What's the most petty thing a home owner has taken with them?

[MarvellousTimeRuiningEverything]

We completed on our house yesterday. Sellers have been a nightmare, very difficult and tried to increase price by £12k the day before exchange. So we knew they'd probably screw us over and we haven't been disappointed. Lightbulbs, toilet roll holders, some handles from cupboards etc... but the most petty thing has to be the clock. They had one of those god awful clocks where you stick the numbers to the wall then screw in/add the arms. They've left the numbers, but removed the arms and taken them with them!

We left the new owners of our house a bottle of wine, plus glasses in case they didn't know where theirs were.

The house we then moved into had obviously not been cleaned since it was put on the market and the toilet was smeared in poo. They also took most lightbulbs and curtain rods.

One of our Previous houses - The key for the burglar alarm. They also didn’t leave a code for it so we couldn’t use it.
But When a bulb went out the alarm went off as it wasn’t wired correctly to the mains and we had no way of turning it off.
We had pay ££‘s to get an electrician out to disconnect it.

Current house it was what they left rather than what they took. Leaking radiators, black mould in fridge, painting around furniture, literal shit in the toilet and on the toilet seats. Rubbish in the attic. Filth everywhere.

When we moved we cleaned the house thoroughly and left everything in good order together with a brand name fridge and washing machine which were fairly new and we would not need. No complaints as far as I know.
We also left some helpful note on things they would need to know. Clearly they didn’t read the notes. One was that they would need to get the burglar alarm reprogrammed by a qualified engineer as it was set up to phone our mobile phones if triggered or tampered with. They must have tried to do it themselves as during the first weekend we had no less than twenty calls from the alarm system.
The second thing was a phone call about two weeks later from the estate agent asking If we could let them have the safe combination. It was all included in the information we had left together with the manual override key. As this thread demonstrates, “there’s nowt so queer as folk”.

Opposite of these evil sh@ts. Son just moved into a rental. Previous tenants left loo roll, washing up liquid, bottle of wine in fridge, and more. There are good people out there 😍

Our buyers were awful from the start. Agreed a price and then got a list of stuff they wanted to sell us. Hideous curtains, a horrible chandelier, children’s wooden play house in the garden. All of it horrific. So we said no to everything.

They wanted to complete on a very specific date on a Friday.Suited us so we agreed. sorted out time off movers etc and then with 4 weeks to go they realised that it was a bank holiday weekend and then said they couldn’t get a mover until the Tuesday after the bank holiday. So I phoned round and found two companies who could do it on the day they originally asked for. Flatly refused to complete on that day. Turns out, they were stony broke couldn’t afford movers anyway

Moving day comes, moved in and the place was filthy. All the crappy stuff was still there. After moving our furniture in I went for a shower in the en-suite, didn’t work. Phoned the estate agent, he asked them, they said it worked the morning they left. I bought a new shower, stripped the old one and it was obvious that the shower hadn’t worked for months. Why lie?

Kept finding slightly odd things. I found a viagara tablet in the hall, some rooms had locks on that could only be operated from the inside. Effectively locking you inside a room and locking others out. When I went to strip out some old fitted wardrobes I found some vhs video cassettes on the top shelf of their primary age sons wardrobe. They were porn tapes that had to be bought in specialist stores. What was worse some were unmarked and I genuinely didn’t want to take them to the tip so I got my solicitor to contact their solicitor and ask them to collect them. Denied they belonged to them. They’d lived in the house for 12 years.

The house number. It was an awful black plate with a floral design and the number, but it would have put us on til we found time to replace it. They weren’t moving to a house with the same number

You could have told him that at least he won’t pass on any STIs!

I can't understand how a seller can get away with taking the kitchen? Surely, the house is narrated with the kitchen as-is and that's what you're expecting to buy. Doesn't the list of fixtures & fittings include the kitchen? That's such an awful thing to do. How incredibly penny-pinching to take hooks, batteries, bulbs etc. People can be so petty & small minded.

Yes, it happened to me. As well as ALL the light bulbs (we arrived at 6pm in November!) they took the toilet seat, toilet lock, and the back door lock, leaving us sleeping fitfully in an unsecured ground floor flat all night.

Moved into a house where they had taken the whole banister from the landing and the staircase, including the end post. Literally walked in and there was a staircase open at the side.

It was rented accommodation so the landlord had to contact the ex-tenant, the lady next door (who was vile) had been friends with these tenants and they told her they did it because he took 20% of their deposit. Landlord explained he did so due to the sheer amount of mess in the garden and house itself.

To his credit, he did have it fixed the next morning, but it meant we had to stay with family overnight as it wasn't safe and the bathroom was upstairs.

My friend moved into a house & there was a dead rabbit in a cage in the garden..

I moved into a council flat and they leave nothing. I was told I was lucky to have blinds and light bulbs. I had nothing else. Literally moved into a shell.

And when you leave you have to strip all the walls if wallpapered and rip up all the carpets no matter how old/expensive etc and if you don't they do it and charge you.

Not quite the same, but when our neighbours moved in, there had been I think 3 previous sales fall through on their house. They'd been interested in it from when it first went on the market - and were disappointed when they did get it that it no longer had its parquet floors downstairs. The vendors had got the flooring replaced as its unevenness had contributed to the problems selling it.

Our house is a twin (but didn't suffer any subsidence unlike our neighbours), so the topic came up because we still have the floor. Actually we also have a bag of bits from when the neighbour's was removed (for patching purposes one day I hope!).

Plugs. For a very particular sink which means we can’t replace and they are unlikely to use in their new home!

I agree. I don't understand this nonsense of taking things with you but leaving junky substitutes behind. Hopefully, contracts will start to state that any fixtures that are in the house at the time of the contract will be left as is, unless otherwise agreed to by buyer. If I was to buy a house, after reading all of these stories, I'd be gaining access before the final exchange and taking pictures to compare with the pictures I took when deciding to buy. I'd also make sure that there was something in the contract about leaving money in escrow to cover any theft or substitutions.

When someone buys a house, they are buying THOSE kitchen cabinets and THOSE bathroom fixtures and THOSE fireplace mantels and THAT flooring, and every other fixture/rod/bannister/ladder/shed/garden plantings, etc. unless an alternative is agreed upon by both parties. Otherwise, it's theft, stealing and no different from if someone breaks into an empty home and guts it.

99% of it all sounds like nothing but being spiteful, petty and in many cases, cheating the buyers out of things they paid big money to get.

@housethatbuiltme
Unfortunately I think the only way to get it out is to break it I think - it’s sealed and wired in thankfully it’s a room we don’t use at the minute so it’s very much in the ‘Problems for later’ pile at the minute!

My parents recently bought a house where the people they bought their house off took all lightbulbs, light fittings, every curtain pole, toilet roll the fridge freezer that they were supposed to leave. They didn't move out until gone 5pm and we couldn't get on with moving in. They were supposed to be gone at midday. It was nuts. I found a bit of pasta in the back of the cupboard and my Dad said they'd be back for that in a minute! I couldn't get my head round taking stuff they agreed to leave. I think the curtain poles from around the unusually shaped bay windows was just daft as they would never fit anywhere else!

Dirt. We had algae growing in the seal around the glass shower screen. An extractor fan so gunked up with grease that we had to bin the filters and buy new. Dead flies on every windowsill. Dog hair stuck in the grease coming out of the side of the cooker. Their 'cleaner' had been to clean the place ready for us after they left too! I declined their offer of her details if we needed a cleaner...
Our contract said that if we removed any light fittings we had to replace them with a simple fitting with a bulb.

People taking their curtain poles "because they cost bundreds of pounds" are hilarious. Firstly where the heck are you getting your curtain poles form? Mine are brushed chrome from John Lewis and we have enormous windows - they were
£120 each. Secondly surely curtain poles are fitted for the windows in that particular house. Just buy new curtain poles you tight bastards.

People taking their curtain poles "because they cost bundreds of pounds" are hilarious. Firstly where the heck are you getting your curtain poles form? Mine are brushed chrome from John Lewis and we have enormous windows - they were
£120 each. Secondly surely curtain poles are fitted for the windows in that particular house. Just buy new curtain poles you tight bastards.

Oops double posting due to wifi glich!

My partner bought a shithole of a house a couple of years back to do up. The fridge was left but so was the food contents including milk that were several months old. Honestly there was junk everywhere all over the house.

What they did take were all the plant pots...fine, but they tipped the earth out all over the patio first and just left it there.

Didn't happen me, but one of my dad's friends bought a house out in the country beside us, there had been a fall out between the owners because their elderly parents left it to them and one wanted to move in and the rest forced him to sell, so he took all the radiators. Water leaked all over the floors and flooring had to be replaced

Seller told me she'd take the curtains if I didn't buy them. They were old but I thought they keep us going for a while. The first thing I did was wash them and they literally fell apart!