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

[twilightstruggle]

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

Please dont bequeath the new owners your used condoms

They hadn't even left them in a bin.

Definitely clean. I always clean the floors, oven, bathroom, kitchen thoroughly, hoover and dust.
I left a bottle of wine and a card at my last house. Paint tins for touching up any walls and so buyer knows what colour they are. Instructions for anything you are leaving in a big envelope.
When we sold DH's flat we left it spotless with the curtains and cooker, fridge freezer etc- all new and spotless because he didn't live there so they had almost never been used. It was bought by a young teacher who we thought would appreciate the extras because she kept telling us how pushed she was to manage to buy somewhere and how nice the flat was and how long it would take her to furnish it.
Got a phone call from her solicitor saying she did not want them and could we move them. The fridge freezer is plugged in our garage and we use it for alcohol! Gave cooker to friends. Curtains still in our linen cupboard.

Well leave the keys to the house with the estate agent or solicitor or someone would be nice. Not a great start to your home owning experience when you have to get a locksmith out to let you into the house you have just mortgaged yourself up to the hilt for!!!

Then got into the house to find they had left loads of their stuff in the house. They then had the nerve to call us in the evening to tell us they were going to come and pick their stuff up!

The lady who moved out of here was 80 or so but didn't stop her cleaning it v thoroughly. The flat has never been so clean since.

They left a small number of well thought out items, such as a toddler fireguard (we had a toddler, their grandchildren were grown up) and the summer curtains for the living room. Of course summer curtains were pink flowers and have never been hung but its the thought that counts.

They didn't leave anything extra.

They were a lovely couple and so sad to here she died recently, we kept in some level of contact as they had to move into retirement accommodation after many years ownership.

Family selling the house on behalf of deceased aunt - please don't leave the bed and mattress that the poor lady died in.

Don't allow Mr Nosey Parker from next door to stand, waiting for the new owners to move in, outside the front door. We didn't need his 'help' and he got in the way. He just wanted a nosey at us and hung around for ages.

When I had a council exchange I vaccuumed my way out of the door, and even wheeled the crammed wheely bin down to the local waste disposal place to empty it. When I got back the woman was laughing her arse off 'I wouldn't do that for you!' Fair enough. But when we got to the new place it was filithy dirty, you could smell the wheely bin from inside the house, two doors she was supposed to rep-hang had just been left leaning against a wall, and the curtains she agreed to leave (we both agreed to leave them) were gone. A month later she had the nerve to knock on my door wanting some - some - of the stuff she left in the shed!

One year at uni I was the first to move into our house (private rental). I got there to find a cat had found it's way in through the one-way cat flap, obviously couldn't get out again so had taken up residence in my bedroom. It looked as though it had been there at least a couple of days poor thing :(.

On seeing us the car bolted to the top floor and hid under a bed. Cue my mum and me (both very cat phobic) hiding in the living room with the door shut while my 80 year old grandma coaxed the poor thing out with some cat food to return to her very worried owner we found two doors down!

The landlords sent out a cleaning team and a brand new mattress, and the cat followed me up and down the street for the rest of the year!

So, check your cat flap!

My first house had been lived in by an elderly couple, the man died and his wife went into a nursing home, for the next couple of years I received hard core porn dvd samples and magazines advertising their other products addressed to him.

This house had been lived in by a retired teachers who split up, it was filthy, even the walls left your fingertips dirty.
There were skidmarks in the toilet, cat litter in the garden borders and the little gap in the radiators was full of cat hairs and flea poo. Our dogs were itching like crazy within the day and it's been a nightmare getting it flea free.
Funny thing is that when we arrived on the day after being told they'd left the woman was here in tears (she'd been the one who had the affair and left 2 years earlier) She said she had been here every day for two weeks cleaning, god knows what she had cleaned.

If your drawers are full of "intimate hairs" the considerate thing to do is to vacuum them up before you leave rather than leave it to the new owner. Thanks.