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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Would you buy a house if the owners had buried their pets in the garden?

146 replies

baddayattheoffice · 13/01/2019 10:21

So, you've found a house you love, you've exchanged contracts and during a visit to measure the windows the owners drop it into the conversation that they had buried their deceased pets in the garden. Would this put you off buying the house, and if it put you off to the extent that you no longer wanted to buy it, (for example you wanted to dig out for an extension) what would you do?

OP posts:

PositivelyPERF · 13/01/2019 11:26

That’s so sweet cuppycakey. What a nice bunch of chaps.

tillytrotter1 · 13/01/2019 11:27

Never occurred to me to mention it when we were selling, I had a job on to stop OH digging him up and taking him with us!

Welltroddenpath · 13/01/2019 11:27

We bought and are building a extension on ex chapel land. I was worried about graves and we went down 2.5 metres due to neighbors trees. All was fine.
Soil is just decomposed dead stuff mostly anyway, plants, leaves, insects etc. It’s nature.

Rudgie47 · 13/01/2019 11:28

It would bother me if human bodies were buried in the garden but not pets bodies. Years ago everyone buried their pets in the garden.

If it was years ago there will be very little left due to decomposition anyway.

FridgeFullOfChocolate · 13/01/2019 11:29

We nearly bought a house that had their dog in the garden it had a plaque where it was! To be honest I didn’t really care about the dog in the garden we were more perplexed that they had built a shower for their dog, it was waist height. The dog had it’s own bathroom.

The dog in the garden wasn’t the reason we didn’t buy it, the house was great but I couldn’t live with a garden that got zero sun in summer.

Belenus · 13/01/2019 11:30

We buried guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, cats and dogs in our back garden when I was a child. Most of the time when we dug a grave we'd find something else down there as well.

The plants grew really well. It's all just natural recycling. Big dogs recently buried might be a grim find though, and I'd want to know more precisely where and what the previous owners would want done with them.

Childsupport · 13/01/2019 11:30

Yes. Sounds like the remains will be dug up for the extension anyway, so there won't be a dead animal there soon!

jenthelibrarian · 13/01/2019 11:30

Ewww....anything larger than a guinea-pig should be cremated and just the ashes buried, IMHO.
Our cat's ashes are under a paving slab of the path up the garden.
If you can afford to keep a big pet you an afford a decent hygienic disposal.

Belenus · 13/01/2019 11:31

we were more perplexed that they had built a shower for their dog, it was waist height. The dog had it’s own bathroom.

Having had 3 dogs that frequently rolled in fox shit, I think a doggy bathroom is a great idea. Washing out our own bath after they'd been in it was no fun.

bengalcat · 13/01/2019 11:33

Loving the dog with its own bathroom - to be fair dogs roll in mud and all sorts of shit when they’re out so could do with a shower when they get home - used to put ours in the bath all 22kg of her but now have a hose . And to answer OP’s original question it wouldn’t bother me if pets were buried in the garden .

chipsandgin · 13/01/2019 11:33

I’d assume all gardens have pets buried in them. Would you be doing the extension yourself or getting builders in? If it is builders it wouldn’t be the first time for them & usually digging for footings is done with machinery & then piled up/removed. Not an issue IMO - where else would you bury them anyway!?

scaryteacher · 13/01/2019 11:33

Four of my cats are buried under the lime tree in the front garden. I think of them as the guardian spirits of the house.

adultchildalcoholicparents · 13/01/2019 11:40

they had built a shower for their dog, it was waist height. The dog had it’s own bathroom.

I have friends who've done this for their dogs - fully tiled, level showering area with fixed and flexible shower heads...

Heated towel rails so that there is a huge supply of towels for blotting off and drying...

Laniakea · 13/01/2019 11:53

Of course - burying pets is a completely normal thing to do. Tbh it wouldn’t bother me if there was a person buried in the garden! (Assuming it wasn’t a corpse under the patio murder situation)

NorthernLurker · 13/01/2019 12:01

You're really overthinking this op.

HesterShaw21 · 13/01/2019 12:16

No it wouldn't bother me. Though I'd ask what the pets were, how many and where buried out of curiosity. Great Danes? Horses? Parakeets?

MawkishTwaddle · 13/01/2019 12:18

I once dug up a hamster in a new house.

Found a little box. Thought, ‘Ooh, treasure!’

Lifted the lid up - hamster corpse. Quite fresh.

Ran quite fast into the house and made now XH reinter it.

PositivelyPERF · 13/01/2019 12:27

I have a doggy shower in the mud room and also an outside shower with hot water. I love it. If you have any outside space and a big mucky dog, I’d recommend a warm water, outside shower. Not expensive and hugely beneficial. It’s also great for washing mucky shoes/boots.

Pachyderm1 · 13/01/2019 12:28

Wouldn’t bother me at all (unless it was like, a horse).

madcatladyforever · 13/01/2019 12:31

Why would it bother you? Unless you buy a new build it is highly likely there will be pets in the garden.
All 5 of my cats are buried in the garden and number 6 is at the end of her days.
I've dug up dogs and cats I didn't know were there and has just respectfully buried what was left of the bones elsewhere. TBH cat and dog bones disintegrate very quickly.

InSightMars · 13/01/2019 12:44

We left our old kitty behind in her favorite spot in the shade of the cypresses at the back of the yard when we moved. Didn’t think to mention her to the new buyer, not because we were trying to hide anything but like everyone else assumed most gardens have graves for beloved pets from past owners. I’m certain our current yard does, the deceased old lady who owned it before us it was a notorious ‘cat lady’ according to neighbours and I suspect most of the heritage rose bushes in one corner were planted over tiny corpses. Won’t be digging over there because those roses are staying, they’re gorgeous for one thing and I have in mind to bury my cats there when they go.

Jebuschristchocolatebar · 13/01/2019 12:49

We viewed a house last year with a little pet cemetery in the big jack garden. It was a little creepy but not particularly odd. We had said if we bought the house we would probably move the little headstones down to the end of the garden out of our eye line.

Original poster

baddayattheoffice · 13/01/2019 12:59

My OH said I was nuts to worry about it and it looks like he was right!

OP posts:

LonelyGir1 · 13/01/2019 13:03

If you've exchanged I don't think you can pull out now. Maybe ask your solicitors to see whether they can agree to pay having the animals dug up?

TenForward82 · 13/01/2019 13:05

In a previous house I managed to unearth someone's pet bird (a budgie or similar)... buried in a tupperware box. It was rather, um, runny.

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