What did your sellers take or leave you with that surprised you when you moved I

[kerrymucklowe2020]

When we moved in we found out that the Sellers pulled coat hooks off the walls, took the bathroom mirrors, every lampshade, the washing line and EVEN the washing line post and prop!!!

Our most recent vendor left us curtains, blinds, a bespoke shelving unit, some logs for the fire, all the kitchen white goods including a large new freestanding fridge freezer, a bottle of Prosecco and a comprehensive instruction file. He was lovely. It was also spotless.

My buyers were difficult individuals who upset me several times with unreasonable demands and a last minute gazunder, so I left exactly what I said I would in the fixtures and fittings, and not a screw more. Not even a toilet roll. Petty but satisfying. I did leave a house file and note, but no bottle for them!

They took every single light bulb except for just one each upstairs and downstairs. They'd had delivered loads of fresh manure in the border not far from the kitchen door - nice! They took ugly rocks from the rockery in the front garden (hooray) but left an old table on the patio. The latter could have come in handy but someone came round to collect it next day.

We have recently moved. Our vendors left the house spotlessly clean and all in working order. They left a bottle of prosecco, a local guidebook and a handy list of useful numbers and a folder with all the instruction booklets for everything. Such a joy and much appreciated.

Our buyers were a bit awkward and on the day really hassled us to get out the property even though we had agreed that we would leave by 1pm and we had left by 12,30! I left the house spotless and also left a folder with all the instructions in but I decided not to leave the bottle of prosecco I had intended to leave. They actually complained to the agent a few weeks later that we had not had our junk mail readdressed ! So I was rather glad we didn't leave the prosecco after all

Last time we moved I was 8 months pregnant. It was three months after they had agreed to aim for completion because they were buying an old house which needed work and negotiations took time. They never bothered telling us this until they didn't exchange when they said they would.

About three hours after they were meant to move out, I had a small child in the car and some bored removal men. I took small child in to use the loo and they were still packing.

The garden was full of dog shit, which they half cleaned up when we were there - and flushed it down the loo (which you aren't meant to do)

The house had loads of random stuff left - photos albums, etc left in random parts of the house which we had to call them back for.

The carpets had holes in them which had appeared between last seeing it and completion. (couldn't have been covered up when we saw it - just neglect since).

They took the lights off the wall and left us with some bargain basement homebase ones, left in the boxes on the floor (reader: they didn't fit)

The house was disgusting. Filthy. It was sparkling when we went to see it, but I've never seen such a filthy house before.

They left a load of random crap round the sides of the house

In the loft they left lots of crap - a guitar, an air gun, years and years worth of magazines, you name it.

Post was coming to us for months after - even now, we get some post for their children!

On the other side, we left our house sparkling - I even scrubbed the oven for them, and a professional cleaner helped too, and we left a bottle of fizz. I cried when we got to our new house and it was so awful.

Several of those 'best friends' type plaques. Can only assume they fell out....

@Tangledtresses

One house I moved out

The removal men didn't empty the shed

Camping equipment
Antique garden table and chairs
Tools
New farrow and ball paint for the new house
And boxes of expensive fittings towel rails etc

So much stuff I was gutted when I got to the new place

Why didn't you go back and get the stuff ? .

In a really old house, We were left an absolutely massive family bible with details of every birth death and marriage hand written in the front from the last 100 years. I chased to see if they had been left it by accident and they came back with 'nah, f*"k 'em, just couldn't throw it out'. I couldn't either for fear of haunting so it was still in the back of the cupboard when I sold it. Wonder if it's still there now 🤔

We bought our house from a family friend. It was her grandmothers house, a large Victorian Villa. What we didn't expect was to find all of her grandmothers stuff still in it, furniture, beds, tables chairs and curtains etc. There was even an aspidistra in an original gazunder. We had the unpleasant task of having to despose of the life times possessions and belongings. In the end I couldn't do it, it was too upsetting so we got a house clearance firm. But I did keep one room just as she left it complete with old photographs, pictures and a collection of medals. The kids wont go in there but I often sit in there and talk to her.

@TheLetterZ

All those moving into filthy houses surely it must have been filthy when you viewed it so you knew what you were getting?

Exactly!?

I don't imagine that most people who have accepted an offer spend the time up to completion caking dirt and grease everywhere and filling gardens and sheds with old junk and dog shit.

Dunno about that. Covid-19 meant I had 7 months between accepting the offer and moving out. During April I spring-cleaned the place from top to bottom AGAIN but there was still a cat’s-worth of fur behind all the furniture, which I had to vacuum up on moving day.

You’d be amazed. My first house was neat and tidy when I viewed it, and 3 months later when I moved in it was grubby everywhere. I don’t think they’d lifted a cloth since they accepted my offer.

Our seller took the door number

We got left - A huge, oak, victorian fireplace in the garage (its a 1960s semi) The previous owners mothers ashes in an urn in the wardrobe, A fish tank complete with green water and a dead goldfish and a broken telly.

They took - every single lightbulb and almost every light fitting in the house, the bath plug and the wall units in the kitchen!

If you look at skirting boards and move furniture then yes, you'll notice if the house is clean or not but who does. It is really daft that a house is a huge amount of money and often you decide to but it on the basis of a twenty minute visit.

The people we bought our house off stopped doing any gardening the minute we put the offer in. Foot high nettles in a huge garden were lovely .

Three barns full of furniture, every time the vendor had been to a sale and a three piece suite had been knocked down for a quid - he bought it on the basis it must be worth more than that to someone. Every bike his kids had had from their very first ones to their teens, sadly too rusty to be of any use. A clay pigeon trap that his son turned up to collect three years later. He then got very angry because we had done away with it because he had borrowed it from someone else!

I wouldn't expect curtains, curtain poles etc when I bought somewhere. I would expect them to leave carpets though.
I also don't understand how people have bought somewhere, got the keys and turned up and people are still there! How have they handed the keys over, if they're still there?! That's madness!

2 bottles of wine, a nice note with his phone number and onward address, tester pots of paint for matching, instructions for the white goods, all the light fittings/shades, venetian blinds in every room and the shower curtain. Excellent previous owner, 9/10 would recommend.

(Marked down one point for the fact I'm still receiving post for him 2 years on. My patience for forwarding it on ran out after 6 months).

@Pyewhacket My friends bought a house including contents that had belonged to an old fella with no family. Everything where he'd left it down to an unfinished crossword with his glasses and pen left beside it.

They cleared most of it out but my friends DH wears the old guy's jumpers for fishing, they decorated the kitchen around a very kitsch 70s framed picture they particularly loved, found (and drank) his homemade sloe gin in the shed and I believe finished the crossword

We redirected post from our old house for a year. The person we bought from didn't redirect at all. Three years on and we still get occasional letters for them.

Ours was slightly grubby when we viewed it, but acceptable. The vendor then mucked about with the paperwork for six months, which is quite long enough for a house to turn into a health hazard if you’re keeping two dogs locked in it most of the time, believe me.

One house I bought, the previous owner (who was young) left everything. Milk and food in the fridge, some old clothes in the wardrobe, stuff in the drawers, sheets on the bed, wash stuff in the bathroom. He was also a teacher and there were loads of kids exercise books in the attic, plus love letters to the women he was dating at the same time as the one he eventually moved in with.

Another house, was a repossession, but we didn't expect to find dead pets in bin liners in the garden 🤢.

The house we just bought was just grubby, with pubic hair everywhere. The shower was minging though.

1st house - an iron bedstead in the loft. No idea how they got it through the loft hatch as it wouldn't go through! We had to saw it into different pieces!

2nd house - a jagged oil drum in the garden, stinky trainers, an ugly vase and saucepans. Plus a playhouse. Seller cans back to collect the playhouse and I gave him back the other stuff.

He was most put out to discover we'd repacked the wall between the front room and the other reception room. He seemed really annoyed about it!

We left a bottle of Prosecco, welcome card, a detailed folder with an index for all the house paperwork. Plus the bar stool chairs that they wanted.

Bedbugs- which was nice (not) and expensive to resolve.

Ours took every lightbulb and curtain pole.

What we thought was one side of a fitted kitchen was actually a counter top sitting over a washing machine, tumble drier and dishwasher...so half the kitchen vanished! They left plenty of mouldy food in the other cupboards though

I am still puzzled by all this.

Do people not fill in forms to say what they are taking?