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?

😄

Hope you don't mind that I laughed at this!

Woodchip upon woodchip upon woodchip on the stairs walls. Realised that's what was basically holding the damn walls up. All radiators were full of black gunk so weren't warming up, we had to clean the whole system out. We're getting a new boiler put in, two different gas engineers have advised us the pipes are the wrong size that previous owner had used and the boiler on the wall is far too close to the sink so we're getting that put to a safe height, found a plug socket just peeking out under that boiler too which looks dodgy af. The back yard was full of woodchippings which did a really good job of hiding their dog shit which inevitably one of the kids trod through the house a few days after moving in. The wall behind the kitchen sink unit was thick with black mould, I could smell it instantly and took the unit apart to give it a good scrub and airing out... I think the guy had zero DIY skills and used his mates to do jobs on the cheap which we're now paying to get done right.
Also shocked pp gave the puppy back to the twats who abandoned it.

Whoa! That makes the kitchen cupboard door coming off in my hand and the wall light with sellotaped wires on a 400 year old beam look pretty tame.

We completed at 1pm. They eventually left at 5pm. It was odd that they had drained the whole heating system of water. We turned it all back on. The intergrated fridge freezer didn't work. They removed the bathroom cabinet with light and left bare wires. A week later one of the bedroom ceilings fell down. Turns out they'd knocked the water tank when moving stuff in the loft. Emptied the system. Repaired it with fibreglass filler which didn't work but slowly leaked until the water soak ceiling fell down.

We moved last summer into a house that was finished to a high standard and didn't look like it needed any work. In reality we had:

• a gas leak in the cupboard under the stairs in the first week (turned out to be very old dodgy piping as well as discovering some electrics that were not ideal)
• a bath that leaked significantly through the ceiling below when the tap was on (turns out it doesn't leak when the integrated shower hose is fully extended rather than being pushed into its casing on the side of the bath). Pretty sure they must have known about this.
• they'd kindly left a back up immersion heater in the hot water tank permanently switch on
• water softening unit packed up after 3 days
• ceiling in kitchen has started leaking
• water has started coming in through the new (c. 3 years old) patio doors when it's raining
• leaking radiator that was discovered after it dripped right through the ceiling below
• the bath tub is now duct taped together after the two panels fall off every time anybody walks past it
• a loft area full of carpet off cuts and half used paint tins as well as a load of old junk behind the shed in the garden.
• they kindly left their used toilet brushes for us!

We need more details on the bomb, @BumpySkull

The previous owners ran a dating agency (pre internet) and left the filing cabinet full of client profiles. These, along with a couple of bottles of red made a very entertaining evening. Disclaimer, we did dispose of them sensitively.

To disconnect their dishwasher rather than unscrew the pipes like a normal person, THEY SAWED THEM OFF.
Thought the kitchen window was frosted glass, nope just grease coated.
Wallpaper over wallpaper over painted woodchip.
4 layers of carpet that didn't quite reach the walls.
Skirting boards held in place with command strips.
And the electrics were just plain scary

So much but my favourite is an exercise bike that was slowly being eaten by a hedge in the back garden.

A ferret in the kitchen! A very cute and friendly ferret right enough...
I caught him with oven gloves and cat food and the vet down the road took him.

My first thought too!

A hole in the wall. The house has a cellar and a coal hole. When we viewed the property, I didn't notice a piece of carpet propped up against the cellar wall or the piece of stone and plant pot against the outside wall. We had the burglar alarm fitted the day we moved in. The guy shouted up from the cellar, you do realise that you can just move this stone and.jump straight into your house!

Nothing too bad here but when my son bought his house as we had had problems before we made sure the solicitor told the sellers we wanted everything removed. Instead I moved load after load of decades of stuff from the loft and about 40 massive paving slabs piled up in the garden, huge loads of wood and planks and all sorts. I suspect the sellers thought we might like some of the stuff we left behind but we definitely did not want a single bit of it. I did trip after truip to the tip with my volvo estate with all the seats down in the back which makes it a bit like a mini van and someone local to me on Gumtree wanted all the paving slabs which i was happy to take round to them rather than have to throw out.

You are supposed to leave things empty. One of my children completed sale of a flat a week ago and made sure every single thing was removed. In fact a lot of kind sellers even hoover once the removal vans have taken most stuff.

You win! Where was it? Who found it?

The water pump (required for showers) broke.

One of the showers leaked into the kitchen.

The back door once unlocked didn’t lock again.

The boiler was condemned and the gas supply turned off.

The door fell off the oven.

All in week 1.

Duff boiler. Dodgy unsafe wiring - even in their kids bedroom. Leaking garage roof. Leaking shed roof. Mould under bathroom lino. Mould in toilet cistern. Every window needed resealing. Brown limescale an inch thick under toilet rim. Dog hairs an inch thick in built in wardrobes. Missing bulbs in loads of lights and no indication what bulbs needed. No paperwork of any kind. Crusty towel rail in bathroom. Duff gas fire. Missing window keys despite assurances everything locks and there are keys. Overgrown garden. Curtain pole hanging off. Rubbish piled up. Broken glass on drive. Half the radiators don't work. Filth, and more filth. We are still getting shedloads of their post 7 weeks in.

But at least no bomb! Wow Bumpyskull

I don't know if it's true but I once read that in Scotland you can claim for things like broken boilers if you find out within 14 days of completion unless it had been indicated during the contract stage.

We bought our house when the owners broke up, we got a good price partly because the woman didn't want to move so the house was a tip. When we moved in to be fair it was clean but there was loads of stuff, pictures on the wall (string had been painted over so was difficult to get off the wall!) Shed was full of paint tins, an old lawn mower, grass seeds, a box full of old McDonald's toys (my kids love those!) There was a ladder, a mirror, a vase, tiles, a bench. I've probably forgotten loads of stuff. We didn't care, got a house in the perfect location for a decent price and it was like a treasure hunt!

A ghost.

Moved in here in the March, clean but the seller had 'gifted' me some huge and horrible pieces of furniture I had to Freecyle/dump.

I had curtains made and the fitter came early November to put the rails up - he refused to continue because the 'floor was rotten'. Pulled the carpet back - yep, the floor was rotten! ALL the floors were rotten - bedrooms, hall and bathroom.

Late November the 'new' resin flat roof was blown off the lounge/kitchen in Storm Arwen. Found out the roofer had only nailed it down, instead of screwing it to the wood.

My Dad did warn me not to buy it, he's very superstitious, it's No 13.

Many years ago, my grandparents moved house - it was Christmas Eve, when shops closed early. The previous owner took all the lightbulbs with them, so they had to have Christmas in the dark.
To add insult to injury, the previous owner was my nan’s cousin!

Leaking shower that drips on the en suite all night drip drip really annoys me and my back gate won’t shut

When we moved into this house we came down armed with tons of cleaning materials ahead of the removal van, 2 day move because of the distance, when we got in it was utterly immaculate, not sure if they hadn't had professional cleaners in! Having had other experiences, we appreciated how lucky we were, they also left every key labelled, a lovely card and a bottle of wine!

Had to replace the front door weeks after moving in, after it was unlocked you couldn't lock it again.

(Plush) carpet in the bathroom 🤢 bathroom has been rearranged, but instead of routing pipework properly, they've built a false floor.

Light switches fitted "upside down"

Self built conservatory which I'm convinced will fall down in a strong wind.

Cupboards built in front of radiators.

One of the ovens didn't work.

They didn't bother cleaning before they moved out (possibly ever in the kitchen).

Left a large sofa in the living room, which we had to shift out. It now resides in the wobbly conservatory.

Gradually working through sorting things though.

Very old house with a kitchen extension flat corrugated roof. That we knew about. The first time it rained the floor tiles in the kitchen when I came down in the morning were floating. You needed wellies. Whenever you opened a drawer you'd have to watch out for mice.

There was no central heating so much of my clothes shoes bags stayed boxed up. They went green with mould.

The piece de resistance was an open gulley we hadn't noticed when viewing it went from the house down to a sort of septic tank hole which was covered in rusty corrugated metal. This open gulley was to carry away toilet waste. Yup, you could watch your turd wind it's merry way down to the hole in the woods.

There had been a quarry at the end of the garden. The owner over the centuries and neighbours had slowly filled it in with waste including more recently washing machines, cookers, fridges, old motorbikes etc