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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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 Smile).

Anyway at about 2pm a car pulled up outside and the old owners got out Shock. 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 Blush

OP posts:
shadowfax07 · 23/08/2015 03:26

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-18637014.html

This is the house I grew up in, I don't even recognise it now. My mum designed it, and had it built for our family. We had a wonderful mahogany staircase, the sort with just treads. I used to sit on one, doing my colouring in on the next step up, feet dangling.

This is the only house I want to shout 'WTF have you done?' at the owners, although I'd have been quite upset if the new owners of my last house had dug up the plants in the front garden and just left them to die, I put a lot of time, effort and love into it.

MammaTJ · 23/08/2015 05:29

I rent from a HA and moved from a 2 bed mid terrace to a 3 bed detached. I am telling you this so you realise I have no particular emotional attachment to the old house.

I went round to genuinely check if there was any post and the woman handed it to me (on the doorstep, as expected) and proceeded to tell me how awful the decor was in the 'main bedroom'.

DD had been 2 when we moved in, stepD was 13. They had to share a room when stepD was there. She chose yellow, with Winnie the Pooh stick arounds (easily removable). We had the smaller room!

I hadn't asked/enquired/tried to take a look at all, so I have no idea why she felt the need to mention it!

lazycoo · 23/08/2015 07:15

I had this! I bought my first flat from an art teacher. The main bedroom was painted in a dark chocolate, floor to ceiling. The woodwork throughout was painted in matte grey emulsion. It took ages but I renovated the place, putting in heating, sanding the floors, new kitchen etc. and changed the colour scheme to normal. Then thr previous owner turned up. She was going to church across the road. She came in and I offered her a cuppa. All v awkward as she said through gritted teeth a number of stock compliments about the place.

TheCatsMother99 · 23/08/2015 08:17

YANBU. It was weird for them to come back.

Glad the previous owners of my house didn't turn back up again (was hard enought getting them to actually get their stuff and get out in the first place) because I'd done the same as you and ripped up carpets and peeled paper off walls or marked it with paint to force us to change the wall colour ASAP almost as soon as they actually left.

Inertia · 23/08/2015 08:56

We had to get the flat roof repaired on an inaccessible balcony repaired because it was leaking, and the roofers removed the rusty and decrepit railings to do so. The relief postman was outraged that we had 'got rid of the Juliet balcony' as he knew the former owners.

GoblinLittleOwl · 23/08/2015 09:00

It is your house and you can change it how you like, but previous owners think their taste is perfect and do get resentful.

A friend still gets resentful when she drives past her previous house, sold 12 years ago, because the new owners replaced the windows, altered the drive and cut down the roses.

I visited newly moved friends, profusely admired their choice of wallpaper until they told me it was the previous owners and would be removed as soon as possible. When we arrived in the dining room I laughed loudly at the Indian Restaurant decor; they told me through clenched teeth this was the only room they had managed to decorate. I wasn't invited back.

pictish · 23/08/2015 09:08

Can't imagine why anyone would be offended that the new owners of their old house want to redecorate to their own tastes.
How self important do you have to be, to think your own taste should be embraced and preserved by others?

Although I do remember when I was a child how my useless, alcoholic father managed to lose our lovely family home by losing his job through his drinking and flakiness, and my parents were forced to move to a smaller house in dire need of renovation.
My mum and I visited a friend who lived across the road from the old house soon after, and lo and behold the solid fuel woodburning Raeburn stove my mum had spent three years saving up for but was unable to take with her, was sitting outside in the garden rusting in the rain, having been torn out by the new owners.
My poor mum did cry bitterly at the sight of it. The waste, the dashed dreams, the stupidity of ripping it out and leaving it to rust, rather than selling it on. She was gutted. I'm welling up in pity just thinking about it now.

Of course, she certainly didn't approach those responsible, but yes, she had a good few choice words about what a bunch of fuckwits they were.

FarelyKnuts · 23/08/2015 09:14

Our neighbours sold us our house and built across the road from us.
We got rid of the hideous red carpets, pink walls and heavy red drapes ASAP.
But it has only just occurred to me now that my neighbour who drops in regularly for a glass of wine was possibly secretly horrified Grin
If so she has been much too polite to say anything!

Cocolepew · 23/08/2015 09:27

Do these people move house and not redecorate then? Or do they think its ok for them because they are the only ones with taste Confused.
Thats sad about your mums woodburner pictish Flowers

Cocolepew · 23/08/2015 09:27

Do these people move house and not redecorate then? Or do they think its ok for them because they are the only ones with taste Confused.
Thats sad about your mums woodburner pictish Flowers

pictish · 23/08/2015 09:43

Thanks.
Yes I suppose they must be so full of themselves as to believe that others should appreciate and preserve their taste in wallpaper and floor coverings and gratefully live with them forever more. There's no other explanation for such inappropriate behaviour.

Jux · 23/08/2015 10:27

Pictish, your poor mum. She had every right to feel gutted about that Flowers. 3 years of saving! What an awful waste.

MsAdorabelleDearheartVonLipwig · 23/08/2015 10:29

We left a lovely garden behind in our old house. Dh spent a lot of time and effort on it and it looked an absolute picture. We are still good friends with our old neighbours and they told us that a family had moved in with two beagle dogs. The dogs were left outside all day on their own whilst the owners were at work and out of sheer boredom and neglect had totally destroyed the garden. I made the mistake of peeping through the fence when we visited our friends one day. I was actually horrified. The grass was dug up and dead and all that was left of the beautiful flower beds was a few chewed dead stumps from the shrubs.

I'd love the previous owners of our current house to pop in. We could discuss the dodgy electrics, the missing sockets, the crap utility room, the strange plumbing, the rotten windows, god there's tons of things I'd like to ask them! I'd also like to ask them why they obviously spent a fortune on putting granite all over the kitchen and then laid such a cheap crappy laminate floor.

They rented it out before they sold it to us. The sister of the previous tenant called in one day as we started receiving nhs post for them for some reason. I answered the door and she just breezed in like she owned the place and poked her head in each room to have a look and comment. Why are previous owners so bloody familiar? I can't believe what the fuckwits at our old house have done to the garden but I wouldn't dream of saying anything.

puddymuddles · 23/08/2015 10:39

The people who bought ur old flat ripped out a perfectly new kitchen. they were very wealthy and just buying it as a 2nd home so I guess they just wanted their own thing. I can't say I was bothered except for a fleeting thought that if I had that money I would spend it on something more useful!! Think I am just jealous of the money I don't care about the kitchen!

it's your house and their reaction a bit odd.

puddymuddles · 23/08/2015 10:39

*our

Ruhrpott · 23/08/2015 11:11

We got the keys to this house at 5 pm, handed over by the owner at the house before he left and we had ripped out a fitted wardrobe by 10 pm! Since then we have ripped out all the carpets and curtains and given them to the gardener, who also gardens for the previous owners at their new house. Not sure what they think of all this. I know the gardener has told them we ripped out their marble monstrosity fireplace and put a log burner in.
I know where he works and have often thought I should pop in and tell him the causes of all the leaks he had covered up and we have now repaired, even though he is a surveyor and should have been able to find the causes himself.

pictish · 23/08/2015 11:25

Thanks. My mum was a great cook and baker, and that Raeburn log burning range cooker was her pride and joy. I think it symbolised waste - primarily the time she had wasted being married to my waster of a father.

pigsDOfly · 23/08/2015 12:33

God, those elephant knicker blinds are truly scary, and yes, they really do look like elephants' knickers.

NotAWhaleOmeletteInSight · 23/08/2015 13:32

Ha! How rude of them. I wouldn't dream of turning up like that. YANBU. If they come back, look exasperated and mystified and don't let them in.

DonkeysDontRideBicycles · 23/08/2015 14:05

(He) 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.

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!

Extraordinary!
I wouldn't expect anyone to retain our interiors but felt a pang when one former neighbour said that our front garden had been paved over for off road parking. There was a drive and garage but evidently insufficient.

50shadesofmeh · 23/08/2015 15:19

The previous owner of our house came to collect some stuff he had left and i was using the old curtains as dust sheets, very awkward ha ha

Jux · 23/08/2015 15:25

pigsdofly, these elephant knickers? img1.etsystatic.com/062/1/5146319/il_340x270.754015923_97sp.jpg Grin

HellKitty · 23/08/2015 18:26

Jux!!!
Not exactly those but they are a darn sight prettier!

pigsDOfly · 23/08/2015 19:06

JuxGrin

Junosmum · 23/08/2015 21:28

Boy you get started quickly!

It was nice of them to come round and show you how to work the boiler nad stuff but I can totally understand you feeling uncomfortable. I certainly would.

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