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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To have found this a bit awkward?

132 replies

GarthAlgar · 22/08/2015 16:00

I got the keys to my first house yesterday. The people who I bought it off were very house proud and you could tell they loved the colour scheme in the house, the carpets etc. I got up at 7 today and have spent the day stripping wallpaper and went to b&q to get paint. I also cut the carpet downstairs because it's hideous and I was hoping there'd be lovely flagstones under because it's an old cottage (and there was ).

Anyway at about 2pm a car pulled up outside and the old owners got out . Said they'd come round in case I had any questions about the boiler etc even though they told me everything on the phone yesterday. They came into the living room and there was a really long horrible silence whilst they surveyed all the walls with wallpaper ripped off and the carpet that I'd slashed with a Stanley knife. He then went upstairs to show me something on the boiler and saw that I'd painted the walls in the bedroom and ripped off the horrible boudoir wallpaper. He made some comment about me making my mark very quickly.

Aibu to think they put me in a bit of an awkward situation?! I still felt like it was their house a bit

OP posts:

Canyouforgiveher · 22/08/2015 17:26

congratulations on your new home.

We became friendly with a man who grew up in our home (shared hobby with DH) and he often drops over for various reasons. He didn't say anything when he came over after I painted all the woodwork white but I could tell from his face that he was hoping his poor mother wasn't turning in her grave.

My MIL sold her lovely, period but fairly dilapidated house a year or so ago and the new owner has done an amazing renovation on it. She drops by regularly to "check on her post" (owner doesn't live there yet but the builders/decorators give it to her) and is often quite sniffy about "the awful wallpaper" etc that she can see from the hall. Truth is, the place looks stunning but it is hard to see a home you lived in for decades being transformed into another person's vision.

By the way there is a program on HGTV in the US dealing with just this. They would follow a chain of buyers/sellers and then bring back the sellers to critique the new buyers changes. Was quite funny.

The people who bought my parents home (in our family for 75 years) offered to show me and my siblings around once they made changes. they understood we might be curious (one sibling was, I'm not)

nicestrongtea · 22/08/2015 17:29

The only time this happened to me I was unpacking shopping from the car when a young man (20?) stopped to talk to me and told me he had lived in the house when he was growing up.
He said he loved living there and was upset when he had to move away.
He asked me if I liked it there and when I said I loved it and so did my small children, he smiled and said I had made his day

NickiFury · 22/08/2015 17:32

This made me .

Can you imagine their conversation in the car on the way home? Beyond outraged I should think

marshmallowpies · 22/08/2015 17:33

The former owner of my DPs house moved about 5 doors up the road. They left behind a garden of concrete slabs and leylandii which my DM has gradually replaced with natural materials (dry stone wall & slate fence), fruit trees and wild flowers.

One year my mum took part in an open garden weekend in the village & overheard the ex owner bemoaning to another neighbour what had become of her lovely garden. Awkward. Luckily the ex owners have moved away completely now.

The ex owners of our house came round to collect post once and didn't want to be invited in - they were elderly and I genuinely thought they should come in and sit down for 5 mins, it was winter time & cold, but they wouldn't. It was their family home for 25 odd years, I can understand why they would want to feel like they'd handed it on to a new family and not come in, but I hated to think of them going away from their old home for the last time without setting foot over the threshold. Ah well. Just sentimental I guess.

scatterthenuns · 22/08/2015 17:35

That's so sweet nicestrongtea! That's the right way to comment on your old house!

nicestrongtea · 22/08/2015 17:38

I still see him passing by and he waves

mewkins · 22/08/2015 17:39

People are very protective of their old homes...when we looked round this house the owners kept going on about the lovely carpet. It wasn't.
Having said that, I went back to my old house to collect post that had escaped the redirect (the new owner text to ask me to collect) and I could see from the doorway that they had magnolia'd the lounge and it didn't look half as nice as when we lived there!

Clayhead · 22/08/2015 17:53

The man who had previously owned our last house came and cried when he saw his twenty year old bathroom in a skip; he was livid. Bad mouthed us to anyone who'd listen...

WitchOfAlba · 22/08/2015 17:57

The previous owners of our house would be upset as well, it was their pride and joy but we've taken up all the carpets, replaced all of the blinds and got rid of all the wallpaper and demolished their barbecue and shed. It's thankfully changed beyond all recognition, a real chuck out the chintz job.

AcrossthePond55 · 22/08/2015 17:57

When we bought our old farmhouse years ago the seller had useful bits and bobs of equipment and useful items here and there. He left most of it behind, which was fine with us. A final inspection before the sale was done at which time we all agreed that what was there, stayed there. Unfortunately about 3 months after the sale was completed he started 'popping round' when we weren't home to pick up items (usually tools or equipment) that he'd 'left behind', leaving us notes! We started locking the gate. Nope, he just went to the back pasture gate and continued. Finally had to send a 'cease and desist' letter reminding him that he had agreed that the sale was for all chattels on property. He was v v v v v surprised!

The crazy thing was that he didn't move to another farm. He was selling these items and in some cases we had already included a bit of money in the selling price to account for them!

Oh, and he also told his family that it was 'ok' for them to continue to pick fruit from the trees. And they gave us a rough time when we politely asked them what they were doing on the property.

queenrollo · 22/08/2015 18:02

The previous owners of our house moved to a smaller house in the village (which essentially is a main road with one residential lane leading off it, so very small).
We had no idea until we were walking the dogs and they said hello from the garden!

They lived here 40 years, can see the changes to the outside but have never ventured near the house again. We did see her in town after my youngest DS was born and when I told her i'd had him at home she was utterly delighted and told me her own son had been born in this house too.

We have made some massive changes but I think they would like what we've done as we have a lot in common (they were hippy bohemian types and we are too)

amarmai · 22/08/2015 18:02

wow garth- hope you find flagstones thru-out! Love the cool grey paint and pale wood in the pic. I have gone for that look in the livingroom. The bathroom has pale green sand blasted glass features that have made me wonder about Nile green -is it a pale cucumberish green ? agree re 1 feature wall in the bedroom.

NoArmaniNoPunani · 22/08/2015 18:20

Great thread. I like to think the previous owners of our house would be happy with the modernisation we've done. Perhaps I'm wrong.

ToadsforJustice · 22/08/2015 18:28

I found the couple that sold their house to us in our back garden one afternoon, helping themselves to the apples on the trees. When I challenged them, they said that the apples belong to them as they planted the trees!

Fluffyears · 22/08/2015 18:32

When my mother bought her house the fire didn't work so she called her lawyer and next thing the weird owners turned up on the doorstep and came in to sort out fire. When they moved they left behind a vile black ash TV unit and my mum had put it in the Garden to be collected by refuse. The man saw it through the patio doors and said 'oh is that out TV unit....well we'll just take that since you don't want it, we'll give it to Marie!' None of us have any idea who Marie is but lucky old her.

I always change locks when I move as the old owners may have given key out to family and friends previously. Just peace of mind.

Loki17 · 22/08/2015 18:41

We moved in to our house a year ago. The previous owners had lived here for 35 years and had done the house up for their retirement. However, due to a family issue they had to sell and move away. The house was decorated with different patterns of wall paper that had been painted white. They were so proud of it but I've stripped and painted every room. The funniest moment was when dh put a hedge in the front garden. He dug up a chunk of 5 he lawn and all of the neighbours kept stopping to tell dh how much the previous owner had loved the lawn!

Antlily · 22/08/2015 18:43

About 8 years after my parents bought their house, they were extending it to make a bedroom for my sister. The previous owner knocked on the door shouting and crying about 'what they were doing to her house'.

I think she had been made to move by her husband's job relocation but you'd think about 8 years she would have got over it.

Bogeyface · 22/08/2015 18:52

Telling you about the boiler my arse, they just wanted a nose!

My mum worked with the woman I bought my house from, she asked mum how things were going and mum just mentioned that we were eating there everynight for 2 weeks as the new kitchen was going in. She saw fuming, said that there was nothing wrong with the old (apart from the fact that it was falling apart and was a cheap 70's job. I wouldnt mind so much but before the sale was completed I had mentioned about the kitchen and her husband cheerfully sent me measurements so I could price up the new one!

tictactoad · 22/08/2015 18:55

Friends of ours had this happen. The guy just marched in when the front door was open for workmen and I thought it was beyond weird. I didn't realise it was an actual widespread thing until reading this thread

The closest we came was in our present house when the previous owner phoned me in a rage because we had registered a change of name and the new owner of our old house phoned me in a rage over some stopcock that had been turned off and could apparently have exploded dangerously at any time. It didn't occur to me until afterwards that he'd been in the place weeks and anyone could have turned it

chickenfuckingpox · 22/08/2015 19:11

i rented a house for eight years i did loads of work on my garden and kept it nice and tidy (in a floppy sort of way i like a garden to have soft edges) a family moved in after me and i went to see my friends a few months later it was a mess fire marks everywhere they ripped out plants and let the weeds grow they moaned it was too big and they couldn't maintain the lawn (what little they had not burnt) thing is it was easy to maintain i was a single parent it was literally prune occasionally and mow it i used to turn my back on the garden when i visited my old neighbours as i just cant stand to look at the mess they made

but im not rude enough to comment in real life its not my house anymore

Roussette · 22/08/2015 19:17

We reluctantly sold a house we had been in for 10 years and where all the DCs had been conceived (we moved to get our DCs into a really good school), I loved that house.

I have a friend still in the same place and had gone back to visit her and I had DCs in the car and we pulled up outside so I we could just look at where we used to live. Present owner was just coming out the house and recognised me and said "I bet you would love to look round, we love this house and we've changed it, but unfortunately I'm in a rush so come round another time and I'll show you round"

I didn't, I felt it was one step too far. It is just bricks and mortar after all and maybe I wouldn't like it.

Original poster

GarthAlgar · 22/08/2015 19:19

I'm enjoying all these replies of other crazy ex-house owners. I feel better thanks! And like tic had no idea it was a common thing

OP posts:

Cocolepew · 22/08/2015 19:22

These are bonkers

Jux · 22/08/2015 19:24

My parents sold the family home to a developer. It couldn't be knocked down as it was a semi, so it was converted into 4 flats and 2 bedsits. The developers invited my parents round to see it when it was finished. Mum said they'd ruined the proportions of all the rooms. I have a little fantasy of winning the lottery and buying each flat/bedsit back at twice the market value, and then turning it back into my old home. But actually, I hated the area, and half the garden's gone, and dd is 16 and won't appreciate moving there.

Best to leave it in my memory and spend the lottery win on something I actually want

I wish you luck and happiness in your new home, Garth.

Original poster

GarthAlgar · 22/08/2015 19:38

Yes Jux, I think some things are better left preserved in memory where they can't be ruined. Thank you, that's very kind

OP posts:

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