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

[IclimbedSnowdon]

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?

@Ciela did they take him to their new home or leave him like the previous owners?

Charlie is still at the house as he has all his hideouts there. Nobody has ever been able to work out where he hibernates.

we moved in the middle of a long cold wet winter to the country . An hour after arriving the heating stopped and coming from the city I was baffled as to why the gas had stopped !! They had left the oil tank empty and it took about 10 days to get oil delivered . Oh they also didn’t get the cesspit emptied so about a week after moving in and being cold the whole stable yard was flooded with the contents (vile also their was a dog kennel in the cesspit ) .

Dog shit in the garden, a lawn caked in cat shit, mouse shit in the kitchen cupboards, multiple layers of piss soaked lino in the bathroom. The toilet was leaking and had to be replaced. 🤮

Rented house
A used condom and some porn mags on top of a wardrobe
Half a saucepan of baked beans on the hob

House we bought
A colleague of mine who I worked with for a few months had lived in my house when she was a little girl. When we had moved in we demolished the old wooden garage, we found a leather holdall of 1950’s porn under the floor. At that point I realised they must have been her Dads magazines. Was weird.

A half empty bottle of anal lube in the top of the wardrobe

Asbestos in an internal wall which the builders discovered while knocking through to make kitchen/diner. Cue working being delayed and huge expense for experts to remove it. Also countless dodgy electrics, I think previous owner had had a go himself.

Our next-door-neighbours found the remnants of a cannabis factory in the loft, plus a fair amount of damp and mould.

A tray of uncooked but thawed chicken pieces in the oven. I imagine they intended to eat them and forgot.

In another place that they had taken the oven, which was integrated and meant to be left.

If the state of the oven is going to make any difference to your buying decision, you live in a very different market to the one I Iive in!

3 bedrooms - check
Off street parking - check
Garden - check
Safe neighbourhood - check
DS can walk to school - check
We can afford to bid at least 15% over asking (Edinburgh) - check
It's the one!

Just assume everything will need to be re-done from wiring onwards.

Plumtreebob

A gun under the shed.

!!! My mam found a rusty old revolver in the loft, in 1984. She took it to the Police station, the next day and got a slight telling off.

A flea infested carpet. The fleas were actually jumping onto our legs 🤮 🤮

This

Full cat litter tray on the kitchen floor, lots of long female hair in the drawers. So much dog hair under the radiators our builders initially thought it was some sort of insulation 🤢. Many, many dry puddles of dog pee on the carpets. Oven so full of dog hair, we had to replace it immediately.

Very middle class family, all 3 children privately schooled and Cambridge university educated. 🙄

The gross leavings of others are strangely fascinating to read about. I love the story of Charlie the tortoise @Ciela My son bought a house. It was very clean upon him moving in. As doors opened a draught blew out an old tram ticket from the 1930’s and a hairpin from under the skirting board. I like to think it was a previous resident welcoming him in. His next house had two cats left behind. They couldn’t be moved to the previous owners new home. My son agreed to have them. A childhood friend. Her parents bought a house. They decided to lift the old carpet to find the carpet was actually a layer of dog hair on top of the lino.

My previous house , I took up the disgusting carpet in the dining room and discovered floorboards so rotten that in some places they had hammered tin plates over the holes to avoid falling through.

I had to rip out the floor, repoint the foundations, dismantle the floor plates and add damp courses and then rebuild, and replace all the floor boards. It took me eight weeks.

Weevels
Black mould
Dead dogs in garden (big ones too).

A waist high cage built into the under stairs space behind a small false wall.

There was a mat inside that smelled like human urine. Looked to have been used relatively recently by the smell.

They didn’t own pets so definitely no dog crate.

It was horrible, scared the shit out of us.

Wheelie bins filled with set cement.
Kerry Katona biography.

@StrawberryWater That's truly frightening. I'd have called the police, the moment I found that.

Mine aren’t all that interesting. A washing machine / oven / fridge that we’re either crap or not working at all.

A friend arrived at his house on completion day to find the vendor still living there. He was an older man who hadn’t realised that he actually had to be out once they’d exchanged (and he couldn’t leave his furniture there).

I’d love to have a tortoise living in the garden.

A landing that was about to cave in. Bloody surveyor was crap. How anyone could have walked along there in the weeks before and not noticed is beyond me.

A old butler sink we dug up in the garden. Then in our bathroom we got it all pulled out and found a trap door, no idea what's down there as you walk down so far and it's blocked off by a brick wall 🤦🏻‍♀️ could of smashed it down but I quite like my house and I knew I'd go off it and want to leave if it was anything untoward...re done the flooring and hasn't been touched since!

We went to vote just after we'd bought the house and the official looked at our address on the polling cards and said, 'Oh, the haunted house?'.