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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to ask you to tell you're nightmare moving in stories

84 replies

twilightstruggle · 26/07/2014 16:28

We're just in the process of moving out of our first home. Lovely new couple and their little baby moving in.

Basically, when we leave the house, what do we have to do by law, what's good etiquette and what's a nice considerate surprise (we're thinking of leaving them a bottle of champers to celebrate). They seemed really nice and we don't want to annoy them, but we're a bit ditzy and inadvertently inconsiderate sometimes and don't want to read about ourselves on aibu next week!

To make it less dull I thought I'd ask for nightmare moving in stories to help us know what not to do! I appreciate its still kinda dull

OP posts:

MrsWedgeAntilles · 26/07/2014 16:41

I'm a long time serial renter. Based on the things that have happened to me my advice to you would be:

Make sure you have packed all your sex toys. Finding someone else's dildo under the bed is a bit of a shock.
Ditto pets. Finding three disturbed goldfish in a little bowl under the bed staring at said dildo is similarly shocking.
Champagne is great :)

WhatsGoingOnEh · 26/07/2014 17:08

I don't think you're legally obliged to do anything, except leave the stuff you said you'd leave and take everything else.

It's nice to leave a card/bottle. It's useful to leave a forwarding address in case any post goes to your old address (and maybe a couple of big SAEs). It's thoughtful to leave the manuals for any white goods, boiler, etc you're leaving in the house. But nothing else really.

GingerPuddin · 26/07/2014 17:11

Leave menus for local takeaways. A small amount of milk and a few things for making tea.
But just leave it clean is the most important.

HindsightisaMarvellousThing · 26/07/2014 17:12

If we are feeling benevolent towards the new owners I leave a forwarding address, manuals and a list of helpful contacts including current utility suppliers, plumber, dates of rubbish collections etc. Also leave a clean house!

eltsihT · 26/07/2014 17:15

Don't forget you are moving, go away on a 3 week holiday so when we turn up having travelled 400miles with our stuff we can't collect the key from the solicitor as arranged. Then take 2 weeks after you return from holiday to actually move out.

This happens when we helped my brother move house. He had to put his stuff into storage and pay to stay in a hotel for 5 weeks.

I have a lovely 4 page letter from when we moved explaining how to use the boiler etc and quirks of the house, line where the stopcock is hidden. I still refer to it 12 years on.

cantseemtohaveitall · 26/07/2014 17:17

Ok - well as long as you don't leave the place disgustingly dirty, including cat poo and pee on the floor, all your stuff still there on moving day so that a house clearance firm has to come and sort it before you can move in, said cat actually abandoned in the house for you to deal with (!) and the back door propped open for it to come in and out... Then you'll be doing much better for the new owners than our experience of buying our first home at the start of this year...

PickleMyster · 26/07/2014 17:42

Redirect your mail.
Instructions/warranties for appliances sold with the house.
Clean house.

They are the biggies for me. We moved into our house just before Christmas, they left a card for us and present for DS which we thought was lovely.

Revenant · 26/07/2014 17:43

When we moved in there was a mystery turd in the toilet. A mystery turd because the previous owners had moved out 3 months previously and this looked a bit fresh. I suspect the estate agents, but obviously, couldn't bring myself to ask if they had left a huge unflushed turd on a visit.
Still, if that's the most nightmarish thing to happen i haven't done too badly.

Revenant · 26/07/2014 17:44

I did consider leaving one on their doorstep for some time though

hazelnutlatte · 26/07/2014 17:48

Presuming that hidden behind your furniture you don't have a massive hole in the wall and the carpets actually go under said furniture then your buyers will be happier than we were when we moved in to our first house.
Also take your stuff with you - a garage full of someone else's crap is not a good start!

MissPenelopeLumawoo · 26/07/2014 17:51

Our seller would not actually move out, the bugger. Our money transferred to his account, he locked up the house, still full of his stuff, and went off to his new house, leaving us in limbo!

KnackeredMuchly · 26/07/2014 17:54

Elt - that happened to my MIL! Only less distance away.

RevoltingPeasant · 26/07/2014 17:56

Clean the house. Please! Our vendors left us a drawerful of their fingernail clippings. Yes really! And dust all over where their appliances had been and the wardrobes took buckets and buckets of warm soapy water to come clean. And this goes double if you have a dog or cat whose fur has been lovingly woven into the carpet and treble if you have both, like our vendors did!

Do not leave loads of random crap inheriting their son's collection of guitar picks, drawing pins and rusty paper lips was heartwarming but unnecessary.

do leave manuals, warranties especially for the 12yo boiler you told them was 5 yo. And the oven which stopped being made some time during the Stone Age and whose make has rubbed off the front so they can't even google it.

try not to leave large uncooked bones in the garden their dogs will like it. They will not.

do get rid of fleas they are not a good housewarming present.

redirect your post but also leave a contact number

a card and a bottle of wine are nice this was about the one thing our vendors did get right!

PuddingandPie1 · 26/07/2014 17:58

We arrived at 11:30AM to move in but the removal men for the old couple moving out hadn't even started work. So our removal men could not do anything because there was no room for any of our belongings in what was, strictly speaking, our house. It all got very tense, very rapidly.

dannydyerismydad · 26/07/2014 17:59

Don't leave the oven in a filthy state with a inch thick layer of bacon fat in the grill pan.

Certainly don't take the under sink plumbing with you when you move out so that the new owners get a sink full of filthy water in the cupboard, in their shoes and over the kitchen floor after cleaning the above.

goodasitgets · 26/07/2014 18:04

New build (I was first to live there)

When upstairs has a leak, please consider that it may actually leak through. This results in acres of black mould on moving in day

Please switch the water on. And if you don't, please ensure that the stopcock all neat with its access panel beautifully flush to the wall actually makes the stopcock accessible. They didn't build the sodding hole big enough and I had to watch a builder take a saw to my brand new house

tumbletumble · 26/07/2014 18:25

My top tip is to remember to give your keys to the estate agent...

We turned up at the estate agent to pick up the keys to our new house, after a stressful day of packing, bad traffic etc, only to find they didn't have them. We had to phone a locksmith and break into our new house! We later found out the previous owner had posted them to the estate agent and not put on enough postage. They arrived a few days later.

LuluJakey1 · 26/07/2014 18:31

I bought my house when I was single. The couple I bought it off were downsizing, but he didn't really want to move when it came to it. Day I moved in he had taken all the bathroom fittings- towel tail, fitted matching mirror, loo roll holder, and the ceiling lights from the sitting room, landing and hall. The neighbours said he cried over having said he would leave his shed when it actually came to it- but they were going somewhere with no garden!

The next day his wife came back with all the things he had taken- furious with him and apologised.

Wg helped some friends move in and when they got the keys and we went in, there were literally patches on every wall where furniture and paintings had been painted around rather than moved. When they had viewed it, it was unnoticeable because paintings and furniture were in place. It was in every room. The bathroom was filthy.

wowfudge · 26/07/2014 18:45

Please should you sell a house which has had tenants in it, don't say you will leave fixtures and fittings which actually belong to the tenants. And please do check what said tenants have taken with them before your purchasers move in.

Thank goodness we had plenty of lamps because there were no light fittings left in the downstairs of our house, just bare wires. The only carpets left were in one bedroom and hall, stairs and landing.

The tenants left the place filthy with a skip's worth of shite in the garage, cellar and garden.

Oh and over the following months we discovered they hadn't paid a single utility bill in the two years they'd lived there.

It was as though they had done a flit because we had various random visitors asking for them too.

unlucky83 · 26/07/2014 18:54

First time buyer - this house - 8 months pregnant, working FT -had taken 2 days off. We bought this house because it needed little work - I loved another one but it needed too much doing to it.
Deeds had been 'mislaid' so we hadn't seen the house for 2-3 months...owner's 21 yrs old son had been living here on his own all that time...and wasn't impressed he was going to have to find a flat for himself.
Keys were delayed so DP had to go to work (Luckily the removal men were booked for the next day) - I came on my own....
The whole house stank of dog, the stairs were thick with dog hairs, in fact everywhere was covered in dog hair - including the sofa we had bought with the house which also had various spills on it - the living room carpet had stains that the carpet cleaning man confirmed was dog piss. We later found funny marks on the living room wallpaper - where he had been throwing teabags at it. Everywhere was filthy, nothing had been cleaned since the last time we saw it. And we had never visited on our own and I realised the owner had been very good at making sure we didn't notice things like part of the kitchen floor tiles missing etc...as well the big one - it only had partially central heating - no heating upstairs. Also nothing had been done to garden - everything was overgrown and covered in weeds. I went and sat in my car and cried.
I'd spent days packing and cleaning the flat we were leaving - it was spotless ...and I had to go and get the hoover etc and start cleaning before the removal men arrived with our stuff the next morning ...without even DP to keep me company/help.
I had to speak to the owner about something and she said 'sorry my son said the removal men made a bit of a mess'
So I'd say the most important thing is leave it clean ! Not worried about a bit of dust from moving stuff - but at least as clean as when they viewed it!

pregnantpause · 26/07/2014 19:03

We bought our house from a friend of the family ( not well known, but a close community so we knew his first name and where he worked ) he wanted a fast transaction, so we put in our offer on Monday and moved in on Saturday. AT the time I didn't realise how amazingly fast this is.

He had his new house lined up and was moving out as we were moving in. We were rushing as we had plans with a large group to go to a local event, in early afternoon. We left one set ofkeys with him to finish off moving his stuff out and post them through on his way out. Except that he decided after half an hour alone to follow us down to the pub and he'd finish off tomorrow when we were unpacking. In the end we lived for three weeks with him popping in and out to finish off. I had to beg the key off him as he argued he wouldn't misuse it! But he still needed it!

I will never be so naively over familiar in financial and legal transactions again.

Shallishanti · 26/07/2014 19:08

leave the house clean
if you have left appliances, leave them clean (no bones in the dishwasher)
redirect mail
inform your ex to tell the journals he subscribes to that you are moving

then- if it's the middle of a very cold winter....
don't leave the house unheated and have the doors open for several days while you move your stuff out yourselves....
the house will take a week to warm up properly and in the meantime the children will cry with cold

BreconBeBuggered · 26/07/2014 19:21

dannydyer You must be a member of my family. Which one are you? The bacon fat, though inexcusable, was at least comprehensible (bone bloody idleness), but removing bits of the plumbing under the kitchen sink left me stumped. Not to mention soaked.

unlucky83 · 26/07/2014 19:23

Oh the mail thing! Do leave a forwarding address.
And don't leave the new owners to deal with your bad debts...(in fact might be a good idea for new owners to change to phone no if they suspect bad debts)
We had the same in the flat we rented before - lots of letters from catalogue shopping companies etc ...
And the previous tenants had used all the emergency electricity on the card meter ...we had £1.25 and was told it would take a week for someone to come and reset it! We found an old card and used it to put some credit on - after being told we would be credited with it - we weren't in fact we ended up paying for all the previous emergency credit they'd used...

Andrewofgg · 26/07/2014 19:31

I acted for clients once who were buying. First-timers.

In the kitchen they found a folding card-table on which there were

an old but clean and serviceable electric kettle
a box of tea-bags
a jar of instant coffee
a carton of UHT milk
a packet of biscuits
some cups, plates, and spoons - enough for them and their removal guys
a list of local shops, and the names and addresses of the doctors and dentists had used and recommended.

And that is the way to do it.

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