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?

Our first house was disgusting. The main things were:

• the roof leaked, but had been temporarily repaired with duct tape I’m not joking! It cost us £200 to repair, why they didn’t do that is beyond me!
• empty beer cans stuffed into every nook and cranny. Our assumption is that one of them was a secret alcoholic.
• the house was thick with grease and dirt, despite them telling us they would get a cleaner out before they moved out (we didn’t ask, they volunteered this info!)
• the oven was attached to an extension cord which had been wired (badly) into the mains. An electrician told us he was amazed we hadn’t had an electrical fire yet when this was discovered
• there were many other small things but to be honest it’s depressing trying to remember them

In our current house we have thankfully received some house karma back and there have been no surprises, other than the thousands of picture hooks left in the walls!

A hidey hole in our cupboard, complete with mousetrap to snare curious fingers! And loads of plastic (countless items) in the garden compost. The previous owner wasn't well.

@polarbearoverthere are the suitcases still in situ? If you want moral support in opening them then this thread will be with you. I am not sure I would have had the willpower to not atleast crack one of the corners open to have a look. Imagine if they are stuffed with a load of bank notes!

Walking in the front door and seeing an old lady sitting on the stairs. She was the aunt of the previous owner and they hadn’t told her they had moved. !!!! She had a key as it used to be her house until they put her in a nursing home along the street and she would visit every Friday. I cried as I couldn’t believe anyone would be that cruel. We kept in touch and she still came round every week until she passed away. Her DN never told her where she moved to. !!

This thread is weirdly making me look forward to moving into our new house in a few weeks time! It’s previous owner has either died or gone into a nursing home so it’s empty but still with a few bits and bobs in it, can’t wait to see what gets left behind!

The deceased previous owners grandson still in the house - claiming he had no idea house had been sold. 16 years later we still have a ceramic pot thingy in one of the cloam ovens , still arguing over who is going to touch/look at it 😂

The toilet didn't flush, after investigation there was weed in tiny packets stuffed in there. It could never be fixed.

When I took down the panelling on the ceiling, the original ceiling was covered in black mould.

The roof leaked and needed completely reroofing (tbf the survey did say the roof was problematic).

In the shed there were about 50 antique boats worth 150+ each.

An outhouse full of lovely old garden tools and a beautiful wooden tool box found under heaps of junk and the collapsed roof.
The rest of the house was filthy as the previous occupant was an old man who went into care. It seems his relatives didn't want much to do with him.
Apparently he smoked a pipe, the ceilings and walls dripped nicotine yellow rain on us as we stripped every rooms walls and ceiling of woodchip wallpaper. It took 2weeks....
The house revealed lovely Victorian features, stair banisters, panel doors, and original fireplaces in each room under corrugated hardboard panelling.
The house came up a real gem after 3years of hard work.

When my DC were little we moved into a new house and DD repeatedly said she saw her Great Grandad (my dads dad) going into next door. I tried to convince her it was just another old man. Nope. Was him. And his mistress. That was a bit of a suprise.

In our 1st flat we found a big firework (a rocket about a metre long!) on top of the kitchen cupboards, over the built in extractor fan / oven I think.

We thought it would be a dud as it looked like it had been there for years, but thought we'd try it. It went off like, well a rocket, and was massive! I would not have liked to be in the kitchen if it had been set off accidentally 😬

Between us agreeing to buy our first flat completing and moving in, the vendors had bought a puppy. They'd kept it shut in the living room, where it had utterly destroyed the doors and skirting boards by scratching and chewing, scratched up all the wallpaper, and pissed and shat all over the carpet. It was the middle of winter but we had to keep the windows open because of the smell, and even the floorboards had to be replaced because they were so urine sodden. It was utterly vile.

None of the doors fit the door frames.
Explains why they were all open when we viewed

@DigitalGhost yes the doors not fitting the frames! In our previous house literally only the bathroom door (thankfully) and the 2nd bedroom door shut. All other doors had to be excessively sanded and planed down to shut. Every winter they would swell up and not shut. Shamed to say we never truly 100% resolved the issue but we did our best.

OMG @flotsomandjetsome !!!

We've moved loads and every house we've lived in I leave newspapers in the loft if there's a big world or national event.

The worst thing we discovered was that the house hadn't been rewired as said, they'd just diy replaced switch and socket covers as we found out to our cost.

Once moved in to find that every single lightbulb had been removed. It was a probate sale, not that that is any excuse. Luckily we realised before it got dark!

[quote thekaratekid]@polarbearoverthere are the suitcases still in situ? If you want moral support in opening them then this thread will be with you. I am not sure I would have had the willpower to not atleast crack one of the corners open to have a look. Imagine if they are stuffed with a load of bank notes! [/quote]
I am currently emptying my in laws property, we found a locked heavy suitcase and managed, after a while, to locate the key. With great anticipation we opened it, to find many rolls of wallpaper.

Be prepared for bitter disappointment.

The walls behind the furniture were not painted.

The previous owners did everything themselves, including dangerous gas installation! We just couldn’t prove it was them when a qualified engineer discovered the work and said whoever had done it should be reported. We asked through the estate agent who the engineer had been. Three days later, we got the reply that the previous owners “couldn’t remember”.
They’d apparently boasted to all of the neighbours how cheap it had been to do the place up themselves and how they were going to flog it on at a huge profit and be mortgage free in their next place.
You name it, they messed it up. We’ve only revelry discovered the final bit of dodgy plumbing 11 years later.
Arseholes 😡

We moved into our current home last year. DH was at the house with a van waiting for the money to go across so we could have the keys. They were an older couple and had movers do everything but had their children "helping" they told him they didn't have time to clean
My mom and I got straight in and started cleaning. I took the bathroom (which was carpeted ) and I hoovered up so many toe nail clippings! We noticed an odd smell on viewing but didn't think anything of it until we tried to clean the kitchen and were greeted with 40 years of grime and grease. I found a 15 year old out of date soup packet in one of the cupboards. They've never changed their address with lots of companies- including DVLA and the CF's came back a few months later to collect garden tools they'd forgotten about. Luckily we hadn't touched the greenhouse so we still had them. DH hates every decision they ever made and thinks their children should have stepped in to stop them. The electrics were so dangerous we narrowly escaped 2 fires (landing light and switch in the kitchen wired incorrectly)

All sorts of stuff inc old kitchen pots, bits of furniture and kids bikes in the garden. They let themselves back in a few days after we'd completed to pick up an old computer. We had to get our solicitors to tell theirs that that really wasn't OK. Then a couple of weeks later they showed up when our builders had already emptied a couple of skips to ask if they could pick up the stuff in the garden...which had been in skip one.
When we removed the kitchen cabinets there was black mould all over the wall behind, and when we started to take off the wallpaper in the room above we realised they'd installed a false wall on the external wall because that was riddled with black mould too. That was something we hadn't budgeted for.
And they hadn't redirected any of their mail so we had bailiffs turn up twice.

Oh my - I am moving soon and this is food for thought! Just a quick question - I have taken down stuff from the walls but did not think it was up to me to make good screw holes and stuff. Am I wrong?

In our last house the seller had a motorbike. When we moved in on moving day we found out that he fixed the motorbike in the living room as there was oil all over wooden floor which he had hidden under the sofa!

In our current house, when we viewed everything was fine. We put in an offer and had it accepted. We asked if we would be allowed another look round. They said we could except one room which belonged to her brother as he was in there. That was fine. When we moved in on moving day, we went into the brother's old room and he had kicked a huge hole in the wall then they had cemented (badly) the hole up instead of plastering it. Took my DH a while to fix the mess 😡

Broken dishwasher

Hole in wall, where vent should be

Window in bathroom that would not shut

Enough rubble littering the garden to fill a skip, not immediately obvious, behind hedges, in compost heap, borders....

Silk stockings holding up shrubs

None of the internal doors would shut 😩

@polarbearoverthere

I found a cupboard above our shower room, which didn’t have a door per se but a panel with screws in. We assumed it had shower related mechanics or something inside until the panel was removed to be painted. It contains suitcases and to this day we’re too scared to look inside them or even open the space to throw them out.

Omg! I couldn’t sleep at night for imagining the terrible things that might be in there. I would drive DH mad going on at him until he opened them or got rid of them