To think people should actually clean their houses before moving out?

[vic1981]

I am more than somewhat annoyed. I spent ages cleaning my flat before moving out today, it was pristine. Also left a letter for the new owner with useful information about the house, such as where the stopcock was located etc with a card and bottle of champagne.

On arriving at my new place today have been confronted with an absolutely filthy house. Dirty toilets, not hoovered, deep in grime everywhere. Horrible smell pervading the house, previous owner has left things in the loft and garden. Oh, and the icing on the cake, cat shit on the bedroom floor.

Am I being unreasonable to think that you are supposed to make an effort to have a clean and tidy house when you move out?

m0therofdragons I'm not justifying "muck" as my house was/is never mucky. I'm just explaining why it's not always easy to leave a place totally "spotless". I had small children, fifteen minutes between removal men leaving and buyers arriving and a long drive (250 miles) to the new house where the removal men would be waiting. I'm sure it's like that for a lot of people when they move.

Can I ask how much it was Tara?

One lazy arse's "pretty clean" is another's "filthy minger"!

We had 20 days overlap with two houses so I not only cleaned it all, I also filled in all the holes in the walls, sanded them down and painted over them. I also painted over any marks on the walls. We also kept going back (about 19 miles) to water the garden, keep the weeds down and mow the lawn.

I went past the other day and the garden is an overgrown jungle so don't know why we bothered doing that!

The house we moved into had been cleaned on the surface but the kitchen was sticky with grease and the kitchen cupboards were filthy. The laminate flooring under the downstairs loo was all cracked and swollen and stained yellow and smelt foul when you moved the loo mat they had left. We ripped it all out ASAP.

I agree with whatever5
Also, with nocoolnamesleft

Bitter it was about the only thing that made me laugh that day.

My lovely mother said it after discovering that the extractor hood in the kitchen wasn't in fact frosted glass as we had initially thought but clear glass and declared that they were "filthy mingers" whilst pulling a cats bum face. The memory still makes me chuckle now.

I have never done a deep clean when I have moved house.
It was only on the last move that we could actually afford a removal company so this notion of cleaning each room as the removal company clear it, doesn't work when you are carrying boxes and furniture yourself.

I have never left any mess or rubbish of any kind, everything always gets cleared. I clean weekly anyway so it's never been that bad, the kitchen and bathroom are always clean and I chuck the hoover round when a room gets emptied, but I'm not going to start cleaning windows, washing skirting boards or scrubbing the top of the cupboards! If someone wants to describe me as a filthy minger for that, I really couldn't give a shit.
There has never been any extra time to do that after we have got the van packed, I've always had to hand the keys straight over.

I have moved into a mixture of clean and filthy places. I consider it a bonus when it is clean, but in all honesty, I'm still going to clean it myself before I move in properly. There was one place I moved into, where the previous occupants were being slow at getting out. We were waiting outside the house at 6pm wanting to get in. They were slow because she was insisting on cleaning so wasn't getting her stuff out. I told her to leave it because I didn't care and I just wanted to get in my house!

Clean & tidy - yes
Deep clean - not necessary

I once left a mess behingd because landlord was an arse

Do people really have small children at home on the day of a move?

Yes, I have done five moves with children at home (one of which was an international move as a newly widowed single parent). Some of us do not have anyone to call on for child care.

Do people really have small children at home on the day of a move?

Of course they do. Do you really think that everyone has family or friends who can/will take a day off work to look after children on the day of the move? I wouldn't ask anyone to do that just so that I could make the house "spotless" for the new owners.

It's amazing how many people on this thread have family to help and other people to look after their children - we're on our own completely!!! I will certainly be giving the bathrooms and kitchens a thorough clean in the days before we move and hopefully a quick once over on the day it'self but I'm not going to worry about dusty skirting boards.

'military brat' is an acronym Namechangeragain2014, BRitish Army Attached Traveller, used for the non-military family members. Beats 'Camp Follower'

Or 'excess baggage'.
We did use the term 'brat' in the Navy though, no acronym, just affectionate term for children.

I had my six month old son when we moved. Think the hoover was the last thing in the removal van - removal men stood round looking bemused as I buzzed round each room . My mum and dad came to the new house to help out. Didn't occur to me to send son to anyone else .

NameChangerAgain2014 in the Canadian military that (military/Army/Navy/Air Force brat) is just a generic lump-all term used for kids who grew up in that environment. It's not meant to be descriptive of character in any way. Cripes some people love to nit-pick and find offence everywhere.

I moved into a rented house at 34 weeks pregnant. I had a 2 year old.
I washed the kitchen floor 10 times - fresh water and flash liquid each time.
The water was still black.
I had to throw the mop away and buy a new one.

The muck on the inside of the windows was disgusting, the carpets were filthy and the bathroom was a health hazard. The toilet was blocked.

The previous occupants were health care professionals.

Do people really have friends and family round to take over the kids for every move?

The house we bought was simply shocking. Out side the front door was four car bowls and a bag of car food. That worried me. I then found she'd left...

four cats.

A hanger rail and frame in the front garden

Loads of crap in the gas meter cupboard

She had clearly not cleaned or done any house maintenance in the four months it took to exchange (it took four months because she tried to sell the house under her ex husbands nose)

Ten years at least worth of grime where the fridge would have been

The sink was completely blocked and she had disconnected it so it leaked all over the floor

I kept finding little pictures of her under carpets or when we did similar types of improvements for about a year

A concrete table and chairs in the back garden that her DP came back and collected two weeks later which led to him shouting at my neighbour and me sticking up for her telling him everything that had pissed me off for the last two weeks

A shed full of shit

I've always gone back to the old house to clean after moving out, apart from our long distance move, when we took the vacuum cleaner with us in the car. Maybe it's easier when it's rental?

Our removal firm had a cleaning service. For 80 they cleaned as they emptied, room by room, washing paintwork, inside cupboard, windows, everything. Compared to the cost of moving house it was cheap, and such a relief to leave it nice for the next people.

Ha! I'll see your stories of muck, grime and filth and raise you pubes in the kitchen cupboards. Amongst the onion skins.
Have spent 4 years worrying about their sex life.

'military brat' is an acronym Namechangeragain2014, BRitish Army Attached Traveller, used for the non-military family members. Beats 'Camp Follower'

You sure? It's used over here in the USA too. Though, it's more a term of endearment/lifestyle than an insult to military kids.

Yanbu left our maisonette spotless the house we bought pure mank. I was 8 months pregnant luckily mum helped dh and I clean it. Sellers were terribly grand 50 something sisters - too posh to scrub and too tight to pay for a cleaner it seemed...

We are ex-military and got used to being 'marched out' of quarters. Everything had to be spotless and any furniture had to be in the same state as when we moved in. YANBU.