What "surprises" did you find after moving in?

[thekaratekid]

I seem to find that most people upon moving into their new home discover something bizarre or something completely bodged (usually hidden) by the previous owner.

In our first house we found that the garage access door had obviously been broken during move day and as we opened it...it completely fell apart and was covered in still wet glue!

In the same house we also found the previous owners had lazily carpeted around large pieces of furniture...so two tone carpet in the bedrooms. Cue scrambling around trying to get new carpet fitted asap.

Current house, I assume that the vendors only ever cleaned what could be seen immediately at eye level or used useless cleaning products. The kitchen cupboards were a sticky, dusty mess of 15 years worth of grease and oil. The venetian kitchen blind was also sticky with grease. The sink drain brown with tea stains etc. I had to invest in heavy duty chemical degreaser and a drill brush and spent approx 10 hours scrubbing and breathing chemical fumes the day after moving in. Bizarrely the dirt was not particularly obvious when we viewed, I guess we didn't actually touch anything too much due to covid etc.

I appreciate the above is probably not as horrific as what some people find, but it always surprises me what people see as "normal" or feel they can get away with.

Anyone else find any horrors worth sharing?

Rising damp.

@Spanielsarepainless

Former house: clapped out electric fire and rolls of scarlet carpet. Had to pay a little man to shift it all.

Current house: too many to list, but kitchen cupboards and dishwasher filters filthy (they apparently lived on lentils, coffee, tomatoes and cooking oil). Council replaced dustbins as they were utterly disgusting and I said I wasn't cleaning another person's crap out. Floorboards on landing were a bit saggy. Under the carpet the boards were just about snapped.

My council. Would not replace my Magot laden bin or other really crappy bin ( literally). They told me to wash it 🤢, despite having no where to do that. I tried to get a wheelie bin cleaning company round - no joy. So, in desperatation, I took hammers to them and “damaged” them physically and then asked for replacement- i still had to pay for each new bins with this local authority.

@thekaratekid

Ah yes the dry heaves when cleaning other people's dirt. It has brought back a lovely memory of cleaning a very narrow shelf space between the built in fridge and freezer. It was littered in dried bits of food and crud from previous owners. I had to tie a cloth to the end of the loft ladder hook and wang it around in there and flick out the debris....all the while dry heaving.

I am feeling slight guilt that we left our black bin very full when we left our previous house. We took all recycling to a supermarket with recycling bins, but unfortunately managed to fill the black bin within the last 48 hours before moving. House was left immaculate otherwise, but the guilt lives on.

It’s funny isn’t it, like you I spent ages cleaning my old house, repairing stuff making it immaculate for buyers. Then had to do the same agian with someone else’s sh** in the house I moved into. Life just ain’t fair

First house - Paintings of cock and balls on the walls when we took the wallpaper off.
Second house - Nasty wooden cladding on all walls - when we took it off there not one bit of plaster on the walls.
Also - a hole in the wall with a bit of string poking out - it was how the previous owner stored his string.

@MyShoelaceIsUndone

Previous occupant died, council had been in to clean, repair and replace a few bits. Son was a few months old when we moved in, age 4 he had a bunk bed put in his room he climbed on to the top shelve of the walk in wardrobe and found a tin with £40 of old £5 notes and some coins from bride we went decimal! In the gas cupboard is a meter reading book from 1973, it’s still in there

That tin is one of the nicer surprises - must have been fascinating for a little boy. (though current cash would have been even nicer)

Real plants in the random planter incorporated into the end of the bath 🤣 When we'd looked round (we went several times) I always assumed they were fake!

Probably quite outing but our old neighbour left some WW2 shells in their shed when they moved out (didn't think it relevant to tell the new owners) - we found out when bomb disposal turned up.

When we moved into our current house it was full of the previous owners stuff. Furniture in every room. Garage full. Stuff in loft. Toaster in the kitchen, crisps in the cupboard, knickknacks, rugs, fruit bowl, photographs, bikes, riding equipment, books, sports stuff... just so much stuff!

It was a divorcing couple who sold the house and I think they both took what they wanted and left the rest for the other person to deal with, which neither of them did. Our new neighbour worked for a charity who collected furniture so we loaded up his van with most of the furniture and he was delighted with our "contribution". We also had the "carpet around wardrobe" situation in 2 bedrooms!

In our current house? Two bottles of wine in the fridge as a welcome present!

We were surprised to find a massive neat square hole in the chimney breast. It wasn't until I looked back at the listing that we realised they had their TV there. Luckily we had a large mirror to put over it.
They had also painted around cupboards and left 3673 holes in the walls were pictures had been.
It was also a bit grubby in the kitchen but proves proved difficult to clean asap as the main sink was missing the plug and the mini sink drained pretty quick due to an ill fitting plug.

They had also hidden damage to the floor in the kitchen by having their dogs mat covering it during viewing.
The element of the grill was held up by the rack and the oven was very temperamental! So the whole integrated thing had to be replaced in weeks.

Other than that the place was left pretty clean and neat.

Does the oven wired in with a bit of cut off non heat proof extension lead poked loosely into the mains outlet and trapped directly under the element so that when it melted through to bare wires after two uses, the only reason that live current didn't go through the metal handle was because the earth miraculously happened to be brushing against the earth terminal count at the time?

It was the builders, not a previous owner. But it was very nearly even more of a surprise than having the entire consumer box flip with a bang.

Our house was absolutely filthy, I knew this though because the previous owner was an elderly lady who’d going into a home.
But when we got the keys I could have cried, the carpets were fit for the bin and the toilet was black with crusted on poo.

We found a lovely Singer sewing machine.

A few days later the children of the little old dear came around and accused us of stealing it. We gave it back, then they accused us of stealing the curtains. We said they could have them but they didn't actually want them. They were just after money.

They were awful people and I felt sorry for the lady we bought it from as the kids were only after her money.

Funnily enough they didn't want the junk and old furniture they had left there even though it was meant to be empty.

They took the lightbulbs too.

Horrible people.

a house we bought in blackpool
carpet in the kitchen stunk of animal pee
kitchen cupboards full of food
bedrooms fitted wardrobes full to the brim with stuff
patio outside the back full from one end to the other with rubbish black bags, old furniture dirty nappies
and the crowning one a puppy about three months old sat in the middle of all the rubbish poor thing i dont know what they thought i was going to do with their puppy but i got straight on the phone and made them pick it up that night had enough pets of my own ,

Bed bugs

Our previous house the previous owner took the entire kitchen the left the sink unit but took everything else. I was we tried to get it sorted though the solicitor but they’d done a runner and we couldn’t find them.

Recently found a soft porn video tucked away in the electric meter cupboard - 15 years after we moved in!

A gas leak in the kitchen.

5 wasp nests in the loft

An 8-track cassette recording of Glen Campbell. Wichita Lineman is one of my favourite songs! Not that I could listen to it in that format but a nice find.

We are such unlucky house buyers. Every house we've bought has been filthy but our first was the worst. On moving day we arrived before our van load of furniture and thought we'd give the rooms a vacuum before sofas etc were installed. The previous owners had left an oddly "textured" small rug in front of the fireplace in the living room. My husband picked it up to move to the garage and many many decades of toenail clippings fell off it. Still makes me retch thinking about it now

Rats, more rats and dirt. My friend said it looked like someone had piled a load of 1970s caravans on top off each other.. The kitchen was uncleanable and could not be used, The boiler and the gas fire were condemned by British Gas on the first night. It was snowing.Filthy toilets with no seats. There was a burst pipe pumping out water, and a smell of burning whenever we flicked a switch. I was so unhappy.

Oh and a headless Buddha deep under the void of the house.

The builders discovered it..my mum (who is woo) said we should treat it with respect.

I bunged it in the bin.

New build flat, walked in to cupboard doors hanging off and a massive hole in the living room floor concrete. Had to get someone in at 6pm at night to fix it so we could lay the floor the next day.
Paint work was shoddy, and screwdriver holes in the window frames from when they were being fitted.
I'll never buy new again.

Then we moved in to our now house, there qas a chunk of window sill missing frame where they cut it to fit a wardrobe in, couldn't find a window sill the same shape so had to buy the closest and sand it down.
Shower stopped working after 1 use. Then she came back to haunt us for a few months!

Some of these are truly horrific! The oven with the wire poked into the mains!

The structural carpet has unsurfaced a suppressed memory of finding a gaping chasm in the loft of our old house (shudder). Immediately to the left of the loft hatch was a small area of what I thought was loose insulation. I lifted it up and was shocked to find myself staring into a pitch black chute. I shone a torch down and could see down the entire middle of the house to the ground floor. It was the old warm air heating vent, not blocked off and just flimsily covered by loose insulation. A small child could have easily fallen down if they had been up exploring the loft with dad or something.