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?

😄

At least this is his next birthday present solved... www.nisbets.co.uk/polar-counter-top-ice-machine/t315?vatToggle=incvat&plaid=1&cm_mmc=PLA--18096100318--1--1&cm_mmca1=go_18096100318____c&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIlemZ0JPw_AIVEoFQBh028QzREAQYASABEgLZPvD_BwE

Had electricians in today. You'd think that the circuit breaker marked "upstairs sockets" would turn off the upstairs sockets, right?

What it actually does it to turn off one of the (upstairs) bedroom's sockets and all but one of the (downstairs) kitchen sockets. The other bedrooms appear to be on another ring main entirely.

Two competent electricians gave themselves shocks and the gaffer declared the house an effing nightmare.

When we bought our house before this one, on moving day we went into the living room and he had repaired his motorbike in the living room. There was oil all over the wooden floor so we had to replace it. When we viewed the house he had very carefully placed the sofa over the top of it!!!

When we bought this house we came back to measure just before we exchanged. We were told we couldn't go in one of the bedrooms because the lady's brother was asleep. On moving in day, turns out we couldn't go into the bedroom because the brother had punched a huge hole in the wall that they had then use cement to fix instead of plaster!!!!

Loft was full of rubbish
Garden fencing was held up by being tied too bushes in front, when we cut them back the whole lot of fencing fell down.
Skirting board was not stuck to the walls

We didn't find anything when we first moved in, but a few months later when i had friends staying we discovered the the spare bedroom ensuite (that we hadnt used up to that point) leaked into the living room. Turns out the previous owner had annoyed the plumber who just did a bodge job. Bathroom is tiled, so we need to take it all out if we want to use the shower.

Owner nearly took the two log burners that were in the house. About 3 days before completion he text me 'just thought I'd check before I remove the log burners, if you want them or not?' Erm, why would I not have the log burners in the house and let you take them !?

We've since discovered lots of bodged jobs about the house that he had done. We refer to him as Dodgy Denis.

On the flip side of this chat, I know the young couple who bought our old house felt that we left the oven in a state and felt we 'conned' them about the living room flooring.

In fairness, the oven did need a proper clean rather than the thorough wipe down I did of it. It had been my intention prior to completion to do a proper oven clean, but the buyer was so rude to us during the process that I moved that task to the lower prioritised jobs, and then it didn't get done thoroughly.

They complained that the wooden floor in the living room was nice around the edge of the room, but not nice in the middle, under the rug. This was how the floor was laid when it was built in the 20s. They claimed we 'hid this from them with a rug'. Whereas I see it that we simply had a rug down in the living room and they didn't enquire about the wooden flooring underneath.

Oh, she also text me at 1am a few months after the sale to say there had been an attempted burglary on the garage and I should have warned them about the area. Hmmmm.

Prior to completion instead of their solicitor asking our solicitor for suitable completion dates, they told the buyers when they could do it. The buyer then text me telling me the completion date, which was 1 day before my DD 1st birthday, and I was out of the country for two weeks before. It was never going to happen, and we hadn't even discussed it let alone agreed to it. We were then amazed that her solicitor requested we pay towards their hotel stay or alternative accommodation as they'd given formal notice on their rental! ha... not my problem.

I could go on... but I'll stop.