Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

What did you find when you moved house that you would rather not have found?

162 replies

IclimbedSnowdon · 27/07/2022 00:44

Was thinking back to when we last moved.

The loo in the bathroom wouldn't flush, and when we went up in the loft we found a dead rat. It looked as though it had been there for some time.
The worst by far though was what we found at the bottom of the garden. Dh was digging and came across a heavy duty green plastic bag. When he opened it the smell was awful. Inside were the bodies of two cats!
Who in their right mind buries an animal in a plastic bag?
So what did you find when you moved into your home?

OP posts:
user1471538283 · 27/07/2022 12:38

Really bad DIY like the toilet was not secured to the floor, water leaked in the kitchen, the kitchen sink outlet pipe broke, rotten floor joists and boards and 3 skips of rubbish left in the shed and the garage. All of which the previous owner denied.

I hate that man, that house and the neighbors with every fibre of my being.

Nc58985 · 27/07/2022 12:46

That the carpets had been cut around the furniture when laid so the rooms have giant rectangular shaped holes with no carpet 🤦🏻‍♀️ nice and pricey treat to rectify…

JustDanceAddict · 27/07/2022 12:47

We moved in to a brand new house and found that a contractor must’ve taken a shit in the loo and hadn’t flushed 🤦‍♀️

SirenSays · 27/07/2022 12:52

A very big, very dusty jar of what we assume was human hair 🤢

Spanielsarepainless · 27/07/2022 12:53

Ensuite bathroom wash basin was badly cracked and the taps didn't work. So many plumbing-related things. The surveyor was 'a friend' of DH though mates rates were bloody high.

HearMeSnore · 27/07/2022 12:57

When my parents moved into our family home they were confronted with a puddle of used engine oil soaked into the living room carpet. The previous owner had used the front room to work on his motorbike, in spite of the property having a garage.

chocolateoranges33 · 27/07/2022 12:59

A Z bed in the loft. Quickly realised that it was too big to fit thought the loft hatch to dispose of. No clue how it got up there as we believe it was the original hatch (1930's semi). Only got rid of it when we converted the loft and were able to get it down the new staircase!

Also, found an aerial photo of our house in a frame from the early 90s when these were really popular. Also in the loft. I really liked it so hung it up on the wall for quite a while.

Serenity45 · 27/07/2022 12:59

Used tampons / sanitary towels stuffed behind loose skirting board within built in wardrobes. A lidded bucket full to the brim of dog shit buried in the garden. Previous owner texting on completion day to see if we wanted to keep the hens because they couldn't be bothered to take them

Thankfully we politely declined and the hens were gone when we got the keys. This was a couple who were a little older than DH and I and were / are professionals. Slightly snooty with us when we viewed as we probably didn't look like we could afford the house 🙄. Dirty skanky fuckers

Spanielsarepainless · 27/07/2022 12:59

Oh, and at some point in the past the landing had got waterlogged and in the first few days the chipboard sagged further and further. Luckily the chap who was putting new carpets down was pretty handy and tore it up and replaced it. I can't believe the surveyor missed that, nor that the previous occupants hadn't fallen through.

2bazookas · 27/07/2022 13:03

BAD finds

The vendors had removed every single light bulb. (very bizarre, as they were moving to a different country).

The reason the vendor was always painting the bathroom on both viewings ....to cover up the black mould from leaky roof. At the end of long tiring removal day I ran a deep hot bath, climbed in.... and got rained on through the ceiling. I cried in the bath.

BEST FIND EVER

An unsuspected large walk-in fantastic pantry with floor to ceiling shelves. Not mentioned in the DIY sale sheet or during very hurried viewing. JOY JOY JOY.

2nd best

A folder of fascinating antique letters, receipts and papers dating from 250 years earlier. Their author had hidden them in a wall; the vendor had found them. He left them for us. When we sold, I left them for the next owner (but, I kept photocopies)

Another favourite; in the loft of our Glasgow house (the one with no light bulbs) I found a dusty old framed photo of Charles Rennie Macintosh. Mentioned this to ancient neighbour who replied "Your house was once owned by his sister; she did all your stained glass".

NoNoNoooo · 27/07/2022 13:04

The arsehole next door

Yorkshirepuddingwithsyrupnotgravy · 27/07/2022 13:08

Not all the same house move, but

  • The former owners still packing and in residence 5pm the day we were trying to move in!
  • Porn mags in the greenhouse
  • Fleas, plus a cat. They didnt come back for it for over a week!
  • Water connections to washing machine broken and leaking
  • Dirty knickers down the back of radiators in the kitchen
  • Filthy blocked toilet and loo seat - they must each have had a massive farewell shit before they handed over the keys 💩
  • Dead rat in the bottom drawer of the cooker.

Never. Moving. Again.

Wellthatsjustswell · 27/07/2022 13:14

Filth.
I don’t think a hoover had been pushed over the carpet since our viewing. I was glad the oven didn’t actually work, it saved me having to scrape a couple of inches of grease out of it. Greasy head marks on the wall behind where the bed was, grubby black oil/dirt on every door, light switch and the bannister.
One kitchen drawer was still full of junk, the wheelie bin was rammed full even though it wasn’t due to be collected for 12 days.
I cried.

allflownthenest · 27/07/2022 13:39

Also, surveyor at house and found a locked cupboard called office to ask us to get keys from estate agents - they were very reluctant to give over keys, we said survey not complete without seeing in 'cupboard'. Wasn't a cupboard at all but some weird little creepy underfloor space with bare floors and no damp proofing, so obviously being hidden from purchasers - they withdrew from the sale!

Clovacloud · 27/07/2022 13:40

The day we moved in, I realised every single floor downstairs was sticky. They weren’t when we viewed it, so I think they had chucked some sticky drink over every floor. I had a crawling baby, so spent hours the first night scrubbing the floors.

And when we ripped the crappy bathroom out, the live electric cable behind the metal shower controls…that was an interesting afternoon. My plumber was horrified at how close one of us had come to getting electrocuted.

Notclosenow · 27/07/2022 13:56

Been here 3 weeks.
Day 1 went into the attic bedroom., strange ticking rustling noise coming from the roof. Touched the ceiling and a area of 6 inches was tissue paper thin and vibrating. Then noticed wasp activity outside.
3 huge wasps nests in the roof. In our haste to get them dealt with paid a fortune to rip off firm who took 3 visits and said they had chewed all the wood away and were close to breaking through 😳

Madlymumming · 27/07/2022 14:15

Flea infested carpets.
Cat hair stuck to the grease on kitchen walls.
Everywhere was filthy. Took an entire weekend for me and my mum to clean the kitchen.
A wardrobe we'd refused to buy smashed up and 'hidden' in the downstairs toilet.
In the garden - what had been a perfectly good lawn at viewings had been used to burn the remaining furniture we'd refused to buy. Huge burnt patch.
The day before we moved in they asked if we wanted them to leave the kitchen units! Well as we are buying a house with a fitted kitchen that would be preferable.

Having sold a fairly modern, and very clean flat I sat and cried the day we moved in. It was eventually a lovely family home though.

Winniewonka · 27/07/2022 15:07

Good grief! Mine seems quite tame but as first time buyers in the late seventies, we bought from a couple in their late twenties. We weren't moving in immediately and wanted to redecorate.
Downstairs the rooms were completely empty but the bedrooms were full of rubbish and junk that they just couldn't be arsed to get rid of. Large tea chests full of all her school exercise books, old tights plus random stuff deliberately left upstairs. We got in touch with the estate agent who was also in a quandary as they had supplied them with a false forwarding address, I could be wrong but they may not have received their fees. This was the Seventies so it wasn't as today where it's easier to contact folk. In the end I had to pay for skip hire.
Six weeks of receiving mail for them and getting fed up of writing Return to Sender, a hire company turned up to take back the television, most people rented in those days, and I spent an uncomfortable time producing paper work to prove the TV was mine and the previous owners had stolen theirs.
I got friendly with the lady next door and she was incredulous at their behaviour as she said they had seemed such a lovely young couple.

DaughterOfEvening · 27/07/2022 15:09

I’ve shared this before here. A few days after moving into our dream home (Edwardian villa that needed a fair bit of tlc but we knew could be forever) I was cleaning the understairs cupboard and found a box containing a human jawbone, compete with teeth.

Underneath that, another box containing bits of human bones that I was later told were leg bone.

The carpet in the bedroom at the front of the house had a large stain (over a metre wide) that looked like dried black coffee that hadn’t been cleaned properly. Later when the carpet was lifted, found it was blood that had also stained the floorboards underneath.

We did stay living there. For over 18 years. It was mostly a very happy home. We have recently sold up and moved far away.

Oldraver · 27/07/2022 15:10

A bathmat that covered the leaking bath that had rotted the floor

RedPandaFluff · 27/07/2022 15:12

The lazy sods didn't paint behind the furniture. So when they moved out and took their bookcases etc., and we moved in, we had to do the cosmetic stuff way sooner than planned Angry

CounsellorTroi · 27/07/2022 15:30

Slightly different but - My DMIL died 7 years ago. While clearing out her cupboards we came across a Christmas pudding that said best before 1995.

NuttyinNotts · 27/07/2022 15:39

Needles buried in the garden, the remnants of a weed farm in the loft hatch and fleas in the carpet!

Funkybananabread · 27/07/2022 15:46

This thread has made me feel much better about our house move.
It took over 18months to complete - our sales feel through repeatedly as our vendors kept messing us around. The neighbours were in the street cheering as they hated the previous owners so much. Found out from them that the house had been on the market about 20 times before it was sold to us.
On moving in day there was rubbish all over the floors in every room (4 bed house). We had to rip up most of the carpets straight away. Kitchen took 7hours to clean - mouldy/ disintegrated food (10yrs + out of date!) and one cupboard full of prescription meds. Garage was full of rubbish - we made them pay to remove it by threatening legal action.
Recently found out they had used antique furniture to board the loft for some inexplicable reason.
It is our forever home though - and it will probably take us forever to get rid of all traces of the previous owners!

crazynell · 27/07/2022 15:51

Chains suspended from the ceiling in the main bedroom. I've no idea what the previous owners got up to but he was a prison officer .....

Another house had every gap and crevice filled with sealant that had rotted and cracked and had been painted over to make it look better

The flooring in the conservatory buckled just after we moved in and needed replaced and we found that there was no damp proofing.
Every surface was manky and sticky