Shit stuff in the house you just bought

[TheFrozenCanal]

This is a semi lighthearted thread, hopefully popcornable.

We recently moved house. Buyer beware is of course the rule at play here.

We offered when houses were being snapped up within a day, and eventually found a house though had to go 20k over the asking price for it. We desperately needed to move - work and no space for dc. We had no money left in the budget for anything more than a quick coat of paint.

We moved in and the:

Boiler is dead. It's -2 outside and I've had two plumbers over to quote on a replacement and they've both told me they fixed it, only for me to discover it isn't fixed.

In bringing the furniture down to move they gouged chunks out of the stairs wall. It's not even that tight to come down. To make space, they took the handrail off (and discarded it I presume) leaving huge holes in the wall. I now need to replaster the wall really.

The upvc windows are extremely draughty for some reason - I didn't think that would happen it wasn't noticeable when we first visited last May!

The whole house is papered in a paper that really needs to come off. But in taking the paper off I see that it was put up to hide some really shonky plastering. Between that and the wallpaper paste gloop that I'm struggling to scrape away, we can't decide if we ought to replaster the whole house (as a DIY job) or sand it down with an electric sander.

What delights were in store for you when you moved in that were not picked up by the survey?

😄

Nothing on that scale, but when we moved into our third floor flat with no outside space, the hallway was full of old gardening equipment.

The seller - who had seemed both lovely and normal till that point - left a chirpy note saying she hoped we’d find it useful 🤷‍♀️.

A turd in the loo.

Shower doesn't work. Sellers said they had fixed the leak through the kitchen ceiling. They fibbed. It only runs cold water too.

Cupboards full of stuff...dustpan and brushes, shoe rack. Just stuff they couldn't be bothered to take.

Brand new Sharps wardrobes in the main bedroom ( nice) but a filthy dirty kitchen.

The open fire ( a feature I was looking forward to) turns out to be too dangerous to use.

We found a bomb. An actual bomb.

The built in microwave was broken and being used as a cupboard.

Ah OP! Good luck with all that.

We moved in to this house just over a year ago. In that time:

Water started dripping through DS's ceiling on a rainy night, roof needed repairing.

Boiler broke, couldn't afford to fix for about 10 months.

Radiators in the hall and bathroom have never worked.

Washing machine died within a few months.

Porch floods when it rains.

Lock on inner porch door fell off.

Chunk of plaster/cement fell out of wall when painting.

Storms blew down front fence and three fence panels in back garden plus damaged a tree on council land at the back of our house which has been threatening to fall into our garden and into our shed for months now. Council say they don't like to remove healthy trees. It's hardly healthy when the trunk is split...

Recently spotted brownish streak on hall wall suggests another leak in external wall.

There's probably more I can't remember. I thought it was just going to be a new flooring and decorating job and done. Sigh.

We had a leaking toilet pipe. The previous owners had left towels underneath, and it's all boxed in so we didn't realise until it leaked through the ceiling below. It was a toilet that was barely used so it took us a few months to notice. 🤢

Ahhh I sympathise with you all. Omg to the bomb though!

Our shower is a load of shite too. We left a lovely huge shower in our little flat and now have something circa 1983. And the house only dates from 1996.

Oh and the garage door doesn't open high enough to let the car in.

The people who are moving into our house (landlord selling it) are going to find:

About 4 windows that a broken (don't or can't open cause cause of broken hinges)

Bathroom needs re tiling

A leak coming through bathroom into kitchen

Lots of condensation (due to old windows) which causes mold

A mouse that always returns 😂

Pretty sure there is a small leak in attic too

We have told estate agent many times of problems but they always go for a quick fix instead of investing!

When we moved to our new house, the previous family had a lovely big dog. Father in law stayed for a few days to help with our toddler while we unpacked and set up the house - came with his two useless old dogs. Went out into the new garden and somehow walked dog poop back into the house. Daughter went into the garden, walked dog poo into the house. Saw one end of the garden full of poop. Couldn't understand how he missed it and what was wrong with FIL dogs! When he returned partner had a word with him to be more on it and he was apologetic and went out with bags. A few days later it rained and I went out there and it was like a poonami had hit. Shit almost seemed to be coming out of the ground in that same corner. Poor FIL dogs blamed again he went out with a bag.... He out there for ages with a shovel and walks around the front with 3 massive bin bags filled with old, dry shit!! We think when the previous couple got devorced and the wife moved to her new place with the kids and dog first, the husband moved back in while he was waiting to exchange - she must have left several months worth of dog shit piled in the garden as a 'fuck-you' to him to deal with. So he piled it all in the corner of the garden and tossed some some soil over it before he moved out. It was so dank. We left a nice bottle of wine, flowers and a card for our buyers and our sellers left us shit!

Wallpaper covering lots of badly plastered walls. One bedroom they had wallpapered onto unfinished plasterboard and we had to have it all redone. Parts of the kitchen units were velcroed on. Cigarette burns on some of the carpets. Junk left in loft, house and garden. Party wall leak from neighbours that was concealed by seller and not picked up on survey. Also most of the double glazing was blown (also viewed in May when we wouldn’t have realised). Also the entire house was so filthy we had to delay moving in by a whole month just to clean. Boiler also packed in within 4 months in mid winter.

this was back in the nineties but have never forgotten the state our sellers left the house in upstairs fully fitted wardrobes absolutely full of stuff,
kitchen a dog had pissed all over the carpet (yes carpet) in there and it stunk,

kitchen cupboards full of food, and then the piece de restistance we opened the back door and the large patio was about three feet in rubbish old bin bags nappies chucked on top with a puppy a live around six months old puppy sat there looking very sorry for himself,

the rubbish we swallowed took about three skips full to get rid but the puppy no way i had two dogs of my own so OH rang them and got them to pick him up that night felt sorry for him but no way was i taking him on especially in light of the stinky kitchen carpet not been house trained

@TheFrozenCanal

If your uPVC windows are draughty they probably just need new hinges, we've had a few done by a repair firm for £40 a window, pretty quick, cheap and easy fix and so worth it to be warm, if you're handy you can probably do it yourself for cheaper.

Also can you not just fill and sand the gouges in the hall rather than replaster? You can get premixed filler and sandpaper in Poundland.

were not picked up by the survey.

our survey stated that our flat had a gas supply.

The whole block is electric
**
**

Downstairs avocado toilet had an inch thick coating of limescale in the bowl.

Worktop in kitchen supported by metal pipe that turned out to be a broom handle painted silver.

Enough cat hair behind every radiator to fill a double duvet.

3 layers of hall carpet with a runner nailed on top.

No door in the lounge doorframe. The door they had bought intending to fit was propped up against the wall, was 6" too long and 4" too wide.

The shower cubicle upstairs had been leaking for years down onto the kitchen wall underneath. And they had never cleaned hair out of the shower trap (she had waist length hair)

I'm sure there's many more, we just ended up laughing about all the bodge jobs and awful, awful paintwork.

Terrible, paper thin walls with no sound insulation between them or between the upstairs floors and downstairs ceilings. 1960s single skin brickwork on the back and front of the house, not cavity walls. Extractor fans that didn't work. Mice in the attic.

In our last house a poorly fitted air source heat pump and the heating didn’t work. We brought our baby home from the hospital a week later in the snow with no heat.

we got somebody to take it out and reloop the old central heating system and sold it on eBay at a bargain price.

That house was grim…

A tortoise 🐢 We got the keys and were really surprised to find a tortoise hibernating in a tank! We called the estate agent and the previous owner came around very red faced to collect it.

The broken boiler theme is recurring I see. I understand when someone is moving out they're not going to want to fork out of a boiler but usually people pay you more than you paid for your house so to leave a dangerous boiler to people who are skint from the bidding war of buying the house is rough :-/

Fleas in the carpet

@Isseywith3witchycats I can't believe you sent the puppy back with them. You could have taken it to a rescue!

Noooo!

Absolutely filthy house where I don't think the oven had been cleaned once since they had moved in, it was shocking. Grease and grime everywhere. Like outside, inside cupboards, just everywhere! Took a week with people helping to deep clean it all. The gutters are absolutely rammed clogged so when it rains it POUNDS on the bedroom window and I discovered there's actually a leak coming through because of it. The windows are also really draughty. None of downstairs radiators worked. The electrics don't work in one bedroom. There's just some shoddy workmanship done on the house. I thought the walls were paint plastered but actually like you, it's actually wallpaper and I KNOW what we'll discover when it comes off. However, since we got the heating working, our stuff moved in and have been here a few months, it does feel like home and no regrets. Just needs some more work though.

@Isseywith3witchycats

What was the property like when you viewed it?

They were awful people to just leave the puppy. I don't think it was ok to make them have him back, god knows what they did with him.

The original 1960’s boiler that meant we had icicles inside out windows the first winter! New boiler and windows went to top of lost for replacing!
wallpaper that kept falling off the wall in the lounge - parts seem to have been blu tacked up!
the nice light fittings we saw on viewing had been replaced with what must have been the original ones the first owner had ( we were buyer 3) - and light fittings were down to be included!

The carpets really stank of dog and feet. They must have masked it well when we looked at it.
My housetrained cat and dog just immediately starting weeing on the carpet as soon as they got in.
We had to rip it up straight away.