to think strangers shouldn't poke through my cupboards?

[Arum51]

Need some advice here on whether things have changed in the past 20 or so years.

Put my house on the market yesterday. First couple came round tonight. Seemed nice, but... they opened all the cupboards and poked around! "Just seeing how far back it goes". WTF?

It's been 20 years or so since I bought or sold a house. Have things changed? I would never have started opening cupboards etc, particularly on a first visit!

AIBU, is this how things are now, or were these people the CFs they seemed to be?!

I remember one house had a cupboard that turned out to be just a door with no shelves behind it. There was a wall behind it because of an alcove in another room but that wasn't obvious from the shape of the kitchen. So you opened a door onto a few pipes and a wall.

Owner said it made the wall look better than just pipes going up it.

@Hygge

Thanks for that, it's really useful info. Will bear it in mind!

I would have thought they would at least ask permission in a “Do you mind if I have a look? I’ve got a [rather large item] that would need to fit in there” sort of way.

You could only say no and that may be detrimental to the sale, though if they really liked it I can’t see why, but it should be your decision, not theirs.

I guess if where the OP is there are dozens of properties selling immediately then that's quite different

Yes, that's pretty much the situation. Housing shortage, but still quite a healthy market.

Yeh we're on the market and one of the things I did was give the kitchen cupboards a good sort out. I expect people to open and have a nose of any built in storage and appliances, I wouldn't expect them to have a look at freestanding units like the fridge, or chest of drawers in the bedroom.

Having a good old nosey at boilers and heating systems is important too.

There's a difference between poking around the stuff in the cupboard and checking for dimensions.

You can eyeball dimensions without touching the things in a cupboard.

Where I live, buyers are taken to viewings by their EA who represents them in negotiations. After a contract is offered an inspector representing the buyers does a thorough, no holds barred inspection of all mechanical elements, structural elements, and gives a report that then forms the basis of negotiations or causes the buyers to walk away.

Oooh, I'm guilty of this - I open just about every cupboard and door in any house we've looked at, turn the taps and shower on too to check water pressure - I have always asked before I do it though. And just about everyone who went through our house when we sold three months ago did the same thing.

Sorry OP but you'll have to toughen up a little if you want to sell you house. Maybe years ago people's good manners overrode common sense to have a thorough look at things but experience has taught me to open cupboards, run taps, flush toilets, check under sinks, test how windows open/close etc...

Kitchen cupboards could look perfectly fine from the front but inside they could reveal all manner of things when opened - botched installation, wood that's rotting etc... Years ago I learned my lesson when my DH and rented a house after only one look around where we didn't open the cupboards. Within a week of moving in I noticed that every single cup, dish, glass etc. placed in the kitchen cupboards developed an unpleasant musty smell so I had to rinse everything when I used it from a cupboard. It took some exhausting washing down all the interiors of the kitchen cupboards and repeatedly replacing boxes of baking soda as the musty smell never really went away (basically the cupboards needed replacing completely but we were only renting). Just remember it's not personal, these people don't know you and they clearly liked the look of your home enough to look in person.

Even if I'm buying something for a tenner I check it thoroughly, and I mean thoroughly. If they end up buying it you'll be glad they poked. You can't feel violated when selling, I'm sure if you're buying you'll want a good poke too........ooh sorry that sounds rude. 😂

Nobody cares what's in the cupboards, they just want to assess condition and capacity.
Absolutely reasonable.

Wow CFs imo OP!

I have to admit, I'd check cupboards and kitchen interiors too. Few things we've seen:

-a row of 3 cupboards in a hall where the third was actually just an access to massive building pipes (so totally unusable!)
-same flat - row of 3 cupboards where one was actually a hidden boxroom
-Kitchen where the fronts and worktops have been replaced but the carcasses were blown, falling apart and needing replaced.
-what looked like a wall of built in wardrobes (awesome storage you'd think) but actually had a corner cut off diagonally and a fireplace inside it so was half the size it looked from the outside

Especially in a smaller kitchen there's a huge difference between a bunch of units which just have shelves and ones which have well planned (and more expensive) interiors

You also don't know which cupboards are actually usable and which are holding things like boilers/water tanks etc. Our old flat was very deceptive for this and you could easily have thought there was loads of storage only to get a nasty surprise!

You're welcome OP.

I'd also suggest asking them to show you how to work any appliances that are staying.

Even if that means putting on the heating or the gas fire for a few minutes in this heat.

And ask where things are plugged in and try to have a look at the plugs and power points if you can, especially in kitchens and living rooms.

That way you will know if they've got fifteen things plugged into one socket.

Now that I am a homeowner I'd be reaching to the back of cupboards too.

yabu

of course buyers look into cupboards, especially built in ones. would be stupid not to, considering ghis is the biggest purchase most people make in their whole life.

and so should you when looking for a new place!

Yes. I would look in cupboards. Our current kitchen looks new ( new worktop/ doors/ tiles/ floor but the actual carcasses are OLD and ithe kitchen has just had a cheap makeover really. Dreading selling our paper over the cracks house!

BtW, I'd also want the shower turned on during viewing. Bitter experience of dribbling water.

Op your second post is very reasonable! Glad the other responses helped.
One of my friends works with an agency that 'stages' properties for sale - and while they do all kinds of beautiful decor with tiny beds that make everything look expansive and expensive, she said
the key things that we can all do are to anonymise the house (take away pictures of your family etc - they want to imagine themselves there and not you), declutter as much as humanly possible, and most importantly to stay away while people tour. Again, they want their house and not yours, and as others have said it's really off putting when the owner is watching you beady eyed and apparently wants you to hand over hundreds of thousands of pounds to them without ever turning on the upstairs shower to check if it is more than a trickle...

Good luck with the sale!

This is so eye opening! I'm going to be buying myself, so some of these horror stories are making me determined to be as CF as I need to be

My house is really high spec, so no mould, no shit kitchen cabinets, everything well designed to make the most of the space. I've lived here 20 years - of course I wanted proper storage! I genuinely hadn't thought of all this stuff.

God, what I minefield I'm walking into.

If it’s any consolation I would also feel aggrieved. And I used to work for an estate agent.

Second viewing I might expect a more rigorous inspection but by that time they are showing a degree of commitment. First viewing no fucking way. It’s RUDE!

I specifically told our EA (of the appointments in which she did the viewing) not to let anyone open any cupboards/wardrobes. All of the shit that lived in my house which needed to be cleared away to present a show home was shoved in them and there was a very real possibility it would have come crashing down and caused an actual injury. A bedroom wardrobe avalanche nearly claimed me as a victim more than once and I knew it was there!

We looked round a new build show house near us just for fun.

Behind a full sized door cupboard was max 1 foot of depth and only 3/4 height of door!

second viewing?
second viewing here is for measuring up after offer accepted...

op, yes to opening cupboards and to taking a tape measure to measure furniture in small rooms.

when we viewed the bed in a 'single' bedroom turned out to be only toddler bed size (cleverly made up to look like a normal single bed)

What Hygge said. The EA is there to sell the place and get a commission, your job as the buyer is to make sure it's all ship shape - caveat emptor. Having been burned many times in both rental and purchased properties, I'm not there as the vendor's guest, but to make a serious financial commitment that I will be paying for. I'm not particularly bothered if they think I'm rude when I'm there working like a donkey to pay the mortgage and the vendor is long gone and I'm a distant memory to them. Due to the nature of my job, I usually have to take time off work to go to even first viewings, so I make sure it's worth a second viewing by being as thorough as possible before I go a second time.

Gosh I wouldn’t buy ANYTHING without checking it out thoroughly, let alone the biggest purchase of my life! If I was selling my own house and had an issue with seeing people poking around it (which I would expect them to do if they were buying), I’d get an estate agent to sort it and are sure I was out for viewings. When we bought our house we even had a good nose in the loft. Unfortunately we missed a couple of things the owners kept well hidden (which led to a leak) but we’d have only noticed that if we investigated under the bath ... and we’d have needed to take the side of the bath off to do that. Cue plumbing issue a few Mo this later. Oh well, we’ll know for next time. But seriously, I would fully expect anything that is ‘included’ in the purchase to be scrutinised. As others have said, it’s very different if they were going through a free standing chest of drawers...