To think cleaning up after the old homeowners is never ending!

[TartanDr3ams]

I dont just mean dirt (but the house was bloody filthy when we moved in!)

We purchased a house and got the keys 7 months ago but I feel like were constantly rectifying the old homeowners issues still to this date.

Maybe we werent thorough enough on the visits but on a look it sempt like most things were just cosmetic (sticky lino, horrid decor etc).. the kind of things you expect to have to do when you move. But it seems thats its much more than that.

4 days after getting the keys we realised the drains were badly blocked. As home owners, despite it only being 4 days, we had a hefty fine to the local water board for unblocking mainly caused by flushed nappies.. we dont have children yet ( :( boo). Weve found toys lodged in weird places, plastic forks and nerf guns melted in the radiator grooves. All the light fittings had the wrong bulb wattage so pretty much every bulb blew in the first few weeks. The guttering was held together with masking tape that obviously didnt hold well. They "did us a favour" by leaving us the dishwasher (with free food chunks inside pukes) but it turns out it was cause it was so poorly wired in that it was just a hastle to remove. The loft is still home to some of their crap etc. Altho been checked safe, the electrics are awful..they swapped out good plugs for silly gadets and left fuse boxes all over. Took the electric fire out to wire it the opposite side so it reaches a plug and the chimney breast just had loads of rubbish in (screwed up magazines, empty nappy box etc). One of the worst is that we have just had the bathroom flooring changed so took the bath panel side off to find that the bath is actually propped up with a snapped off bit of fishing rod..

I really have bought a house from the real bodge it and scarper havent i...

Oh gosh! Sounds like a common theme!!

Eeek the jacuzzi bath story is awful! I knew they were unhygenic as i helped a friend clean hers when she moved and saw the grime build up..but not nearly as bad as your story!!!

Were looking at new living room and stair carpets and im terrified to see whats under..floorboards blu tacked down or something....

We have been in ours just under a year. We bought it vacant (off an old lady) it didn’t seem too bad when we viewed but when we got the keys we began to regret it. It stank of cat pee as they had used a corner of living room as a litter tray. 4 bottles of bleach to clean the kitchen floor we discovered the floor was blue not black! I showered wearing flip flops as bathroom was grim. We ended up not moving in straight away and got the builders in to completely gut it and start again.

We also were left with junk in house and garage. The rules are the property has to be cleared so one call to the solicitor and Vendor was forced to send a man and a van to clear it for us at her expense

I assume you got it at a good price though.

You are not alone! Our vendors left us 'a few bits to get you started'. Actually a loft and garage full of crap, curtains and carpets full of moths, a kitchen that hadn't been cleaned in several years (including food spills down inside drawers), clothes in the fitted wardrobes, and a fucking skip on the driveway which wasn't due to be collected for another week. I took great pleasure in over filling the skip and making sure the vendors were charged for it.
About 18 months after we moved in she sent her SIL round to ask for her clothes out of the wardrobe and sent me a really shirty email because I'd chucked them!
And the patio window onto the balcony which came off its runners on opening and nearly tipped DH down two stories!

Oh tara cat pee is an awful smell to get rid of too! We didnt move in right away either.

Never realised the rules in clearing.. but we didnt get on with our solicitors either so we were kind of glad to not contact them again!

mummyoflittledragon the price was reasonable but nothing less than other similar sized houses in the area. As said above, a lot of the issues were found once moving in and couldnt be seen om viewing.

Argh! I wish I hadn't clicked on this thread!

We just tentatively bought a house across the country (I live in a very large country). I'm going fly over to view it this Friday with the home inspector and, based on this thread, will be looking very carefully at everything. All the same, I'll be very nervous when we finally move to our new home!

@JohnLapsleyParlabane we had our vendor send a neighbour round and ask for her white emulsion she had left In the shed about 6 months after we moved in the cf!

@TartanDr3ams if you ever have junk left again one quick call to the estate agent and it gets sorted. I just informed my solicitor just in case.

We bought a house just like this - the problems were never ending and indeed expensive.

Eventually we bit the bullet after 2.5 years and just sold up and moved. Best decision we've ever made.

I feel everyone's pain. Our previous house was like this. On our first visit the owner showed us round. He seemed pleasant enough and said 'This will be different! Most people show you all the good things about their houses. I'm going to show you all the bad things...'

I didn't entirely believe him at the time but six months later when we finally moved in we realised that the few, very minor things he'd pointed out were but drops in the ocean. He'd suggested there was a bit of redecoration needed. He hadn't thought to mention that the wallpaper in the kitchen was held up with blutac because the plaster was so damp that the wallpaper paste wouldn't stick.

That was just the start. They'd had two big dogs. The garden had really just been a big dog toilet. Every carpet and curtain in the house stank of dog. They'd left us a broken down mustard-coloured sofa which stank of dog. Every surface in the kitchen, including the ceiling and the hideous fluorescent tube light thereon, was covered in a thick layer of dirty grease. So the first job had to be a deep clean.

In due course we had the entire house dampproofed and replastered, replaced all the electrics (the fuseboard started to smoke one afternoon, fortunately a Saturday so we were there and could call the electricity board out immediately), all the plumbing (there had been no central heating) and bathroom fittings, the roof, all the windows, all the carpets and curtains, new kitchen, the works. It cost us a small fortune.

We were very naive, with hindsight. That was 30 years ago. Never again.

What is wrong with people? I've never had anything quite as bad as this but the first house we bought was pretty filthy. It looked more or less OK on a surface level but not when we started opening drawers etc. It's not a good way to treat someone who has just bought your home.

Whenever I've moved out of a place I've left it spotless. It's a matter of pride as well as courtesy.

The previous owner of ours had been a DIY fanatic. Unfortunately he wasn't very good at DIY and didn't know what he was doing with electrics - thankfully my DF does and went round making things safe as we found them - we're talking live exposed wires here in one place and general dodgyness.

Bathroom had been 'dry-lined' by screwing plasterboard straight onto tiles - now I'm not an expert, but I know that's not how you dry-line something. They got damp and bits turned to mouldy mush.

When we moved the furniture they'd left behind (fine with that, didn't have to buy drawers or a wardrobe) we found he'd touched up the magnolia paint on the wall, painting round the furniture. What also became obvious was he'd touched up matt magnolia with gloss magnolia. That took a lot of coats to paint over.

Lots of other bits and pieces - anything he'd attached to wall was hell to get out because all the screws had ended up 's' shaped. Sort of built in cupboards in the bedroom that went on each side of the bed and across the ceiling were essentially just balanced on two bedside tables. He'd added in a toilet upstairs, turns out he was no better as a plumber than he was an electrician and one of the pipes hadn't been properly soldered in place. And so on.

It got very tiring.

We've got similar in the place we bought last year. We knew we were taking on a doer upper, but some of the plumbing in the attic has left even our v experienced plumbing firm speechless.

Just remember, you will get things sorted and one day it will be as you want it (& repeat).

We bought a house where the vendors had already moved out, and we found on moving-in day that the kitchen sink was producing a grim smell. The next day we investigated and had to flush the drain, which was blocked. When the manhole cover in the garden was opened a solid rectangle of human waste rose up two foot out of the hole!!! My DH and Dad had to use shovels to dig out all the shit so that we could rod the drains.

Filthy buggers must have known the drains were blocked and just left it for us to deal with.

findigask me too! I was so shocked as some of the dirt and grime left behind!!! Food in the dishwasher really got me!

From the replies in this thread it really makes me quite grateful that they only had a pet hamster rather than cats and dogs!!!!

OMG

I was planning to put my house on the market next week. Now need to think again.

I had a nightmare when moving into this house, rotten floorboards, a cylinder that fell through the floor it had been leaking onto for 20 years, woodworm that the Surveyor missed, non working central heating and piles of rubbish left to 'help me out'. It has taken me 8 years and £0,000's to sort it all out, but it seems it could have been, far, far, worse.

Perhaps I just need to stay put !!!

We bought our house last May. It had been extended and looked ok.

It turns out whoever did the extension bodged it.

The boiler isnt installed properly, one of the back doors needs replacing as it wasn't installed properly and is now buggered. The facias all need replacing even the new ones and the roof on the extension is crap which is why we had a birds nest in the loft!

Sorry you've had this OP.

Money spent on a drain survey will be the best money anyone ever spends on buying a house. So speaks the voice of experience...!

Am also just wondering what sort of fucking headcase flushes a nappy.

Oh we had this.

On moving day they took 3 hours after completion to move out. This was because they had hired a box van for a 3 bed house so had to keep bringing the van back for reload. We sat there for 3 hours waiting to get in.

The central heating system was drained when I got in. Realised quickly that the Hot water tank leaked. Integral Fridge freezer didn't work. They took a mirror from the bathroom wall and left bare wires hanging out. Left a load of shit in the garage. Wood worm in the airing cupboard then 3 weeks later the cold water tank leaked and come through the bedroom ceiling. Seems they damaged it in the move and patched it up with fibreglass.

Now some years later I discover the conservatory footings were dug too shallow and the plug sockets behind the kitchen cabinets are hanging off the wall and were never fixed in.

Skanky fuckers.

I forgot a little gem from our current house. We had some work done here too - nothing like as bad as the previous place, we had learned! - but there were lots of places where pipes had been boxed in in strange ways. On taking down one bit of boxing, the builder found that there was no pipework there, just a cold chisel sticking out of the wall. We have to assume that some previous DIY enthusiast was trying to use it, the chisel got stuck and rather than sort it out properly he built the little box to hide it from view. I wish we had got a picture of it.

Worst thing here was finding that when the roof was replaced in the 70s, rather than get rid of the slates properly, they'd just been left in the loft. No wonder the timbers up there were bowing.

Literally could have written this myself OP, I feel for you. We had a lot of the same issues you've had with electrics, the drains. Our sellers also absolutely horrendously effed up the rendering, so we're having to pay a fortune to get that fixed. The worst one for me cleaning wise was when I cleaned under the range cooker they'd happily left for us - I found a whole host of plastic childrens toys that had half melted AND loads of food that had obviously fallen under it when they'd been cooking. Lots of mouldy bits of unidentifiable food and a KFC buckets worth of (what I'm praying was) old chicken bones vom...

OMG tell me about it. My DD,her DP and their DD moved into a housing association flat in March last year. They were told that it had been thoroughly cleaned and was immediately habitable. My arse was it. Thankfully they were living with me at the time so they didn't have to move into the new place immediately,but could spend a bit of time getting it cleaned up. The following is just a small sample of what they had to do:-
Scrub every single floor in the place as there was a thick layer of dirt on the floor.
Disinfect the shower cubicle as it was absolutely filthy.
Clean all the windows as you could barely see out of some of them they were so dirty.
Clean out every single cupboard in the kitchen as there were food stains,bits of food and ants in them.
Scrub the toilet within an inch of it's life.
Clean every bit of paintwork before re-painting as there were black marks and grease all over it.
Use a steam cleaner on the kitchen work tops as they were so grimy. They had to ask the council to send an electrician round as the lights kept flickering.

Then they had the task of getting all their furniture in. The flat is on the 4th floor,with a lift obviously,and thankfully the majority of it fitted in the lift. All except their big 3 seater leather sofa. The 2 seater just fitted in the lift,upended,but the 3 seater was having none of it. It took 4 people nearly an hour to get it up 8 flights of stairs. Oh what fun that was.

All this took the best part of 3 weeks,fitting it in around their work and roping in friends and family to help out where possible. But they made it in the end. It was well worth it,the flat looks lovely now.

We have lived with this too, the old home owner was a builder and I would never buy from a builder again. He had bodged everything and it's been one thing after another. He also left us his old toilet brush - a site I can never forget...

My PIL had this recently too. Moved into a fairly modern house, seemed a bit shabby but nothing too obviously wrong. Almost everything has needed work, so far they've replaced the boiler, both bathrooms, the kitchen, have had plumbers and electricians aghast at the bodged diy of the former owner. They had some electrics checked in an under stairs storage space only to be told the staircase was being held up in places by little splints of wood and expanding foam. The day they moved in it took them about 30 minutes to get the front door open as the lock was buggered and the back door had a key broken off in it. Oh, and the vendors had decided to take most of the light fittings with them, so having finally got into the house hardly any of the lights worked, but there were live wires everywhere. MIL was apparently very upset and wanted to 'go home' I.e back to her old house. These are people in their 80's.