To be miffed about my filthy house

[constantlylactating]

Bought a house with DH and 2x young DS (5 and 5 months), moved in last Friday. It was an older lady living here alone, the house was too much for her, and as such we expected to have to roll our sleeves up and do some serious cleaning.

On moving day we didn't get the keys until 4.45, so when we arrived we were shattered. The house was so filthy when we were moving our stuff in, I could have cried. It stank of dogs (still does a week on) and every room was caked in layers of filth and grime- the kitchen and bathroom were so bad, I wouldn't even take the baby in them.

She had also left several things in the house- a huge wardrobe full of clothes, huge old dresser, dirty old fridge, oven, cupboards full of plates and food, and a shed packed full of broken tools.

We ended up in a hotel that first night, and we booked a deep clean with a cleaning company for the next day. Cleaner arrived and was horrified at the state the house had been left in. It took her 4 hours just to do the bathroom- she unearthed piles of dirty razor blades tucked behind the sink.

We need another deep clean as she didn't get round to most of the house. We also need to book a skip to get rid of all her crap stuff.

We expected a certain level of work, but honestly this last week has been really hard going, and it's still nowhere near clean enough for us to unpack most of our stuff.

AIBU to have expected better, or is this just standard?

This is the second house we have bought, we didn't have any issues at all the first time around.

Rip out the carpets and wash down the bare floor with a bleach bicarb mix. Wash down the walls with sugarsoap and just paint everything white. It will help with your mh whilst you unpack and you can decorate later.

I’m not sure I fully understand how it can be that filthy and full of stuff and you didn’t notice, it would utterly stink and the grime would be apparent if it is as bad as you say, caked on. Or now a deep cleaner from a cleaner and it’s still not clean enough?

You can normally insist that the previous owners remove their possessions from the house, or charge for them to be removed/the skip. Check your contract of sale.

You can't charge for cleaning, the house is sold as seen.

I had a slightly different issue in that when I sold a house, the contract said all fuel must be left. There was half a tank of oil and a wood shed full of logs, both of which I left.

I later received a bill for £1200 for clearing the garden shed of 'my possessions'. I sent it back to them with a copy of the clause about fuel pinned to the front. There's no pleasing some people. 🙄

I am yet to buy a house for myself that is even vaguely in the state of cleanliness than the one I’ve just sold. Unfortunately that’s life. You don’t need this to ruin the ownership of your new home. Some people live very differently to the way you do. You don’t know the circumstances of the previous owners but any number of factors might be at play (dementia/mobility issues) so don’t take the state of the house personally - it might not reflect how it was once kept. If you own dogs and don’t clean carpets the smell will be horrific but if you live there you probably have gone ‘nose blind’. No amount of cleaning will remove it, you need to remove the carpets. Consider a cheap temp flooring for the time being. Your solicitor should be dealing with the possessions left behind so get them on it. Practically, air the house, buy pots of bicarb (or a big bag and decant) around the house out of reach of the kids and it will absorb a lot of the smells. When you’ve got tiny kids you are tired and that’ll make things seem worse but you have got a lovely new home at a good price so concentrate on that. Congrats on the new home!

Poor woman living in such a state 😔, it must have been awful for her.

You’re being ridiculous. Vacant possession only means there are no human occupants. It’s not a rental; you have bought the house. You will not get any money off anyone so don’t waste time & money chasing it. Put it down to experience (and check the loft!!)

All very well being sympathetic when you are not the one left to deal with it!

Snap. We hired a cleaning company. Granted it’s a 6 bedroom house, but 20 hours barely touched the surface. It took me and the cleaner 10 hours just to do the kitchen.
if you have the funds, continue with the hired cleaner and just go from by room.

If I wasn’t prepared to ‘deal with it’, I wouldn’t have bought the place.

Poor old woman 😒 as a child my family moved into somewhere in a state. I remember fondly how my parents priories done bed room at a time too sort...so for months we were all in one room then it was just me and my siblings and slowly had a clean room each. I was 8 so remember. It must be hard with a baby too. Even at 8 I remember my mum being terrified on us children stepping on sharp things embedded in the carpet

Actually you can recover the money for removal of their possessions, we did so. Our seller left a garage full of junk. We went through our solicitor and ended up hiring a skip, which the seller reimbursed us for.

You have to sign to say you won't leave anything behind and that the house will be left in reasonable condition.

I remember signing it just a few weeks ago before we moved.

I think the cleaners should have quoted you upon seeing the house rather than not getting it all done, you might be better to get an Air BnB nearby and strip the place out yourself, it'll probably cost the same as such a big deep clean. Plus it'll give the house chance to be aired out.

I think you have been incredibly naive thinking a house that had so much stuff in that you couldn’t see that floor and smelled of dogs would be clean, it was just never going to happen .

It’s really easy for people to criticise the sons but when you are in that position and it is your parent you find what you can do in reality is often quite limited if your parent refuses help. You can’t just make them as people have the legal right to make their own decisions if they are deemed to have the capacity to do so and that includes decisions that other people may consider unwise.

As others have said you can speak to your solicitor about the things left behind but personally at this point I would focus on the fact you have a lot more house than you would have other wise and get on with ripping up and disposing of carpets at this point. Take photos and when you in time sitting in what will become your lovely home you can look back and see how far it has come.

Also don’t just automatically get a skip, get quotes from local licensed rubbish removal companies as if you are doing a renovation you can save a lot of money rather than just getting skips, we saved hundreds.

Despite seeing the house, I think you had unrealistic expectations. Was naive to try to move in on the day of purchase

Perhaps rent locally for a few weeks while you / cleaners blitz it

Or, suggest you focus on getting one room nice, so you have somewhere that feels nice

Hoarding disorder is a recognised mental health condition

A bit of compassion for this elderly woman wouldn't go amiss

Why didn’t she pay for a deep clean then? Once all her stuff was out?

She’s got ops money from house so can’t do the “poor little me can’t afford it”

I dont know why you would assume that, firstly you knew it smelt and secondly you could see with your own eyes it was horded.

Untidy, cluttered homes by their definition are not clean homes, because you cannot clean behind or around all the stuff.

You can bill for the possessions left behind and the skip cost, I dont know how successful you'll be with that, but I doubt you can bill for the cleaning. You buy a house more or less as seen

And as for living like that, and her sons allowing her to live like that, lots of people are horders, the sons might also have been, none of them may have seen a problem and people have agency and capacity to make unwise and unpleasant choices for themselves.

Clean the house and then enjoy the bargain you got.

It probably was cleaned. To her mind of what cleaning was and what she was able to do.

The price you paid refelected the condition of the house. You viewed and accepted it. Removal of the stuff left you should have a case for getting that paid but not being clean to your standards after multiple (assumption) viewings is something you will have to take as you got what you paid for.

One, it would take more effort to pack and transport than putting it in a skip. Two, if she's moved into assisted living etc then you couldn't dump it there. Three, it would be seen as harrasment etc and there'd be massive fallout and come back.
I pity the person who buys the houses my hoarder neighbour owns. There's nothing his children can do to make his situation better.

I agree about capacity. My Mother was a hoarder but it was only after both her and DF were hospitalised at the same time and the OT explaining quite bluntly that neither of them could return home until it was sorted would she let me help or tackle the problem. Her choices as a grown woman were very different to mine. Especially when it came to housekeeping!

We bought our house from a very elderly widowed lady who clearly had never dealt with a house sale before, based on how the process had gone. On moving in day, we arrived to find her leaving the property, happily having left some beds, odd bits of furniture and food in the cupboards. Her son had arrived to pick her up and he was mortified, v apologetic but obviously it was too late to do anything. Luckily the house was spotlessly clean though.

We weren’t exactly chuffed but smiled her on her way and sorted the stuff ourselves afterwards. Ten years on, v happy here still. I think sometimes with these situations the vendor is inexperienced and doesn’t understand potential consequences. Or possibly chancing their luck! We’ll never know for sure.

I could not have bought a property that was filthy on viewing though - particularly bathrooms and kitchen.