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've never moved since I've been a proper grown up but surely it's quite hard to leave the place very clean. I imagine that you wouldn't have much time once the big furniture etc had been removed for cleaning where it had been for many years. Not sure though.

It’s bad form

i wish I’d thought about a professional deep clean when I moved it

i could see the house was shabby however when you have to mop under counter kitchen cabinets before you can see them that’s nasty

they also lied on the official forms that the boiler was serviced and working. It wasn’t and apparently hadn’t worked for weeks which made it much more difficult to clean.

My new neighbours knew this and brought over buckets of hot water, they'd been doing this for previous neighbours

Get the right products: Elbow Grease is magic, Pink Stuff, maybe Barkeepers Friend, lots of vinegar in spray bottles. Mr muscle drain unblocker. Professional oven clean is easier though than dealing with those chemicals. Dishwasher & washing machine cleaning product. Makes a big difference having those.

It's common practice. I expect it. It has been par for the course in relation to all houses I have bought and sold since 1992.

If a seller didn't agree, I wouldn't exchange. By exchange banks, lawyers and estate agents have done their due diligence and most sellers are happy to have purchasers with finance, no or secure chains, and on that basis comply. I imagine it may also have something to do with the end of the market in question.

It’s 15 years ago now but was a horror story when my parents bought their house. It was a repossession and on leaving the previous owners must have stored up urine (!!!) and poured it over all the patio doors. They sabotaged the gas and the electrics and left nails sticking up in the loft. Completely unbelievable.

Ugh, sounds awful!

One house I bought, the vendor was caught in the act of taking all the door handles. Luckily we stopped him.

He did steal the shed, though. Actually we were quite pleased, it saved us demolishing it.

That why we always have a retention, inspect the day before completion, release all the money when we have seen it. Standard practice in France, not hard in England, just include it in the contract.

Agree it’s sad but it happens. Every time I moved whilst renting (5+ times) and then when we bought (twice) I spent the first few days scrubbing. We now rent out a place and even a professional clean doesn’t clean to my standards. We always leave our rental cleaner than our own house for new tenants as I know that feeling.
once they’ve been in a few days it will feel more like home x

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

oh what an angel you are @JudyJudeplusOne. And it was only a second home! So kind!

I guess some people might be struggling when moving their miserly one home with full time jobs, kids etc, maybe a single parent, and just not have the time to consider what little things could make that second home just perfect and popping back to rectify.

well done Judy!

Yes I went to pick up the keys to my new flat and the estate agent said 'they've generously left you a box of cleaning supplies'. Yea - half used bottles with liquid dripped down the sides. Food spills in the kitchen cupboards. Cigarette butts in the toilets. And their dogs obviously had peed on the carpet. Plus they had removed every light bulb (which is illegal to leave not one light source). Gross gross gross. If I had the money I would have paid for a deep clean.
Contracts usually stipulate free of rubbish and 'swept clean'. That's it. Some people are pigs.

So many horrible stories!
our house wasn’t great when we got the keys but it didn’t matter because we were doing work on it whilst we lived elsewhere. Even when I rented I always alllowed for ‘grace period’ between two properties, normally around a week or a couple of days to make sure that everything is clean & working properly.

A family member moved recently and found all the carpets saturated with dog pee and a huge turd sitting in the middle of the bedroom. Like a welcome present.

The house had belonged to a well known lady writer and I will never look at her in the same way again, the dirty mare

Oh, please give us a clue!

Yes, this isn’t at all unusual. Surely people expect to pay for a deep clean before moving in? I’ve bought quite a few houses and flats in two countries, and I think only one was pristine when we bought it. The one we live in now was pretty gross when we bought it, but we weren’t surprised, as it was pretty grubby when we viewed.

Aaah this happened to me! Walls filthy, floors all greasy, bins overflowing, attic garage shed and garden full of old junk! Sellers clearly decided to stop any kind of cleaning once we'd made an offer. Didn't even leave us all of the keys either and still use our address on things! Wish I'd kicked off more at the estate agents.
I spent 3 days scrubbing with bleach and my fingertips actually burnt off!
At least they've got you to help :)

Good that you are getting together to do the clean, and camaraderie will be high so try not to be too down. 24 hours will see a better place. It is common that this happens and very annoying, esp if negotiations have been protracted and there is any bitterness, there is very little comeback that you can do "with good effect". It can be made worse by people removing furniture that was there at the viewing, or actually even worse by them not. I reserve particular dislike for the person that vomited all over our bathroom on their leaving party, left half of their shit furniture for us to dismantle and clear, along with some more transient bin bags full of cans and food, clothing etc. and the remains of their "hobbies" which appeared to be Taxidermy and Sado-masochism in an upper bedroom (probably not together to be fair). No forwarding address, so all mail was binned or opened for the mounting horror / laughs. As PP say, there will be a story down the pub at some later date as most of us have been through some element of it. Good luck and Congrats to your Son and his GF xx

My first house had cat shit two feet high up all the kitchen walls.

My second, the vendors had taken all the light fittings and left bare wires poking out of various walls and every ceiling, and, I found out a few months in, buried a three piece suite in the garden when they built a retaining wall.

The last one, the lazy cow that owned it had painted round her furniture, and glued ghastly pink flower paintings to the walls.

i hate people.

You need to specify previous owners do a deep clean as a condition of sale.
Obviously it would be basic good manners to leave it clean in the first place.
I'd feel deeply ashamed to do that.

Bringing back memories of 'march outs', leaving a Forces property, there was an inspection and they could be brutal! A very young RAF officer knelt in front of the sparkling cooker, put her fingers under the cooker and scraped her nails on the underside, There's grease under here! Short of disconnecting it from the electricity supply and turning it over it was impossible to get under there!
In the days when quarters were supplied with everything we were expected, at the end of maybe 4 or 5 years, to have all pans, including frying pan, spotlessly clean, most of us just boxed them up when we moved in and used our own stuff, getting them out again for the march out!

Just what I was thinking. Why can't the son and girlfriend clean their own bloody house. Why should mums feel they have to swoop in armed with cleaning products 🙄 It's really no big deal. Surely they can do a bit if cleaning themselves or hire a cleaner for a deep clean

Yeah but no need to leave areas filthy

I think they’re just inexperienced buyers and eitehr didn’t notice or thought bless the house would be cleaned up for them.

I really feel for them.

I had a similar experience - finally moved into a house with baby and two children, only to find it needed to be disinfected. Shock and anger are inadequate words to describe my feelings. Filthy isn't the word to describe the condition of the house. And yes, who lives like that?

If you can afford it, would the wider family rally around and get a deep cleaning crew to do a big once-off job?

Just moved in myself, heres some pics of the shelves I've pulled out of the kitchen cupboards, it's going to take weeks to properly deep clean the place. Tbf the previous owner was elderly and in the 2x 15 minute viewings you look at the big stuff and don't have time to inspect inside cupboards and skirting boards (and surveys don't look into cleanliness, it was superficially clean and tidy).

We can't afford a deep clean as there's other repairs that are eating our meager renovation budget so we're living out of boxes a bit until we can get the kitchen clean enough to put our stuff away. My young son's on a mattress in our bedroom until his bedroom is in a good enough state to put him in atm.

I agree it takes the shine off at first but at the same time, if it was immaculately presented it probably would have commanded an extra £10k.

It'll be lovely in no time. My last purchase and my last rental before that both needed a massive deep clean too and they didn't have the excuse of a 90 year old previous occupier. Xx

Ours was so bad we had to check into a hotel for a couple of nights. The house was in an utterly disgusting state. We were shocked down to our boots, having left our previous house immaculate for the newcomers.