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Original poster

How clean do you have to leave a house when you sell it?

34 replies

mrszimmerman · 09/10/2011 12:11

Should I get in cleaners if I don't have time to do it myself?
I know it's going to be a mad rush...
Are there rules about it?

OP posts:

cece · 09/10/2011 12:12

so you're not embarassed I would say.

ByTheSea · 09/10/2011 12:12

I am trying to sell my house and I know that after I am packed and out I will get a cleaner in just to clean anything that I may have missed in all these years. That's just me though...

BluddyMoFo · 09/10/2011 12:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MeMySonAndI · 09/10/2011 12:19

It is basic courtesy, would you like to arrive to your new house to find out that on top of the decor you guite not like, the house is not clean?

Everytime I have moved, I have found the new house clean, most of the times with a nice note from the previous owners and something special in ocassion: a flower, local magazine, nice smellies, etc. (They also normally come with a request to forward any stray post to...)

I do the same when I leave, it is just good manners.

notcitrus · 09/10/2011 12:30

It really only comes down to your embarrassment.
We had cleaners do a couple hours after the removal men got everything out of our old house, but as the buyers said they were about to rip the kitchen out, they didn't do much there.

The place we moved to... well the two cleaners worked 8 hours before we told them to give up and go home! It had been empty for over two years and before that had a bunch of lads live there for 7 years and do no cleaning at all, and the sellers had just painted white emulsion over the worst bits...
I did another 8 hours in the kitchen the next day, eventually finding the reason the tiles never came clean was they had a pattern of grey smears on!

Given the sale is always 'as is' or 'as seen', you can't really do much other than clean when you arrive - certainly it's always cheaper than arguing!

KirstyJC · 09/10/2011 12:38

In our case, we left our old house walking out backwards wiping and sweeping as we went.

In the case of our sellers, it is apparently fine to leave 3 rooms with cat piss on the floor (nicely soaked through the carpet and the underlay), kitchen cupboards with shelves so dirty the plates stuck to them, an oven grill pan with half an inch of fat in it and radiators with god only knows what dripped down them. And since they moved out 2 months before the sale they had no excuse. And they knew I would be 38 weeks pregnant when we moved in,so in a perfect condition to be on my hands and knees cleaning.

We definitely told all their neighbours that they were filthy smegs. And would happily tell them ourselves should we ever bump into them again.

If we ever buy again I will make it a condition of the sale that they leave it clean and tidy.

Becaroooo · 09/10/2011 14:49

When we moved into our old house it was filthy The carpets were grey, urine patches in 2 bedrooms and in the bathroom, the dust everywhere was unbelievable!

In the kitchen, they saw fit not to tell us the oven was broken. They broke 2 bannister spindles when moving their stuff and broke the bath panel.

The oven was The grill pan looked clean on first inspection... but they had just put foil in the bottom to cover the 3/4 inches of grease.

What really shocked me was that they had 2 young dc...it was soooo filthy!

LostInTransylvania · 09/10/2011 15:10

Leave your house in the state of cleanliness you would like the house you are moving into to be in. And leave the lightbulbs .

ElderberrySyrup · 09/10/2011 15:50

Put it this way, when I moved into my last house and the owner had left it spotless inside, including cleaning the oven, I felt inclined to be as helpful as I could when important post turned up for them after they had moved out.

Chaotica · 09/10/2011 19:19

Our place had been left uncleaned since we'd viewed it 3 months before, and uninhabited except by 3 dogs. Eugh. (And I was 37 weeks pg at the time, which turned out to be good as I was in the mood to clean.)

It's courteous to clean. And, as ElderberrySyrup says, might be beneficial.

shushpenfold · 09/10/2011 19:22

Agree with all other posters.....leave it clean - you're a nice person!

Grumpla · 09/10/2011 19:27

I moved into a spotless house and told everyone on the street how amazingly grateful I was.

I moved out of a less-than-spotless house but as our buyer messed us around for
months then threatened to pull out if we didn't move in less than a week - the WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS, I might add - I didn't feel too guilty about the odd patch of mound behind where the shelves had stood bit of dust and had to be dissuaded by DH from taking the lightbulbs and door hinges with me .

OriginalGhoster · 09/10/2011 19:31

The lady who bought ours wasunhinged a bit more house proud than me. She phoned up and said 'how do you polish your floors, because they're not shiny.' I had 4 dcs under six at the time, and had never got past the mopping stage. I felt mortified especially as I half knew her. The house I had moved into was filthy, and they'd left a lot of stuff behind including a soiled mattress in the garden.

I asked another friend how she polished her floors which were the same. She looked blank and then said 'oh, I just let the dcs polish it with their socks

Good luck with the move...

diggingintheribs · 09/10/2011 19:31

We have moved into 2 of our homes to find a disgusting mess. Under the radiators there were fistfuls of dust. I would have been ashamed.

I always clean before we move (so as not to move any dirt and get the bulk out the way) then vacuum and mop on the way out

Ilanthe · 09/10/2011 19:35

Cleaner than our sellers, please, and without the broken dishwasher left behind, either, if you can help it.

I am still at the state of the kitchen. Food stains all over the shelves. Inches of grease everywhere. It was vile. The rest of the house wasn't much better.

They had one pre-schooler and she was pregnant so I was doubly at the state of it.

lucyspangle · 09/10/2011 20:38

When we sold our first house DH took a day off work to clean TBH it was pretty clean anyway- the house we were buying was down sizing and they were buying ours- so basically it was a swop.
I left champagne in the fridge for them.

They left the house in a terrible state -dog hairs in the oven!

I called re the post and the filthy pigs had the audacity to say_Oh we are not at the drinking champagne stage yet Mrs Spangle we are cleaning the place!!

I have moved several times and I do the basics and I don't leave champagne!!!

naturalbaby · 09/10/2011 20:44

I would aim to leave it as you would like to find it.

The couple who bought our house said thankyou for cleaning it, they really noticed despite totally redecorating! I think I did a last minute hoover and gave the kitchen and bathrooms a good wipe over once all the surfaces were totally clear.

the house we moved into was spotless and the bathrooms smelled of dettol. It just made the whole move so much nicer to move into a lovely sparkly clean house!

southeastastra · 09/10/2011 20:46

when we moved it happened so fast that i didn't have time to clean after all the furniture was taken away

GeorgeEliot · 09/10/2011 20:48

Well worth paying professional cleaners to come in and do a thorough clean after you've moved out, just for goodwill.

Blu · 09/10/2011 20:51

I have always cleaned each room as the removal men emptied it.
Cleaned insides of cupboards etc once they are emptied.

It's grim moving inot a house that isn't clean enough to spend your first night in, and I don't know how anyone has the lack of shame to sell someone a dirty house!

azazello · 10/10/2011 15:48

We sold our flat after it had been tenanted for a bit. We'd had a thorough clean done before it went on the market, but the tenants took a further month to move out so it was not very clean. By that point, we lived 3 hours drive away with 2 small children so not very easy to pop down and sort it out.

We were a bit that our buyer threatened to pull out of the sale because of the state it was in (carpets hoovered, worktops wiped down etc but oven not cleaned and we hadn't wiped down woodwork) especially as she was going to completely redecorate, strip everything out and start again.

In the end we got an end of tenancy cleaning company in to go over it again. It has left a bad taste though and we have not been inclined to be terribly helpful when the midnight texts started arriving about where the stopcock is because the plumber needed to know. (Umm, it was on the information sheet we left for you and is in the same location as all the other flats...) and the parking vouchers were dropped off with local friends instead of being left.

PanicMode · 10/10/2011 16:19

I have always left houses spotless - so clean that I would have eaten off the floors!

When we moved in here it was FILTHY, the dishwasher was broken (and obviously hadn't worked in months despite being specifically included in the sale, and in the bathroom the lightbulb had smashed inside the vile lampshade and the metal had fused to the base. We moved in three weeks before Christmas and so didn't discover the light problem until we were crabby, tired and trying to bath two tired babies. I was also very pregnant with two preschoolers when we moved in. The vendors live about 2 minutes walk away, but most of their post has gone 'return to sender' since

SquishyCinnamonSwirls · 10/10/2011 16:28

How clean do I leave a house?
As clean as I would wish to find one!

higgle · 10/10/2011 16:43

when our lovely neighbours houe was sold the new people who arrived came straight round for a moan about the state of the house and how filthy it was.

I enlightened them with the information that Mrs N. had died of cancer 4 months before, and Mr N had just been admitted to a care home. If agents have shown you around you might not be aware of the personal circumstances of the people who are moving out.

ReelAroundTheFountain · 10/10/2011 17:06

I would check with the vendor. The house we just left they were going to instantly rip out the kitchen so we agreed not to bother cleaning cupboards etc but we did the rest of the house. Our solicitor always insists on the house bring left clean being part of the conditions of sale. It meant the people we bought our house off had done a pretty decent job of cleaning and life was so much simpler when we lived in.

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