To ask for the most ridiculous diy you've found in a house

[Bakewellisntjustacake]

This is one of mine..

This is an outside tap that has been fitted onto a water pipe in the basement there is no drainage in the basement so we have to keep a bucket under it as it leaks.

The previous owners couldn't be bothered to either sort out a drain in the basement (understandable as expensive) they also couldn't be bothered to fit an outside tap actually outside so they attached it to a water pipe in the basement and ran the hose out of the window up into the garden and watered the plants like that.

It's not even cut into the plaster board right! Obviously it's on a list as long as my arm to fix.

Anyone else got some 'interesting' diy stories ?

Our home was a 'do-er upper' when we bought it. Some of the things we found had us howling {equally, also gave us a headache}

• The kitchen had these horrible carpet look laminate tiles that were stuck down with superglue. That was fun ripping trying to rip them off.

-The previous occupants had also tiled the bathroom straight on top of the previous tiles and rather then remove the previous lino, they layered more on top. The bottom lino smelt rancid.

• Lots of dodgy paintwork/wall paper and some horrible mock panelling which was wonky and different sizes. All the walls had to be re - plastered.

• One of the bedrooms also had quite a big hole in the wall which had been stuffed what looked like paper maché , then painted over.

Reading all these stories makes you wonder why there’s not an equivalent of an MOT for houses. Dodgy DIY or other faults csn literally be deadly. There is. Building regs permission for any structural work, and electrical safety certificate. Not illegal to sell a house without, just as it isn't illegal to sell a car without MOT. Up to the buyer to check everything is in place, or factor in cost of full survey/ repairs.

You can see where they varnished the boards around the edge and then didn't bother in the middle due to having a huge square of carpet (not a rug) in the middle. Yeah, why would you varnish under a carpet a) no need to b) dangerous to since the carpet may slip.

I enjoy finding all these clues to the history of the house, for instance the floor varnish was part of the evidence that a small bedroom had had its wall removed to become part of the beautiful big and airy landing we have now. And it's great fun seeing what wallpaper was used 20, 50 or if you're lucky, 100 years ago, looking at the news in old scraps of newspaper, etc. We found the receipt for the original wiring of the house - amazing to see just how few power points were needed in the 1930s.

Sad that you had to smash out a cold slab - we moved ours to the other end of the pantry to get the deepfreeze in, but it's a lovely cool place to stand food while waiting for it to cool off enough for the fridge.

My neighbours discovered that the odd boxed off (and wallpapered over) corner of their bedroom had a shower cubicle in it!

When my former partner had to leave this house I found that all the wall mounted TVs were being held up dangling by a thin piece of ribbon

The usual light switches that don't operate any lights but we couldn't get any hot water and ended up calling a man out, he asked us where the hot water switch was as the switch by the heating switch was NOT the hot water switch as we had thought (although it had WATER written on it), he thought that was a switch for an extractor fan that was no longer there.

It took him, me and my brother over an hour before we found it in a bedroom....behind a fucking radiator

Actual human adults were involved in moving that switch and then putting a fucking radiator in front of it.

Am wondering how these folks on here managed to get mortgages on these properties. Course a lot of people don't bother with building regulations/control
We had a qualified certified recommend electrician fit a new consumer unit and various electrics
He made the most dreadful mess of our walls. We had asked him to please be careful because the property is old, delicate plaster,he even used screws that were so long they came through the wall into our newly decorated bedroom

One of the kitchen electric sockets isn't actually a proper socket. There was a plug left in one of the other sockets and I didn't know what it was for. The wire goes through the kitchen bench, along of the back of the cupboards and pops up again feeding the socket on the other side of the room. So it's just like an extension lead really.

@nannybeach

Am wondering how these folks on here managed to get mortgages on these properties. Course a lot of people don't bother with building regulations/control We had a qualified certified recommend electrician fit a new consumer unit and various electrics He made the most dreadful mess of our walls. We had asked him to please be careful because the property is old, delicate plaster,he even used screws that were so long they came through the wall into our newly decorated bedroom

Banks/building societies usually require only a basic survey/valuation, so the surveyor won't be doing anything more than a quick look around the the house, and some don't even go into the house and do a "drive by" valuation.

Even more expensive "full" surveys don't check everything, especially things that can't be seen without pulling up carpets, moving furniture, etc as they won't do that.