AIBU - Flithy oven in house Im buying, would you expect it to be cleaned?

[Eggybreadwithnuts]

House Im buying had a look round and oven was filthy. Im thinking of asking for it to be cleaned before completion date. AIBU?

When we moved into our house, I couldn't bring myself to cook on the old dirty oven left behind, that bad. We had a lot of sandwiches and things I could put in a microwave while waiting for a new one to be delivered!

Just get it cleaned professionally if it's in otherwise good condition? You'll be too busy to cook for a few days after moving in anyway so book one of those fab mobile cleaning folks.

As a side, a buyer for our old house found that a little bit of the rubber seal had been damaged on the very expensive oven we were leaving behind. The damage was found on a gas and electrics survey and the gas man condemned it, officious idiot as the only danger was heat escaping... They threatened to pull out if it wasn't fixed, so we said we'd remove the oven from the sale. They soon changed their minds! Please don't be one of those petty buyers!

Same with my house! I spent ages scrubbing every inch of the house we were moving out of even though I knew the buyer was going to do some major building work before she moved in. I wept on moving day when I saw the state of the new house.

If you've already exchanged then you can ask as much as you like, they don't have to do it.

If you haven't exchanged then do you really want to pull out if they say no?

Does no-one have self clean ovens these days????? Next time have it as an option when you buy new

When I moved into my house the filthy people before hadn’t even cleaned the toilets - they were covered and stained with shit & caked on piss. A doctor & his wife - utterly revolting. Unfortunately that’s just the way it is, but I had a couple of weeks before I had to move in so I could get it cleaned & repainted as every wall was filthy too.

I have to confess despite having a self cleaning oven I have a man come out twice a year to clean my oven.

i am both fascinated and terrified by my self cleaning function and probably use it once every couple of years 😂😂

I’m an arsehole who left my old house in a less than perfect state on moving day. I am actually ashamed when I think about it. It’s one of those things that I think about when I’m awake at 3am.

Sorry, I know this isn’t helpful at all in your situation. This thread just reminded me.

You can ask your sellers to have it cleaned. Maybe they’re already planning to. Or they might say no. But you can ask.

My sister kicked off about a filthy oven and the sellers took it out and removed it from the fixtures and fittings list. I tried to tell her she was being unreasonable but she insisted they had to have it cleaned. Cost her a couple of hundred quid to get a new oven fitted in a kitchen they were ripping out the next year. Dumb move

As a seller, I thought about this - putting in new carpets etc. as the current ones were a mess. But the estate agent told me to do nothing, not even clear the overgrown garden. In the event I cleared the garden as the buyer requested this. There have been no other requests so far, and fingers crossed there won't be. An offer has been made and accepted.

Unfortunately it's just up to you to do it.

Really? Sounds extreme. Both can be cleaned.

OP arrange for an oven cleaning firm to clean it. You'll have enough to do and they're brilliant at it. Put liners in once they been. Make things easy for yourself.

If you are renting, yes. If buying, no, just get it cleaned so you know it’s done properly.

That is a ridiculous request for buying a property in the uk. Renting standards are different to buying.

I think my expectations would depend on from whom I was buying and the circumstances. Single mum who was having to sell because of a marriage break up, depressed and having to pack the whole house up with small childen around? No, I would cut her a lot of slack. Posh couple who mentioned having a cleaner twice a week? In that case I would expect it to be cleaned (although I still wouldn't be utterly surprised for it not to be).

When you move, there is no legal obligation to leave the place clean. No-one is going to withhold your deposit because you have left the place dirty. As you say "that's a shitty thing to do". What makes you think that people who clearly couldn't be bothered to clean properly when they moved out, are going to either pay for an actual cleaner, or come back from where ever they've moved to to clean, which is even more hassle/expense than cleaning on the way out would have been? They aren't. They are clear lazy and don't care. There's no way to make them. OP can try if she likes, but I'm 99% she'll be spending the time and money getting the oven cleaned herself in the end, after spending more time and money trying to get the old owners to do it first, She'll come off worse than if she'd just cleaned it!

I'd just get it cleaned anyway

@Needtosoundoffandbreathe you didn’t see the state of either of them. Utterly disgusting. Goodness knows how long scummy water had been in the dishwasher and it wasn’t working anyway.

The state of the house in general when we dealt with the oven was awful. There were bare live wires, she hadn’t moved out when the house was ours, when we started some renovations, we discovered empty whisky and gin bottles under the floor boards. It took ages to get sorted.

When you made your offer did you state that it was on the condition that the oven was cleaned before handover? What about the rest of the house, do you want that deep cleaned as well?

Just book a company to go in and deep clean the house when you get the keys, while it’s empty and easy for them to do. Get a professional oven cleaner out to do the oven, it will look like new by the time they are done.

Our previous owner didn’t clean for a long time. The oven went out the door. As did everything else. We bought new.

I once moved into a rented house with a very fancy oven that had a self cleaning function. I turned it on and went to let the dogs out in the garden for 10 minutes and when I came back the entire house was full of smoke.

I tried it again after cleaning it manually and it was only half as bad but I just ignored it after that. Was it just a crap self clean? Should I give them another shot?

I hate cleaning the oven, I don’t like wearing full hazmat gear to clean.

I've had rucks on here with someone saying they are a conveyancing lawyer before now, but the contract for every house I've bought or sold in the last 25 years has had a clause stating that the property will be cleaned to a professional standard. I'd expect nothing less and wouldn't exchange without that clause.

Oh and a very noce man from.OvenClean comes to.clean my ovens twice a year. It's about £90 and worth every single penny.

If that's how they live, I wouldn't trust their cleaning skills. Get someone in to do it or do it yourself.

I would replace it. And the fridge / freezer. The cost of a new oven etc is hardly anything In the grand scheme of buying a house. And I’d pay for a full deep clean of the whole house. I’d suck up the cost and stop worrying about it.