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?

We once moved in to a place to find a cheery note from the former occupants saying they were sorry they hadn't finished cleaning, but their vacuum cleaner had exploded halfway through. I'm not sure why they thought they'd need a vacuum cleaner to get their pubes off the toilet seat and out of the bathtub, or the mould off the tiles, or their dried shit stains out of the toilet pan, or to wash the dirt off the kitchen floor and the ledges of built up grime marking where their appliances used to be. Weirdly, it never occurred to me to use a vacuum cleaner to clean up that kind of thing. If that's what they thought Hoovers are for, no wonder they never got anything clean!

It also seems that they never actually used their vacuum cleaner for cleaning the floors in any event. There were inches of dust and lint built up on top of all of the skirting boards, and we had to get in a professional carpet cleaner who still couldn't shift all the filth and stains on the carpets as they were so bad.

We ended up having to replace the flooring in most rooms. When we moved out, we hired someone to do a deep clean of the place as a courtesy to the new occupants (although we kept the place in good nick anyway!).

We are moving out of our flat on Friday!!!

When we bought it, 7 years ago, the vendors had left it spotlessly clean. I intend to do the same.

Eugh! burblish

When we moved in to our current flat, there was blood on the walls from where someone had been stabbed in a drug deal gone wrong apparently.

I think MrsWinnibago wins the thread - it puts our scummy smokers walls into perspective!

Had I known that would happen when I was scrubbing it off in my marigolds, I would have felt a lot better about it Callani

Our new house looked clean but after an hour of crawling about on the floor our DD looked like she was wearing gloves and socks! I don't think the carpets had been hoovered in years so the surface looked clean but it had all been trampled down.

Luckily we had our things in storage so had an empty house for a week so hired a carpet cleaner, but we needed pretty much every hour of that week to clean. Took 4 washes to clean the inside of cupboards etc, was so demoralising.

I will definitely do the same re storage next time we move, as it would have been impossible to clean as deeply as was needed with furniture.

Dolly my friend's house is like that. It's SO tidy and organised but when you look, you see the floors are filthy and the cupboards are never wiped in the kitchen so they're all greasy. If you move an ornament, it's all manky and leaves a ring where it stood!

Leaving their stuff behind is very bad. Maybe ring the agent and ask them to collect it?

Leaving cat shit etc obviously totally unhygienic and should have been cleaned up. The rest of it I would definitely do my best to clean up but it's bit more down to personal preference. Actually moving out does cause a lot of dirt (behind furniture etc) and there is a lot do so it may go down the priority list. The last house we moved into the cleaners were there cleaning when we arrived. It was still very dusty and took ages to clean. They just hadn't done a good job. Not the vendor's fault though.

MrsWinnibago it certainly taught me that appearances can be deceptive! I can still remember running my fingers over the front of the cupboards and them feeling like rubber bands due to the grease! We actually thought the cupboards were cream but turns out they were white all along (boak).

I believe in leaving things as you would like to find them. We had cleaners in to do MiL's bungalow and got a message from the purchasers thanking us for leaving it so clean.
Our first house was filthy when we moved in. They had cats and we didn't know DH was allergic to cats until that point. I had to hoover the walls and scrub the floors with bleach and it took ages before he could breathe easily.
When we moved to the house we live in now we were anticipating having to clean again, but it was spotless and we were so relieved.

Dolly I know! I was shocked when I realised...I'd gone a long time thinking she was the epitome of clean and then realised all her time went in tidying and organising to the detriment of the cleanliness. I'm untidy but clean! I hoover and mop daily...cupboards get a swift wipe daily or as needed....bathroom is cleaned regularly too!