Has anyone else had a horrible experience moving into new house?

[Coneheadmum]

Moved in yesterday. House not cleaned (not filthy, but not vacuumed, drawers not wiped out etc), bins full of rubbish, a few bits taken that were supposed to be left, but what really miffed me was they didn't even leave a note to say "Hello, the bin day is Friday, welcome to your new home" etc. I left flowers, champagne, card, and a list of all sorts of stuff for the people who bought our house (there was another thread on this). I just feel it's so rude. You're selling your house! You should clean your house and leave a note/your forwarding address, shouldn't you? I feel like writing to them and saying "where are your manners?" Paid just under asking, and smooth process of buying. What is wrong with some people? I feel as though I get much more information when I get a holiday let - these sellers haven't even told us about where the stopcock is. UGH!!! Anyone else? Tell me your horror stories?

Worst experience was a rental we picked up the keys and arrived to a house missing every possible fitting. The landlord had for some reason removed every lightbulb, plug socket even a fitted cooker! The agent was appalled and put us in a hotel for a night before finding another property. They told us our prospective landlord paid for the hotel as well as covering the difference in rent for the entire time we stayed.

Shit. I'm moving house tomorrow.

IF your vendors have taken stuff that should have been left according to the Fixtures and Fitting document, then you should go after them through your solicitors...

We've never taken curtain poles - or light bulbs or door handles or rose bushes (as seems to be not uncommon - friends bought the house of a multi millionaire's mum and they completely stripped it).

Our new neighbour paid a shed load extra for curtains and carpets - her vendor left the poles but took all the finials so the curtains just slide off the end of the pole.

What do people do with the curtain poles they take?? It's not like they will magically fit their next houses windows? I don't get it?

Filthy, just filthy. We had to rip the carpets up, they were so bad. Discarded rubbish everywhere. The water tank leaked and cost us £500nto fox (they'd hidden the problem). We had to pay £1000 to fix the garden wall, which they'd also bodged.

^ 'fix', not 'fox' 🙄

user I assure you mine will fit! They are pricey and telescopic. Not everyone takes them but it is not uncommon! It's all in the fixtures and contents form.

Ours was left in a vile state. Im still perplexed how in the 7 weeks it took from viewing to compltletion they managed to fuck the place over.

It was so awful that when we arrived i sat on the stairs crying.

18 months on im still not over it properly tbh. It marred everything. I cant see oast it even in the rooms we have overhauled.

I hate our home and "The House Wankers"

2 years cos of schooling is how much longer im stuck here. Ticking off the slow slow days.

We discovered a gas and electrics bill stating that utilities would be disconnected if payment was not forthcoming. The bill, dated only a few days before exchange day, was well hidden between a pile of other post. We called the utility company right away and made well sure to open an account in a new name and with a new account number!

Weeks later we discovered that the loft was absolutely full of stuff, anything from old travel trunks to quite personal things (letters, photos). Estate agent told us that the owners (probate sale) were not interested in the personal stuff so we dumped it all.

Oh, and the last rental house had a completely blocked extractor fan that belched 15 years of accumulated rancid grease into the kitchen and a utility room soaked in fag smoke and something foul and unidentifiable - neither DS nor the cats would go in there if they could help it. The previous tenant dropped dead of a heart attack, I'd bet it happened in that utility room.

Just moved into my first time buyer flat in London. Previous owners/tenants had not left any note or information - hadn't even labeled any of the dozens of keys. They had also:
Broken a key off in the post box so I can't get in
Broken the oven
Had a leaking shower
Taken the shower seal so the doors leave a gap
Left SO MUCH stuff - seriously, all their pots and pans, clothes in the machine, the lot!
Filled the under-stairs cupboard with bits of rubbish and diy stuff (including a useful 3litre tubs of white dulux but shhhhhh)
Not cleaned at all, it was grim
Knowingly given me electronic keys for the carpark gates that didn't work, so my moving van turned up with no-where to go

Then, when I complained to them, I was told nothing had been left at all and that a professional cleaner had been in. When I showed proof this wasn't true, I was told I was being unreasonable and 'it was only about 1 box of stuff' so why couldn't I just deal with it.....

Why the hell would you take curtain poles when they mostly cost about £30 and wouldn't even fit in the new house?

First thing I did in the first house I bought was strip the piss soaked carpet out of the bathroom!

This house had nicotine stains in the kitchen that still keep emerging through the tile grout and under the cupboards. A few months after we moved in, we got a special treat when fleas hatched out in the carpet. The vendors did have dogs. I had a flea infested sofa in a rental property, once. THAT is how sofas end up in the front garden!!!

A cars engine and bottles of lemonade (which turned out to have acid in) left in the cellar - which you could access from the garden. Thankfully my dad discovered the bottles before we did as we were still pretty young at the time.

Our house was filthy when we moved in. And the sellers had left loads of their stuff, including a minging pair of trainers.

Luckily the seller popped round to pick up a garden toy that they'd not had time to move, and I dumped the box of his stuff into his arms!

Really galling that we left prossecco, a card and all the house paperwork in a labelled folder with the good takeaway menus at the front! We're still in touch with the people that bought our old house. And we're not in touch with those that we bought from.

Best thing was the full set of public order gear in the loft (seller used to be a cop). DS had a great time playing with the shield and helmet until I managed to drop it all off to his force!

We picked up the keys and had a load of beds and things with us so we could sleep there.
Keys didn't work so had to call a locksmith who wanted proof of ownership.
Found out why the lock had been changed when we got inside to find the boiler had been damaged, water had soaked into the floor from the roof, assume lead had been stripped, signs of people living there, probably squatters.Rubbish all over the place, curry stains on the carpets, mattress on the floor, soaking wet, curtains pulled down and used as blankets.
Fortunately we still had the option of going back to our old home until it was cleared up. Moved in and found there were mice. I hated that house.

I don't think I've ever moved into a house that had been cleaned and the previous owners had left a note!! I always end up having to clean two homes (the house we left and the new house) or we paid a cleaning company this time to clean the new house as we moved out of the old one.

People are just lazy in my experience.

The carpets had the overwhelming aroma of damp dog and all had to be pulled up - too be fair we knew they were old and in need of replacing before we moved in.

They previous owners also left a slice of cheese on toast congealing in the grill, and numerous botched diy attempts.

Our house was previously joint-owned by 3 male friends... no cleaning done before, inside of oven I honestly don't think had been cleaned once in the 4 years they owned it, fag butts and beer cans left strewn all over the garden and they'd clearly just given up moving out as they left all their garden furniture, broken wardrobes, bed frames and even their Christmas tree in the attic- which someone then had the cheek to come and ask for 3 months after we'd moved. My husband answered the door so went and got it down for them; I'd have told them we chucked it and simultaneously asked for the forwarding details for one of the three males who's racked up debt with two different agencies (we went through a delightful phase of getting solicitor and bailiff letters for the first 18 months and had to continually explain we weren't the debtors!)

Having said that I also think expecting a card and champers is possibly a tad OTT OP!

Ex owners took off the garden gates and curtain poles... then offered to seek them too me! Our neighbours were as he gates were fitted before they moved in also.. they were just trying to make more money from me!!
They only moved a few houses down and would regularly turn up and ask to look at the flowers in the garden.. I took pleasure in removing all the sweet Williams they were obsessed with. And they complained when I had a rear gate fitted with a lock.. they couldnt get in!!
Theyve been my bug bear for the past 18 years still living close to me!

*sell not seek

Randomly no idea. It was everywhere. Previous owner had three dogs. It was on the hob and the extractor too.
In the first house we bought we had the cat pee problem. I had forgotten that. I had to scrub all the downstairs floors with disinfectant. Luckily they had removed the carpets (and it was a small house).
In the same house there was so much cat hair in the main bedroom DH couldn't breathe. I remember hoovering every surface including the walls.

I have never bought a place where the vendors left us any kind of welcome pack, nor cleaned the house. Though I haven't had anything near as awful experiences as some posters! The worst I had was a severe flea infestation in one place and soft porn 'glamour' shots of the vendor in another place.

One vendor left me a stack of forwarding stickers. I tend to leave a note with basic info like which keys belong where (if I can't leave them in the locks) and bin day, etc, but that's all. I run the vac around once the rooms are empty, and make sure the lights are off and the loos flushed before we leave.

We turned up at this house to find them still packing and the MIL fretting about cleanliness. She was scrubbing the fridge and the oven, and apologising to me. I was gracious, but in my head it was "Get out of my house! Thanks, but you're holding things up even more, and I'm going to scrub things to my standard in any case. Go! Just go!" But she must have known more than us, because this was the house with the infestation. Lovely.

We bought a house that had been rented out - it was so dirty when we viewed that even DP noticed it. It was no surprise it was filthy when we moved in. What was a surprise was the lack of light fittings and curtains downstairs - the tenants had taken them saying they were theirs, not the landlord's. Oh, and a load of crap from the cellar and garden which DP spent three hours putting into a skip.

Last time, we bought a gorgeous period property which the same family had lived in for over thirty years. It was cleanish and someone had spent hours compiling pages of info for us. What we hadn't expected was that they just didn't give themselves enough time to sort everything out and as their stuff went into storage, they just left stacks of furniture which we weren't expecting and wasn't on the fittings and contents list, including a dining table we didn't want or need and eight rickety old dining chairs. We gave a massive double wardrobe and three chests of drawers to charity just so we could get our own furniture into the master bedroom and I managed to sell a lot of stuff on eBay - paid for tiling in the kitchen and paint.