What the sellers left behind

[Believeitornot]

We've been in our new home for about 2 months now and so far we've discovered carpet moths, the thickest dust I've ever seen behind radiators, carpet which smells of dog and the smell isn't shifting. Plus the bathroom is on its last legs and the outside of the house needs a massive makeover.

So overall it's getting us down as don't know where to begin (well we are having the bathroom done!)

Please share your tales of terrible houses which you've turned into dream homes to make me feel better :)

[Eminybob]

Themselves!
Despite dropping the key at the estate agent they were still at the house when we arrived. In the front garden with a load of thier crap and still stuff inside which they had the audacity to ask us to help them shift!
There was a 12 foot long old marble worktop for one which they asked as to take to the tip for them in our moving van. His mobile phone was still in the kitchen so they had every intention of getting back into the house after they dropped off the keys.

It was also filthy filthy dirty despite them leaving LOADS of different cleaning products under the sink.

The loft was filled with loads of junk and rubbish - actual rubbish like empty Coke bottles.

Old rusty lawmower in the back garden and when we asked them to shift it told us it just needed fixing and we could keep it. No, just shift it!

The decoration was appalling, the light fittings and sockets had been painted over, every room was yellow with tobacco and every carpet was disgusting with fag burns. To be fair at least we knew about most of that before we moved in so knew we had to decorate/recarpet straight away, but the full extend wasn't obvious until we moved in.

Oh and they never redirected thier mail so had stuff coming through for 2 years, still get a bit now but for a while I was taking a huge bundle every week to drop in the post box not known at this address, and I've had baliffs knocking on the door as it appears they left a load of debt.

There's loads more stuff too, it makes me angry thinking about it as there was a lot of stress when we first moved in, and I was newly pregnant at the time so didn't need it. If I ever see them again I've a good mind to tell them what dirty disgusting inconsiderate bastards they are (I said nothing at the time)

[EarSlaps]

A very overgrown garden, loads of random crap in the shed, cupboards and loft (including some tubes for a sunbed) and the dirtiest oven I've ever seen. Plus encrusted urine on every toilet seat and lots of playmobil behind the radiators.

At least they painted over the lime green kitchen walls and orange hallway before we even looked round.

We haven't really done much, but after a good scrub and garden clearance I love our house.

[yomellamoHelly]

Previous house - about 30 gnomes (garden 3 fence panels by 3 fence panels big - so tiny)

[BumFunHun]

They bought back nostalgic memories for me
It was a little gesture to the old dear whose house it was too - probate sale, so I noticed she passed away on Christmas Day from the legal docs we got. Kinda felt right to put all the decs we found up on our tree, which is a mish-mash jobby anyway. These ones are my fave though

[Coldtoeswarmheart]

I love those decs, we had them too

[Patterkiller]

A piano
A barometer
A guitar
And a condom pinned to the ceiling.

[Vaara]

Thanks for the memories Bum! My mum used to have those decs

[suzu1982]

We're in a rented house and when we moved in there was some truly terrible decorating, including burgundy gloss paint on the decorative mouldings on the ceiling, neon pink and dark purple painted bedroom, a big shed type lock on the outside of the bedroom door (that took a crowbar to remove, it was properly bolted on) and several pairs of skanky black knickers stuffed down the back of the bedroom radiator.

[BumFunHun]

Ooooh our last place was filled with random crap in the loft - BUT among the crap was a box of old Christmas decs containing these:-

[Woopsiedaisy]

Hundreds of heavy, cracked garden pots containing old conifers.
Rotten floors / stairs
Woodworm in the loft.
A non working Boiler
A leaking Oil Tank
A hot water tank that had been leaking for years and fell through the Utility Room celing (which they had painted to conceal the leak) three weeks later.
A Whirlpool Bath which hadn't been properly earthed.
Leaking Toilets
And Bats.

All should have been picked up by the very expensive Survey I commisioned, but no, not one. I was buying from 300 miles away so totally reliant on two viewings and said Surveyor.

I quite like the Bats, but the rest cost me £20k to fix.

It will be a fab purchase for someone in the future as everything is now perfect !!

[dowhatnow]

An big, ancient locked suitcase in the cellar. I was very scared of what I might find when I opened it... But it was only books.

There was also a hatch in the cupboard which led into the attic. There were no bolts and the attic served a long run of terrace houses. Anyone could have entered my house!!!

[OldGuard]

We found an urn with ashes - a single name was etched on the outside - and the dates of his life - 3 months

I tried to tracked down the previous owners via the estate agents but they would not give out their address understandably - I asked them to forward a letter to them - But never heard back

[Duckstar]

Lots of DIY electric and plumbing jobs, which all need redoing. Everything we touch seems to have a problem meaning everything costs double what we expectedly

[LifeIsGoodish]

Fleas.
Used condoms.
Some 'glamour' shots of Mrs PreviousOwner.

[Fourarmsv2]

Loads of dog toys in the garden.

A pond hidden under a flat bush.

Dog hair everywhere - every time we do a job we find more - under kitchen cupboards, under skirting, under carpets....

A cricket set :)

The purchase documents for the kitchen - 25 years earlier it cost more than our new kitchen!

[JT05]

Lovely, light fittings that they could not be bothered to remove. But, an illegally fittined wood burner, which was sold as working!

[insideout]

Our first job was to rip the carpets out (and a wall so we could have a kitchen rather than 2 units) then strip walls, 80s style waterproof wallpaper on top of painted 60s style vinyl wallpaper on top of 1930s flocked paper (9 layers of wallpaper/paint) was an epic job, and we still have the hall, stairs and landing to do which has a thick pink gloss paint over the top of the paper, fun fun fun!

[OublietteBravo]

Enough spare material to allow us to have curtains like this in every room of the house.

[Believeitornot]

we had bed bugs in our last place which was bad enough. The carpets do need to go - but we want a big refurb of the ground floor so thought we'd keep them until then

These stories are making me feel better! Dd has already told me the kitchen is "dirty" despite the fact we keep it clean 😔 She is 4!

[Dilemmawithfil12]

Situatedknowledge - the exact same thing happened to me! First house I bought and the kitchen door fell off the day I moved in. Apart from that the loft was full of dog toys/collars and one of the bedrooms had the carpet ripped up and replaced with paper with a wood pattern on it glued to the floor, covering floor boards stained with animal (I hope animal!) piss that smelt for months.

[pieceofpurplesky]

Furniture. As in every piece that was in the house when I looked around. Every cupboard was full. Even pictures hanging in the wall.

[RandomMess]

Getting rid of moths needs to be done professionally these day, ditch the carpets and get it all sprayed!

There is always some sort of unforeseen nightmare I'm afraid...

[lavendersun]

We had a mound of earth that had been neatly grassed over ...... When we set about levelling it we discovered two toilets and a sink. Rats in the barn which had a load of flour and sugar stored in it, the previous owner had a license to do catering from home, the place was filthy, truly filthy.

When we were renovating it we found a staircase and two inglenook fireplaces behind wood panelling they were full, completely full of rubbish, we filled a big skip with the rubbish from behind the walls.

[Liara]

The ceilings (old plaster and lathe) painted silver.

Car parts in the garden (we had made it a condition of sale that the scrapped cars had to be removed)

A lovely stash of condoms and needles between a wall and a tank which we discovered when we removed said tank

Endless piles of junk all over the place. Old tools all rusted up, you name it. They were serious hoarders.

The list continues...however 10 years on it's a lovely, (almost fully) restored house!