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?

😄

when i viewed the house it was so clean.when i moved in it was filthy,i mean filthy,very upset,i moved out of my houser and deep cleaned everywhere, i was so angry at owner of house i bought, if you dont want to clean it pay someone.

Bars on a bedroom window, a horrible smell of wet dog (they didn’t have a dog), knickers and toothbrushes behind a radiator and a filthy dirty oven, thick with grease and a hole in the ceiling!

One of my previous rented homes came with a dog. Long story short, I now own a dog.

Current house - the viewing was a rushed 15 minute covid affair with a very rude estate agent, back when houses were being snapped up. I paid £10k over asking, right at the top of the market, and naturally I missed a few things.

The vendors took all the lightbulbs and left us a bottle of wine (and a variety of broken children's toys in the back garden).

Unfortunately what I hadn't realised when viewing was just how bad the kitchen was - I thought it was something I could live with for a year or so. The first cupboard door I tried to open came away in my hands and it turned out the whole thing was falling apart.

There was a ceiling light that tripped all the electrics when you put a bulb in and turned it on (perhaps that was why they took that bulb...). When the electrician came around it turned out there were scorch marks in the loft and we were lucky the whole place hadn't gone up in flames.

Bizarre paint jobs throughout too - one room was just painted as high as their arms could reach, apparently they didn't own a stepladder.

Our funniest one was the previous owner came back (according to a neighbour) and removed all the lightbulbs. Utterly bonkers

Gas cooker was removed by cutting through metal gas pipe. Not capped so pipe open if you unknowingly turn gas on.

Oh you've just reminded me - all my cupboard doors in the were practically falling off too!
If I ever move again, I will be trying cupboard doors - Thankfully my dad was able to sort them out for me.

The previous owners had disconnected their washing machine but left the hose in over the sing and turned the mains off. The tap where the hose connects to the mains under the sink was broken and they left it as such. More annoying was that the house we moved out of had a similar issue with a pipe but we got a plumber in to fix it before handing over the keys. Stung both ends.

Current house was a bit like the crooked house that old back built. Main light on lounge fused not long after we moved in and due to they type (multiple little coloured bulbs) we needed to replace. Went and bought a new light fitting to take down old one and it literally wouldn’t come out of the ceiling. We initially thought it had be no nailed glued into the ceiling rose. Had a few electricians out to quite a refit of new fitting but all refused to touch as whole house really needed rewiring. We did know that it would need a rewrite at some point. Quite for require kept going up as we were told all the laminate floor throughout the house would also need lifting (by a joiner not the electricians) and unlikely to be relaid as laminate doesn’t relay properly and it wasn’t great quality. Loved without a big light for 10+ years but eventually got someone to replace - turned out it had a massive bold into one of the joists. Had to them find a replacement light that would cover the huge hole of left.

Oven basically had 2 temps- on and off!! Couldn’t work out what temp it was on and it couldn’t change. Managed for years trial and error. The grill part never worked - every time I tried to light it a ball of flames would come out and nearly take my eye brows off!!

Gas fire was condemned- birds nesting in the chimney breast and too much rubble. The gas fire flue went up the original chimney. Winks need a sweep!!

I used the built in dishwasher as an extra cupboard for years!

Best thing is it still worked when i did decide to usr it as a dishwasher!

How did you fix the showers? We have the same issue ta

i thought the same 😢

Nearly forgot that every few weeks the old owner has an Amazon subscribe and save delivery sent to the house, containing baby food. I do not have a baby.

If I catch the driver I send it back but more often than not they leave it on the doorstep and leg it.

I've told the vendor and she promised to collect it and stop the subscription, but did neither. I told Amazon and they refused to do anything because it's just my address and not my Amazon account...

Now the foodbank gets a donation every few weeks. They moved out early last summer and it's still going on!

We have left several notes whilst we have been decorating, nothing horrible though! Just our names and the dates when we did things. So if they lift up the flooring in the front room, there is a little note “Alan and Barbara, putting new floor in 2019” 😀 another little note in the bottom of the fitted wardrobes “new wardrobes, 2018” (we are not called Alan and Barbara) 😂

When we moved last, we left the house gleaming and had the oven professionally cleaned

The oven cleaner did say that he often finds the people who have the oven cleaned for the house they’re selling usually find the same hasn’t been done for them and he ends up with more work from them at the new house

In the new house there was caked on food remnants all over the oven and down the sides - and a smashed casserole dish brushed under the kitchen cabinets. Lots of dodgy DIY jobs, silicone everywhere, and a self built “media wall” which on closer inspection isn’t even

Half my kitchen doors where hung upside down.

We thought we were so lucky with this house. Especially as we had £0k of equity that we thought would be plenty for decorating.

It might have been, if the roof hadn't had a bad patch job in order to sell. It cost us I think about half of that 10k? Part of the roof we fixed ourselves because the roofer couldn't figure out how water was getting in - turned out, the render on the outside had cracked, someone had used silicone caulk to patch and then just painted over. A couple of hours digging it out and mortaring over sorted it but seriously? We couldn't use our lounge when it rained because the bay leaked so badly!

The fleas were also awful.

Wasn't too happy that the kitchen was so greasy it took hours to clean and that was when I realised it was yellow.

The worst was the fact that the woman we bought from is clearly an idiot con woman. She just stopped paying all bills the second sale was agreed, we've had loads of bailiffs and similar at the door. Worst was a police officer looking for her. But ultimately, credit files are attached to people not houses so annoying for us, but worse for her when the parking tickets and unpaid fines and unpaid council tax catch up with her!

We had 10k of equity. Not 0k!

There was so much junk left in the garden I had to get a skip. Also two damp sheds falling down. A huge garden gate that flew open in the wind blocking the private road behind the house.
Previous owners had kept cars at the bottom of the garden so there was oil and some type of green chemical.
A huge crater beneath the carpet underneath my bed. Apparently the previous owners had botched the flooring.
When it rained water came down the chimney onto the dishwasher in the kitchen.
We opened one of the windows upstairs and it fell on the drive.
There was no loft insulation so house was cold.
A window and a door has been fitted in the space and just filled in with putty.
Mice in the loft.
Dirty carpets.
Old radiators.
The shower in the ensuite bathroom was leaking and so the floor of the fitted wardrobe was wet.
However I bought the house because I fell in love with it and I still do. It is a moneypit though. Been here four years and done a lot.
Focused on the radiators and new windows and doors so very cosy now.
But all these posts remind me why I never want to move again.

Bought 18 months ago and have been dealing with; the shed they said they'd remove that fell down the first winter, discovering they buried all the waste and rubble from the extension under the lawn (seriously, wth!!), all previous chasers badly DIY patched, no underlay under the carpets, a million layers of paint on all woodwork, every internal door handle just kinda flops down, none of the laminate is fitted up to the edges of the rooms, bathroom window wouldn't shut, a bedroom fireplace sealed with plywood and duct tape (then painted over a million times of course) and my favourite - a door that goes nowhere. Like, they put a door in one room, but then boarded up the other side in the adjoining room.

This list is a bit of a long one. We bought a house from a friend of a friend, they seemed lovely and our friend only had great things to say about them. House seemed amazing too. Luckily ours wasn’t as costly as major building works but it was all mentally draining finding one thing after another.

. The day we moved in there was kids toys, big toy cars & prams in the driveway (they had 6 kids all under 8 😬) We had to dispose of it all

. They took they bins with them when they moved 😂 Perfectly reasonable as they had a big family so I assume bigger bins but a heads up so we could order new ones for us moving into the property would’ve been great £60 per bin as well

. We walked into the house and we were hit with a stale fry up smell, they had left a tray with tinfoil covered in a thick layer of fat in the oven. the oven was thick with burnt on food and the glass was completely black from oil & food- you would think the glass wasn’t there walking past it

. The boiler didn’t work & house was freezing- tried to claim that we must’ve done something to it… in the 4 hours we’d had the keys…

. The fridge & freezer hadn’t been properly cleaned, there was mouldy blocks of cheese in the top shelf and peas and potato waffles frozen onto the sides of the freezer

. They had hidden multiple broken doors with kids drawings and name plaques

. They had spilled cooking oil into one of the gas hob rings meaning it wouldn’t light & was a fire risk- didn’t bother trying to fix it

. It’s kind of a done thing that white goods are left in this area so the washing machine was there, the drawer was covered in mould and the drum wasn’t much better. The tumble dryer was covered in lint and when we pulled it out from the wall the entire wall, back of machine and floor was caked in dust and lint- how the house hadn’t went up in flames I have no idea

but probably the worst was that they somehow installed a dodgy electricity box and somehow managed not to pay any electricity for the 8 years they stayed in the property (what a nightmare that was trying to get an energy company to find it and register it) but in order to install this dodgy box they had disconnect the earth wire as it kept tripping all the electrics, which meant it was another fire risk.

I think I was more in awe at the state of the house when we walked in, considering I had just left a house sparkling clean for the new owner. I didn’t expect new build condition but at least put your mouldy cheese and tin foil fat in the bins that you’re taking to your new house 😂😂

Not me, but a friend. Found an electric chair (the kind used to electrocute condemned prisoners) in the basement. Called the police. They took it, checked it for signs of being used, then returned it to him. It STILL sits in the basement, as a conversation piece.

We bought a little house to rent out. Did it up - new kitchen and bathroom, paint etc. When the whole thing was completely done- and we had tenants ready to move in, someone realised a (replastered) wall in the upstairs "sounded funny " when tapped. Knocked through the plasterboard to find a door behind it opening onto huge double level loft space, big enough for a couple of bedrooms and a small bathroom. Because of tenants waiting, we had to just shut it back up and leave it till they leave. The little house isn't so little after all...

The most disgusting thing though: the main bathroom had a grey carpet. I think carpet in a bathroom is unhygienic so went to pull it up ready to have the floor tiled. It wasn't carpet! It was years' worth of compacted pet fur and pubic hair!!!

😂😱😭🤮

1. Nails from their dozens of pictures left in every wall.
2. Stinky carpet in the loo (boak)
3. Dodgy plasterwork including holes filled with bath sealant.
4. Dying boiler
5. Extension falling off the back of the house-they knew as they'd claimed on the insurance for it, taken the money and run. Coincidentally we had the same insurers so found this out when we claimed because of the severe cracks that had appeared. (See 3 above). Luckily for us the insurers paid up for a complete demolition and rebuild!

(We had had a full survey which managed to miss any issues, sellers had not disclosed it and it hadn't cropped up on any searches)

Removal people need to make good or pay for the damage. Or check your insurance. Get boiler people out again. The rest - well that’s a new house and what you find

Our seller had removed the gas cooker, left it in the garden BUT hadn't capped the gas, just switched it off and hadn't told us.
The left a delipidated shed full of junk that we had to hire a skip to remove, they had painted around furniture and the wall that was hidden by a wardrobe in the 3rd bedroom was crumbling!