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?

😄

Defunct boiler. Stopcock fitted upside down. Leaks where boiler fitted to wall because inlet pipe at the wrong incline. Carpets thick with urine and diarrhea, all had to be taken up and the floors sanded. Grandad's mattress (enough said on that). A rolled up carpet of vomit and poo. Three piece suite left, with cushions turned over to the clean side - guess why. Kitchen cabinet shelves skanky sides down. Leaking chimney-pot flashing and damaged plaster in the attic bedroom covered by new wallpaper. Light fittings replaced with broken ones. Wheelie bin had a 15cm deep base of dog-poo-and-newspapers sandwich. Filthy throughout. Windows that either don't open or won't close. Both toilets leaking.
I saw the sellers after completion; the woman told me she'd 'left it clean' for me and laughed.

A dog poo behind the bedroom door.

when we moved into our previous house we had
-broken boiler at the beginning of November and fire place not working (open and gas, so dangerous but we didn't care much if it was working)
-walls filled with random shite isolation foam - apparently for insulation, I think the previous owner was scammed
-broken shower with mouldy black ceiling - we ended up just not using it
-kitchen needing rewiring, because if more than 3 appliances were on it would trip the fuse
-ceramic hob was not working at all
-weird plumbing where 2 sinks in the house would get blocked with rainy weather for no reason, later discovered that the trees were growing into the outlet plumbing
-random rubbish in the loft
-leaking roof - needed fixing
-very creepy and weird neighbors next door - the stalking and giving all sorts of advice type
-radiators making strange noises at night

we have moved into the new house couple of months ago and found
-filthy disgusting house - looks like previous owners stopped cleaning completely after the viewing, I had to get cleaners for 6h clean + my own cleaning for another few hours to make the house livable
-leaking shower panel
-leak somewhere under the bathtub
-key missing for the door between conservatory and dining room
so we were quite lucky with the current house as it's quite lovely - previous owner also left some funky lightning - which I quite like - nice surprise for a change

My partner always says that you need to be prepared for anything with the purchased house - anything might be broken/unusable and house could be filthy and disgusting when you move in. I would never move out and move in on the same day - recipe for a disaster when you have to unpack your stuff into filthy cupboards/closets

The day my Mum and Dad moved there was an explosion in the house they were buying. The people moving out had left cans of flea spray on the hob and somehow it got turned on. It blew most of the kitchen up, blew several windows out and put holes in the ceiling. They had to move in as they had completed but held money back until the insurance was paid out from the old owners.

Oh this made me laugh in a non funny way…
we had TWO showers on the wall that weren’t even plumbed in… a downstairs toilet with a sink on the wall and not plumbed in. Pictures had been on the wall and left holes behind. Powers sockets with cables along the walls … the garden was filled in with a Gazzillion bricks that they had dug under the grass when they had an outhouse removed.

oh and a dead cat up the chimney

I accidentally left a giant poop for someone.

This happened when I was a teenager (so was quite a while ago).

We moved house halfway through my A-Levels and I had an important piece of paperwork from my college go to our old house. I still had a key (as while we had moved out the sale of the property hadn’t quite reached completion) so just went round to go pick it up.

I get there, grab the paperwork and other mail, but suddenly need to use the loo (couldn’t hold it, I have a bowel disorder so when I have to go I have to go) so duly used the toilet.

Yeah well my parents had already shut all the utilities off and there was no water in the tank! To my horror I soon realised I couldn’t flush away my crime.

Whoever went in that house next got a smelly horror show.

I’m still rather embarrassed by it 20+ years later even though nobody mentioned anything about it.

on moving day when we arrived at the property previous elderly owners were still casually packing! It was a complete nightmare we actually had a brilliant estate agent who came round and took control we had one empty room and had to put whole house contents in there. The place was filthy and two days later we realised it was full of fleas they were everywhere in our bed carpets just everywhere I won’t lie I sobbed ! My legs had dozens of bites and I was mortified We had the whole place treated and all carpets removed it got rid of them quickly and we never saw another flea again. Had I have know wouldn’t have touched it with a barge pole!

Moved into house with a lovely big garden with starry eyed dreams of starting a flower farm (pre DC!) - garden was covered with gravel over a weed membrane, which I promptly ripped up to discover a massive expanse of solid concrete underneath!
Spent many, many houses out there with DH’s pneumatic drill and managed to make a lovely garden in the end.

Maybe slightly unfair as we bought a deceased estate/doer upper, but we had: a shower that was discharging into a soak away, a boiler that was illegally installed, a gas leak, curtains that were so dusty and stank of stale smoke (in one room only), deep pile carpet in the bathroom, a radiator installed under a bay window and at a jaunty angle complete with curtains cutout around it, woodchip on every surface, a bath that wasn’t actually connected to the drain (thank god we never used it), some totally bonkers electrical wiring, a plethora of bidets (which my kids thought were mini toilets and used as urinals), windows that were totally siliconed shut.

but … it was spotlessly clean, and they left a bottle of bolly and were genuinely lovely (and some of the above was found at survey and fixed before we moved in). So it’s nothing that they did wrong, just old house issues.

House completed in May:

• Boiler looked ancient, so planned to replace it anyway, glad I did - it didn't work properly, goodness knows how they lived with it like it was.
• The foul pipe is / was leaking into the light well of the cellar (and next doors gully pipe) and had been doing it for that long it has rotted the lower part of the pipe away. I've managed to get the water board to to sort most of it, there's still a slight leak, but it's not coming into the cellar now, thank goodness.
• They left loads of crap in the cellar including a broken dryer, fishing equipment and a large desk - I've sold that and a dehumidifier on ebay 😃😃. The desk is set up for my sewing machines.
• The oven was absolutely FOUL - no WAY could you have paid me to clean that, no matter how skint / in need of spending as little money as possible I could have been, just went straight out and bought a new oven.

I've not actually managed to make it up into the loft yet (small opening and I'm scared of height) but dread to think what's up there 🙈🙈🙈

Just remembered that when we moved into this house, we knew we were going to have to get work done on the roof, as the structural engineer's report said the roof timbers were bowing under the weight of the 1970s concrete tiles a previous owner had had put on there to replace the original slate tiles. The concrete tiles were much heavier but the roof timbers hadn't been strengthened. All fine. We then found the original slates (broken, unfortunately, so not re-usable) piled up in the loft. What sort of bodger gets the roof re-tiled and stores the old slates in the loft!

This was many house moves ago, but has stuck with me!

A white dressing gown left hung on the back of bedroom door covered in 💩
Two large bolts with chains hanging from the bedroom ceiling 🤔
A very large gap in a garden wall that had been completely filled with dog 💩

It was quite the doer upper!

It was literally "shit stuff"!

Damp and mould.
A shower that was soaking through the wall in to the spare room and a storage cupboard in the hall because the tiling/grouting/silicone was so badly done (although visually it looked fine).
The lovely wooden blinds in each room were supposed to be left as part of the sale. When we moved in we found they'd been removed and replaced with disgustingly, filthy plastic ones. It turns out the seller had offered them to a neighbour and taken their old ones in exchange!

we bought this house in 1998 and on moving day the sellers had taken the gas cooker out, but not capped the supply 🤬 about 10 years of dust behind the door, which they never closed, vinyl floor tiles instead of the stainless steel splash back behind the missing cooker, all curtains changed to knackered ones that were from god knows where as they didn’t fit the windows. Then to cap it all we got a gas chap in to service the fire and back boiler and it was condemned, so mid November and no heating or hot water.

Massive leak in the back door seal, which we discovered once winter and rain really started and the painted-over-damp came back with a vengeance.

Flashing above the kitchen windows is fucked and there's damp there too.

All windows upstairs have broken catches or seals and a couple have got the double glazing blown.

Toilet doesn't work properly.

Guttering round the entire front of the house broken (but not visibly so - so we didn't spot it).

Big outhouse was full of stuff (mostly broker lawnmowers and the like) which we didn't know until we moved in. That was several tip visits.

Radiators nearly all leaking and rusted.

I wouldn't mind, but it was my cousin who sold us the house. And not for cheap, either - they put the asking price up.

Moths in the carpet, dodgy boiler, leak with water coming through the walls, mole in the lawn, birds nesting in the loft!!!

Oh and a leak in my DD's bedroom around the window - only happens when the rain blows a certain way, so I'm pretty sure it just a bit of pointing that needs redoing 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

When I bought mine my survey turned up that there was no dpc so my solicitor negotiated a reduction for the work. This must have pissed off the lady of the house as I was told she was taking care of the move as her husband was away. On exchange day I went in and all the indoor doors were locked. Spent ages unlocking and when I got into the kitchen every gas burner had been left on (unlit).
within a year we ended up having to replace part of the roof, most of the internal doors and put in a new kitchen. We’re still having trouble with a velux upstairs. Her hubby was, of course, a builder.

Three weeks after moving in we went to put a pie in the oven and … no oven. To be fair, we didn’t even notice.

When I met my H after about 18 months we moved to a furnished flat in Blackheath area- when we looked at it , it wasn't fancy but was nicely furnished- come the day if move in she had taken out all the nice furniture and replaced it with a load of junk shop tat. This was a direct let as well via Loot (if people remember that) so doing anything about it was nigh on impossible and we had paid our deposit and first months rent. To make it even better I got bit to buggery by fleas and then had a miscarriage and my H got bit to hell and had to be admitted for a heart arrhythmia which the consultant said was likely from all the flea bites. What a complete cow!!! We stuck it 5 months

Underpaid and got a bargain so knew would be jobs to do gradually. Was rented for years so lots of 'landlord specials' in terms of repairs, decorating & some scary electrics. Nothing is a surprise anymore Will be a labour of love for some time. Hey ho. Made a decent profit already.

Wasn't expecting a little self supply weed farm hidden away though.

Surveyors tried to convince us they never saw it.....too late by then. Might have put us off a teeny bit.

There was a room near the kitchen they had been using as a tv room- I wanted it as a playroom- it had revolting dirty /threadbare maroon and green carpets in there - upon pulling them up we discovered 1/2 meter wide hole that had just been covered up with carpet in the corner of the room.

In our old house we polished up the original floorboards and removed two vile fireplace hearths - leaving concrete rectangles in front. It was only a holiday home so we covered with rugs. New owners were in for a shock as the lived the flooring. It was a bit shite of us but that’s what folk do.
The next holiday home we bought had a garage with hidden asbestos in the roof and garage also flooded every time it rained so I guess that’s Karma.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I'm afraid we turfed him out that night. This was a while ago, in the heart of the East End of London well before it was gentrified. They had another house, multiple so it turned out. All their shit was still there tho, including his very well stocked gunsafe (I kid you not). He came back the next day with some heavies to remove the safe (fine with that!) I suspect he couldn't read, so f knows how the whole transaction had been signed off but 🤷‍♀️
As he left he made a big deal of what a great house it was as not every house had a bullet proof front door.
I have never... never, been so stressed.