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AIBU?

To not understand how people can live like this?!

84 replies

RevoltingPeasant · 15/06/2013 17:24

DH and I moved into our first owned home together three weeks ago. The people before us owned it for 24 years and I think they probably cleaned once during that time.

So far, I have found

  • a kitchen drawer filled with a couple of years' worth of fingernail clippings
  • a clump - an actual clump - of black mould hanging off the shower screen
  • a half eaten butcher's bone from their dog (I hope)
  • dust in the cupboards that was actually caked on


Generally, whole place filthy and covered with dust bunnies. And then today, fleas :( now have to have whole house treated.

DH says i am 'fastidious' but AIBU to really not get how people can live year after year breathing in dust and mould and being bitten by fleas??

BLEURGH. That's all.
OP posts:
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ChippingInWiredOnCoffee · 15/06/2013 21:29

I thought this place was bad when I bought it - but compared to some of the stuff lots of you have had to deal with it wasn't so bad.

  • Kitchen was greasy & dirty (lots of cooking with oil & steam). Sink blocked.


  • Wallpaper in the master bedroom falling off the walls - semi held together with sellotape


  • Some kind of heaters hanging off the walls


  • Bathroom - let's just say the toilet saw an enormous amount of cleaning products and had a new seat within an hour of getting the keys. Lots of mould. Peeling tile paint. Grim stained pine panelling and they'd dripped the stain on the white walls creating this horrible yellow bleurgh.


  • Previous owners were called to come and get the rest of their crap - they said they'd left it 'for us' - gee thanks, I'd always wanted a couple of smelly old beds, a chest of drawers with no fronts, a rusty ironing board etc


  • The whole place was just dusty/dirty/grim


I still see them most days - how can people be so... revoltingly dirty and unbothered by it? She still goes on about how they'd left it so lovely and I was lucky they'd redecorated and put new carpet in Hmm ha ha ha ha ha

It sparkles now though - it just needs the renovation completed - hopefully before I die of old age.
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RogueRebel · 15/06/2013 21:35

when I moved into my house last November every bit of white/cream surface was nicotine yellow the ceilings has yellow drip marks on them!!
The carpets were covered over an inch thick of dog hair, they left almost all their furniture with hair and chew marks, dust a mike thick and the took the kitchen worktops apart and actually took some of the kitchen.
We then had the flea infestation and mice!
Not one bit of the house had been cleaned.
They've blocked up half of my bathroom window and blocked up doors.
they only lived here for 2years.
I'm currently decorating after having the whole house rewired.
and still finding more each day Sad

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CunningAtBothEnds · 15/06/2013 21:59

In the process of buying... You guys are filling me with dread!!

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blindasabatenburg · 15/06/2013 22:10

revolting, it is amazing what you miss when you view a house. We too learnt the hard way. We always viewed with the owners at home, who escorted us round so didn't open drawers /cupboards, so missed the kitchen drawers that were thick with grease and the base units that were blown from a major flood. We should have spotted the DIY plaster repair to the kitchen ceiling though. All the base units were stripped out and replaced with cheapest B&Q by family within 3 days.

A couple of weeks later when swapping the avocado bathroom suite for a basic white one, we discovered the flood had all but destroyed the floorboards and the walls were full of mould spores! How the bath hadn't dropped through the floor we don't know. Whole bathroom rebuilt! New walls and new floor! They neglected to mention they'd flooded the house. Our new neighbours later told us it was so bad it went through to their house and destroyed their new kitchen.

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Plomino · 15/06/2013 22:22

Oh I forgot the mice !

We were infested . Literally overrun with the little buggers . We used to have slatted shelves in the pantry , and when you opened the door , you'd hear them skid to stop , and when you looked under the shelves , you could count the tails hanging down .

It all came to a head one evening when I watched no less than six jump out of the kids toy box , and start chasing each other up and down the curtains . As I leapt to my feet to throw something at them, it was only then I noticed I'd been sharing the arm of the sofa with one who appeared to be as big a CSI fan as I . Even the professional verminators were appalled .

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bedmonster · 15/06/2013 22:35

When we bought our first flat 10 years ago, it came with a sitting tenant. He was supposed to have moved out before the previous owners sold but refused. We had to get enforcements to remove him from the property after 3 months of us owning it and asking (we had bought it to do it up but weren't moving straight in, and had given him even more notice, though technically he was pushing it). When he was removed, he had left a proper dirty protest. All over the flat. Shit literally smeared over the walls, rubbed into the carpets, loo had been blocked for some time and had been blocked with newspaper all the way up to the top. I sat in the hallway and cried. It was devastating.

Some people are fucking filthy. :(

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EachAndEveryHighway · 15/06/2013 22:37

In my house I had to give the downstairs ceilings 4 coats of paint each to get rid of nicotine stains (so I know where you're coming from Rogue Rebel ). Pipe-smoking old fellow had lived there for a few decades. Some might have said it was an authentic looking Farrow and Ball type colour, but it had to go!

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Triumphoveradversity · 15/06/2013 22:51

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Follyfoot · 15/06/2013 22:53

The previous occupants of one house we bought left a very special present for us in the kitchen cupboard....

A decomposing rat in a trap. Luffly.

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Startail · 15/06/2013 23:01

I've plenty of dust, loads of cobwrbs and the odd bit of mould, they all seem quite happy living here, it seems a shame to disturb them.

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IloveJudgeJudy · 15/06/2013 23:18

When we moved into our house, the previous occupant hadn't cleaned at all. The carpets were advertised as "fitted". When she took the furniture out, it was obvious that the carpets were like a jigsaw. The whole place was filthy. The wiring was dangerous. She had left loads of junk in her garage.

When we visited to view, she seemed lovely, clean, friendly. You just can't tell.

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Picoo · 15/06/2013 23:20

Haven't been able to get past the drawer full of finger nail cuttings

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Angloamerican · 16/06/2013 02:42

bedmonster how awful. I'd have cried too.

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somanymiles · 16/06/2013 02:47

Once I was cleaning out a flat we owned that had tenants living in it and found a frozen puppy foetus in the freezer. That was definitely the worst, but also amazed at the filth some people will put up with. Our last tenant left a microwave caked on the inside a cm thick with food splashes. I cringed to think of the meals she prepared for her 4 year old in it.

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FanjoPaterson · 16/06/2013 03:41

Bloody hell. And I thought my lime green and electric violet walls were bad Confused
Although, six months in we're discovering just how dodgy the extension is. Roof leaks chronically, windows are rotted through, the whole thing is shifting on its foundations, it will cost thousands to fix.
When we moved in, though, it just needed a good scrub and some attention.

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MummyPig24 · 16/06/2013 04:23

When we moved in here the previous owners left various items of furniture and also left food in the fridge! It made me boak, not because it was particularly dirty but it was just a bit gross to leave some old tomatoes and stuff behind.

I have only been in 2 really minging houses. A very good friend of mine as a teen had a disgusting house. God knows why I kept going over there (probably cos her mum didn't care what we did and let us smoke in the bedroom).

A few days before Christmas I picked up some guinea pigs for the children and oh my goodness the house was horrific. I just felt ill and dh said I stank when I came out!

I'm not really a clean freak but I clean regularly and I can't understand why people live like that. Maybe they don't notice or are too depressed to deal with it.

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1Veryhungrycaterpillar · 16/06/2013 06:28

Why would someone keep fingernail clippings??

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LtEveDallas · 16/06/2013 07:07

Not a dirt story, but I once moved into a house where we found a home made Porn (full on) starring the previous occupants Shock

(Then) DH kindly returned it to them Blush

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Badvoc · 16/06/2013 07:19

When we moved into our first house the carpets were disgusting.
There was dirt/dust an inch thick behind the radiators.
They had just covered inches of grease in the oven with foil.
It was also broken.
The bath panel was broken and some of the spindles on the stairs were broken too.
The window seals were mouldy.
The bathroom was disgusting. We had to take up the bathroom flooring and the floorboards were rotten due to being weed on.
Yuck.

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wonkylegs · 16/06/2013 07:33

Yesterday we went to see the house again that we are in the process of buying and the owner apologised as she only had the curtains she's leaving us cleaned last year and she thought they might be a bit filthy. Grin
I've been through my fair share of rubbish house moves though.
When I moved into my first house we had to rip out the grease stained snot coloured kitchen and found lots of dirty knickers behind cupboards and the cooker Hmm and a matching bra to one set on top of the cupboards, all caked in grease from the deep fat fryer.
The last move I made with my parents was on the surface fine but they ripped out every light fitting, curtain pole, hook, some plug sockets, toilet roll holder etc meaning we were stuck in the dark with only torches the first night we moved in.
They had however left us one thing.... The house had major subsidence which they quite purposely covered up. The new ugly fitted wardrobes and hall panelling were not just ugly interior decor choices but purposely installed to cover up a floor to ceiling crack big enough to put you hand inside.
The house had no foundations and cost serious money to put right.

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bluewonderful · 16/06/2013 07:40

When we moved in we discovered the house hadn't been cleaned in the months since our offer was accepted.

Realised that the previous owners' cats had used a corner of the bedroom as a litter tray. Had the carpet up within half an hour and discovered another rotten, mouldy carpet underneath - they'd just laid the new carpet on top of the rank one (then let the new one get rank).

My lovely friend spent 5 hours cleaning the top of the cooker which had an inch of fat and grease mixed with cat hair baked on.

In the living room we thought they had sealed the gaps between the open floor boards. No, it was a home made mix of fag ends, cat hair, nail clippings and cat poo that had to be scraped out. Hoovering up the debris killed our Dyson.

They also left the garage and loft filled with crap they couldn't be bothered taking/getting rid of. Filthy filthy people.

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MissBetseyTrotwood · 16/06/2013 07:50

So my DH thinks I'm a bit bonkers for saying this but I really, really felt our house wanted us when we moved in. I just got a really warm feeling for it and could see through all the crumbling wood chip wallpaper and filth.

It's a tall thin Victorian house, fundamentally fine but needing loads of TLC inside. Everything we've done to it has felt like a healing loving process. It's been a real pleasure, though grim at first, to watch it come to life with a bit of care.

There's an awful place in our terrace that's recently been bought by a family and is being gutted and re done totally. I get a real 'ahhh' feeling of satisfaction when I see all the work being done.

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poppy1973 · 16/06/2013 07:55

Hi we had this when we moved into our house. Go and get some flea bombs, you can get these in large pet shops (Pets at home). Put one in a room, close the windows and doors and then light it. It should help. If there are any carpets you can always take up.

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poppy1973 · 16/06/2013 07:56

If you do have any carpets that you want to keep then put down lots of bicarb of soda and leave for a few hours and then hoover up. It takes the smell of dog away quite well.

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teacherandguideleader · 16/06/2013 08:12

Have never moved into anywhere grim but I remember living with an ex and moving the sofa to clean and finding all his toe nail clippings under there. His reason was he thought the dust mites would eat them.

We had lived together first in my flat and was clean, but as soon as we moved into our house he stopped following my cleaning 'rules' saying it was his house too. He wouldn't clean the toilet when he was ill (through drink).

We also came home from holiday to discover something had died under the floorboards (I'm sure it was something he had dropped that was at the bottom of it). I had been complaining for a week or so before we went away about the stench (it was vile) but he couldn't smell it and said I was being weird. We came home to a fly infestation. After a long night flight I stayed up to get it all sorted while he went to bed as he wasn't bothered by it.

It didn't take long for me to see the light and we split, but had to continue living together until the house was sorted. I stopped washing up for him and I remember one night him dishing his dinner up on a plate with the previous night's dried baked bean juice on it.

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