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?

😄

I don't know how I forgot.. probably the trauma!

When I moved in here, and sister moved out and into down the road... bearing in mind how long that all takes..

I discovered this place came with a free bloody cannabis grow in the back bedroom, complete with visiting attendant cannabis growers in the form of random members of the local 'family'... They would just turn up let themselves in via the back gate, tramp upstairs and fiddle with it and tramp off again, but several of them could not follow the simple rule to check if dogs were in the back yard, and not to open the living room door so a few got bitten in the process as I had a very nervous blind dog who really did NOT like random blokes wandering in and out!

I have never been so angry in all my life, I couldn't believe she had been so stupid as to get involved with this at all never mind a few weeks before someone else was due to move in!

There were raids going on around the estate, if we'd been raided there was absolutely piss all chance I'd be able to say 'I just moved in and had no clue' because who on EARTH would believe that - nor could I grass (I would happily have done so!) because these people appeared truly scary, but also because again, who on EARTH would believe the truth of the situation!

So we had to sit tight and hope to fuck it was all gone and sorted and we didn't get caught.

Schadenfraude is a wonderful thing though... they panicked with the local raids, cut it, set it to dry FAR too hot and miracle of miracles, whilst managing to not burn the house down.. dried it out far too fast and hot and made the entire lot totally worthless.

Many years ago: the vendor had taken all the lightbulbs!

@WiddlinDiddlin 😯

The surprises our vendors left for us:

A skip on the driveway (full).

A cracked window.

A broken oven.

The dishwasher door would only open half way.

Mice.

Every toilet leaking.

Broken guttering.

No keys for the garage (so it couldn’t be locked).

Light fittings (that we paid extra for) which fused the house every time they were switched on.

A 3 foot long brown stain on the cream bedroom carpet.

Gloss paint and nail polish in every carpet down stairs.

No lightbulbs downstairs.

Similar here. The previous owners were divorcing. Between our final viewing and completion I reckon the bloke hadn't cleaned up after the German Shepherd even once. The back garden was revolting. DP was out there with a shovel and a bag for a couple of hours 🤢

Skeleton of a dead cat under floorboards

We moved days before Christmas. We cooked Christmas dinner in the oven but later found out the oven was so dangerous it could have electrocuted us. The catches had been removed from the windows. They told us the attic was empty. We later found all the baby equipment they'd had for their now teenage sons. It took numerous trips to the charity shops to empty it. To top it all they wouldn't get their mail directed to their new house. They thought it was OK to call once a week for it and stand chatting for ages. I started redirecting their mail and putting it back in the post box. Oh and they asked if we'd found their laptop. As if I wouldn't have told them!

We were guilty of staying in our old house post completion - we only found out when the buyers' solicitor turned up on the doorstep and asked why we were still there!
It turned out that all the info, paperwork and the keys had been sent to our locked up and empty new house.

Thought this thread was about random shit bought FOR the house 😂

Shows you my guilty mind!

Some right horror stories. Feel quite lucky so far. Last house move had a gas leak caused by old gas cooker, seller refused to pay for emergency works to disconnect and cap off safely. Late that night went to turn shower on - nope. Absolutely knackered. I always open all cupboards etc at viewings but lesson learned, be an utter nosy parker and turn everything on at viewing the next time!

As well as the pubic carpet (and the rest)the vendors had also left us with a potentially deadly situation which was only discovered when our next door neighbour received a strong shock from our hall radiator. Can't remember exactly what the problem was but the house was live as the previous owner had done all the electrical work himself. He wasn't an electrician. He had also done the plumbing and had duplicated a lot of it. So much so that our actual plumber was able to tax and insure his van for a year when he sold all the excess copper pipe.

My dishwasher broke down before Christmas, and they couldn't come out until January 6th. So when I hand-washed crockery I used the dishwasher racks to let the plates drain and dry. (Not much space on my draining board for them)

Well 7 years in and we have found a new one. Just had our integrated washing machine replaces and the fitter found that one of the cupboard kickboards is so insanely and poibtlessly long (it extends about half a foot under the cupboard void) it had been rammed against our washing machine drain hose for years - no wonder the machine never drained well.

So I have spent half of my lunch hour getting busy with a saw, trimming it down to a sane size.

EWWWWW!!!!!!

A boiler from who knows when that played a drum solo when it turned on. Had a man come round to fit smart meters and he said that it wasn't burning cleanly and officially he'd have to condemn the boiler. We had plans to replace it so we unofficially agreed that he was never there and we re-booked getting the meters changed after a we had our nice shiny new boiler fitted.
An oven so thick with grime it was unusable until we had it professionally cleaned.
An overflowing skip. We had to contact the skip owners to get the thing removed and they refused to take the overflowing stuff, so we ended up with a pile of crap by our garage that the previous owner promised to come and sort out but never did. Got a nasty note from an anonymous neighbour about it.
Every curtain rail was damaged, it looked like someone had tried to rip them off the walls.
I've told DH that if we ever move again I'm not buying another "fixer-upper". I just can't.

Some people who are home owners clearly live like total pigs- and they say tenants are bad!!

Top tip when buying, ask for a gas boiler servicing certificate before you exchange. Our solicitor advised we demand one, and during the process there was a fault found meaning our sellers had to pay for it to be fixed

We had to take out a panel of plasterboard in the kitchen, where there had been a leak, and between the noggins in the wall was a pot noodle, which had been left there by whoever built the wall. We weren't sure if it was a modern version of the old (and rather sick) tradition of bricking up a mummified cat to ward off evil spirits.

It means nothing. Our old boiler was serviced every year. We knew it was on its last legs and about to die, we’d still have had a certificate. Top tip is to assume the boiler needs replacing unless it’s still under guarantee.

Why on Earth are you signing your notes ‘Alan and Barbara” then? That’s just weird.

Actually we had the documents sent through today for the house we're buying where the boiler's obviously worked its ticket this last month... so she's had it replaced! Bit of a surprise.

I’m not using those names, but I used our real names but I’m not putting them on mumsnet

@Biddie191 a ... full... potnoodle, made up or still sealed? What flavour? Why... i dunno, some people are absolutely bonkers.

I'd still prefer the potnoodle to the active weed farm with attendant thugs.

WiddlinDiddlin - unopened, and I think it was a green lid, so maybe vegetable? It was quite cool, in the respect that the BBE sort of dated the work done (although I should think there's a fair amount of time between manufacture and BBE).
We put it back in the wall when we finished the renovation, didn't want to disturb the feng shui 😎

Sounds like I got away lightly.. an inch of fat in the oven (replaced.. wasn't even going to TRY & clean it..) mouldy built in fridge freezer, door had been closed.. I did clean that but it froze everything, so, again, replaced.. dishwasher looked like a dog had been sick in it. Replaced.
The worst part was trying to find replacement items that were in stock, could be delivered inside a month, fitted, & the old appliances taken away..

Previous owners took all lightbulbs with them including the ones in the oven and fridge!! Appliances were integrated and were included.