been dampened by this! Awful manners on the sellers' part.