Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Property/DIY

Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

Original poster

What "surprises" did you find after moving in?

357 replies

thekaratekid · 16/08/2021 15:27

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! Hmm

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. Confused

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?

OP posts:
Wimowehwimowehwimowehwimoweh · 16/08/2021 21:34

@Highfivemum that is so sad, poor woman.
Were you happy to have her visit every week? I’m assuming her DN wasn’t if they did a bunk & didn’t tell the poor woman where they’d moved. So cruel.

TrevorWithTheWeather · 16/08/2021 21:50

Picked up the keys from the estate agent to our first home, and was told that the precious owners were still moving out due to a problem with their solicitor and the house they were buying. Fine with us, we were at work and were told they would be out by 5 and would post their key through the letterbox. Waited for DH to get home from work and headed to the new house with my parents about 7pm. Walked in the door, and the house was full of their stuff still! We were there until 1am helping them pack van after van with their belongings too!

LyndaSnellsSniff · 16/08/2021 21:51

@Dontwatchfootball

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?

Best thing to do is get your solicitor to ask theirs if they want you to make good. Hopefully they'll say no!

Annalouisa · 16/08/2021 21:54

In the garden shed, we found a massive professional painting of a very large nude female. It wasn't to our taste and we believe it was left behind because it was ruined by a single white splatter stain in the middle of the painting, running down. It went into the skip at the first opportunity, but was surely a surprising find.

Highfivemum · 16/08/2021 21:55

[quote Wimowehwimowehwimowehwimoweh]@Highfivemum that is so sad, poor woman.
Were you happy to have her visit every week? I’m assuming her DN wasn’t if they did a bunk & didn’t tell the poor woman where they’d moved. So cruel.[/quote]
She was a lovely lady. She had no idea whatsoever about the move . She had given her niece the house on her Niece advice to avoid paying too much tax.

I was more than happy to have her visit once a week for a cuppa and a cake and we had her round for meals on her birthday and other occasions. My older DC aises to pop to the home to and see her there as she was like a Nan to them .No real family visited her in the nursing home and she never heard from her DN again. She had savings that paid for her home fees till they run out.
She enriched our lives with her stories and humour and I like to think we enriched Hers but it still makes me so sad to think of how cruel her family were.

Wimowehwimowehwimowehwimoweh · 16/08/2021 21:59

@Highfivemum Shock awful niece!
How lovely she found you in her old home instead, it sounds like she had many happy visits with you all Smile

sohypnotic · 16/08/2021 22:05

As a child we moved into a house where they had taken all the lightbulbs - except they had obviously struggled to unscrew some and instead snapped them off leaving the metal bit behind. It was 2 days before Christmas as was dark not long after arriving. Angry There was also spaghetti stuck all over the kitchen walls.

yamadori · 16/08/2021 22:09

Silk stockings holding up shrubs

Old cut-up tights and stockings make surprisingly good garden ties. They are long-lasting and have a bit of give in them, so they don't damage the stems. Particularly good for things like tomato plants apparently.

swapsicles · 16/08/2021 22:19

@polarbearoverthere if you live at num 58 they may possibly be mine! I think only baby clothes though, had to leave that house in a hurry several years ago Sad

Member589500 · 16/08/2021 22:24

A Jamaican bloke asleep in a bedroom

Louisbeau · 16/08/2021 22:26

A safe built behind a built in wardrobe. The safe contained a gun case with bullet casings

MirandaMarple · 16/08/2021 22:36

A loom shuttle from when the top floor of the house was a Weaving shop (250 years old)

3 large veg beds with loads of veg ready to harvest.

Lots of damp.

whistleinthewind · 16/08/2021 22:42

Some urns with human ashes in. No one knew who they were! They're still there, no idea what to do with them

Miriamkiwi · 16/08/2021 22:43

That's just awful! Cut off all ties?? Good person for keeping up with the Friday visit you were probably nicer to the woman than her family ever were 🥰

whistleinthewind · 16/08/2021 22:44

Also waiting to see if Polarbear lives at Swaps old house!

LongTimeMammaBear · 16/08/2021 22:45

Just a comment about story around furniture. About 10 years ago I redecorated a bedroom for our daughters which included massive wardrobe from IKEA (3 ceiling height doubles with sliding doors), painted, new carpet etc. I have wanted to redecorate the room now and every tradesmen has said to paint around the wardrobes and new flooring around the wardrobes. No one wanted to move them nor partially dismantled and move them for the work to be done. Still not yet done.

One house we were in, I asked DH to paint our DS room. When we moved out, I foulness he had painted around the furniture! I was completely mortified!

One house we moved to, on first fat DH took a shower after moving as he’d gotten very sweaty. Water poured down the kitchen walls beneath the bathroom. All the grout and sealant was blown

Next house was full of botched DIY. Gave the DC a bath and then went down to the kitchen to find a huge bulge in the ceiling. Touched it snd all the bath water came out (along with the ceiling). There was no connection to the over flow and any water from kids splashing about went directly through the floor to the ceiling below. They must have had sponge bathed from the sink! All the external lights were plugged in inside - they’d drilled a hole through the house for the lights to be plugged in. found the kitchen work surface had only been resting atop the under counter appliances, which they had taken with them. So arrived to find pieces of work surface on the floor. Was the same for the kitchen sink. But that was being held up by the taps, that is - until I used the sink and the weight of the water pulled the sink down.

Maskless · 16/08/2021 22:55

When I viewed a ground floor flat to buy in 1982 it was a normal family home inhabited by seemingly normal, friendly sellers. When weeks later I arrived with my removal van at 5pm on a cold, dark, rainy November day I discovered that the sellers had taken with them not only every single light bulb in the place but the toilet seat, toilet roll holder, shower curtain rail and ....... the back door lock!

The removal men had to unload everything in pitch darkness as none of us had a torch, candles or even a box of matches! I had to jam heavy furniture against the back door to feel secure overnight until I could get to a hardware shop next morning for a new lock and a toilet seat. I was furious!

Maskless · 16/08/2021 22:58

P.S. I just remembered, they had also taken all the sink, basin and bath plugs!

justasking111 · 16/08/2021 23:12

Second house. Alcoholic previous owner. Grass never cur outside the back door when we went to cut the grass discovered it was a crazy paved patio full of whiskey bottles broken and whole. We had to strim and collect grass.

The weirdest thing was a gadget attached to the electricity meter which made it go backwards what a fiddle

Peraltiago · 16/08/2021 23:13

Nothing too bad thank goodness, but on top of our built in wardrobes in the main bedroom I found a load of medical x-rays of the previous owners knee joint! Hope the op went well!

Germolenequeen · 16/08/2021 23:21

Old farmhouse in rural West of Ireland.

Half a pig hanging up when I went to collect keys 😱

Lock on upstairs hall door can only presume to keep kids in as was on the side of the stairs as you were going down 😡

Piles and piles of disposable nappies that had literally been thrown into the garden.

Stinking stained mattress in out building - kindly left for my dogs to sleep on (as if).

Mammyofonlyone · 16/08/2021 23:34

I inherited, amongst other things, a multi generational porn DVD, a pot of lost teeth, a diary detailing an extra marital affair and an actual live goat. Not to mention a house full of bodged jobs. We may be broke but we will finish the house eventually

Backtomyoldname · 16/08/2021 23:44

My aged parents downsized. My Dad was v ill at the time too.

I went over each weekend to burn/chuck unwanted stuff and junk as well as pack and tidy. They’d been there 30+ years.

But there was the caravan. It had been towed across the garden before a wall+ shed had been built and the only way to remove it was to remove a boundary field fence and tow/drag it across a v uneven field. You’d have needed a decent tractor to do this,

My Dad also thought it was decent and could still be used as a spare room. I knew different, I knew the floor had gone and rats had it as their holiday home.

In the short time available there was no time to convince my Dad that it was junk and to get it removed.

We left it - I think the buyers (who my parent knew) understood that they’d be getting it!

Sorry.

AfternoonToffee · 16/08/2021 23:56

I have actually thought of something, we have been here three years, we are yet to discover how our external lights work. They come on at night and go off in the morning, but we don't know how or where the power source comes from. I'm surprised there isn't an AIBU about me.

I really need to speak to the electrician at work tomorrow and get him to come and take a look. I just think he will unearth a massive open Pandora's box.

Stickykidney · 17/08/2021 00:01

Love these! I too have mystery suitcases in the attic (communal stair, flat dates from 1880's) and they are so hard to reach! Unless you have no fear of falling down the ladder plus a flight of stairs. From what I can see there are three suitcases, a single bed(old stuffed kind) and other furniture pieces... Over the first lockdown we got one of the suitcases down and it had smelly d tweed,darts shirts and 8 track tapes (I remember Elton John)
Made local enquiries as much as I could but couldn't find any owner. The other suitcases taunt me tho..