AIBU Rubbish in new house

[HouseIsOnFire]

Hi everyone, moved in yesterday and house was filthy (down to bits of food still on draining board, dirty toilet and cobwebs so thick it's like candyfloss) so I'm not best placed to be objective on this!

Seller claims they were being nice and have left some garden equipment, at least 14 old pots of paint, scrap mdf, old footballs and opened bags of sand and concrete, might be more but I can't get past it to see!!

Seller is upset I've complained and offered to come pick it up today, but after being messed around (we completed at 1130, didn't get keys til 3) I have so much to do and can't be waiting around today for them, and also have cleaners in today so until they're gone, can't be letting more people in.

AIBU to ask that I get a removal skip van to come and pick it up and they pay?

Other option is leave it on the drive, but then if they don't come get it, i am snookered to move other things in!

There’s nothing you can do about the dirt (my sympathies there, mine was VILE)
however unless they said they’d leave these items they are in breach, so I would contact your solicitors. They can get the vendor to pay for a man and van to remove them or similar

Is there access to the garden via the side of the property or is it a terrace with no access? If there is, I'd say that you want it all removed by 6pm Friday, otherwise you'll be paying to have it removed and your solicitor will recoup costs from their solicitor.

Yeah i know they didn't have to leave it clean (but normal people do don't they?!), I think had it looked like they'd even flicked a wet wipe over something, I'd be less enraged and would be a bit more charitable about them picking it up.

My solicitor is on the case and I just want to know I'm not being unreasonable to say no I won't wait about for you to pick it up!

It's a terrace with a 1 car drive, there is side access but I'm not the end house, so I'd be putting it in a communal area and don't want to inconvenience my new neighbours, if that makes sense?

I bought a house like this and I think the council came and took it away but it was over 20 years ago so that might not be possible now. They left what they called 'firewood' for the wood burner but it was painted bits of old scrap timber with nails sticking out and a huge pile of computer magazines. The house was filthy but I had friends come and help me give it a good scrub. One of the friends was a social worker and she said she hadn't seen a house that bad unless it was an elderly person who was mentally ill. The seller was a dress maker in her 30s and I don't care if she reads this because it was absolutely minging!

In my experience, no, houses aren't usually left clean. I'm on my fourth home and they have all been filthy.

Also I thought the default time for completion/getting keys was 2pm (in England). Maybe I am wrong.

My last purchaser tried to sue me because I had left a wood shed full of logs, but there was a clause in the contract saying all fuel should be left (intended for fuel oil) so they got nowhere with that.

I'd just have a storm of cleaning, dump all their stuff in the garden and tell them it needs to be shifted by Sunday night.

@MintJulia I'd love to but there's only the drive out front which I need, the back garden only has side access from rhe inside!

House is now clean thanks to a lovely team of cleaners, took 3 of them 5 hours to clean!

Good luck in your new home 😊

You have my sympathies. We are looking to complete next week. 7 working days. Vendor runs a business from the house and from a recent viewing he’s made zero attempt to even start packing /relocating it. The estate agent has asked what we will do it it’s not as the contract states on completion. My answer was, it’ll all be in a skip asap or sold to recoup skip costs. 🤷‍♀️

We bought a house where the couple had split. He’d already moved out and she seemed to believe that a Transit van would transport her belongings. By 3 pm nothing had been moved, so we put her belongings on the front lawn, which was large and screened by hedging. She left dishes of food in the fridge, a grill pan that had to be thrown out immediately and the usual filth. When we did some upgrading, we found that underneath the floorboards in the hall was full of empty gin and whisky bottles.

I never really loved that house.

Take photographs and contact your solicitor. They have left rubbish.

yep you could. Meanwhile you’ve still
got to deal with the crap and do you really want to spend even more money/sweat/tears on what’s likely to be a lost cause - if they had half a decent gene they wouldn’t have left it in the first place. Skip it and move on with life.

Get a company round like junkbusters - you've got to pay but it's cheaper than a skip and file it in the 'life experience' entail file.

One advantage of renting(and there aren't many) is that all the houses are immaculately clean and the maintenance guy comes and sorts the snagging list

Thanks everyone. Also found out one of the built in appliances is broken. Hilariously it was apparently my responsibility to check it was working at exchange, and no, the fact they put it as included on the resent fixtures and fittings form the day before echange doesn't count 🤣

I hope their new house has bed bugs!

“One advantage of renting(and there aren't many) is that all the houses are immaculately clean and the maintenance guy comes and sorts the snagging list”
If only! Though To be fair our last rental was like that. Current one dirty when we moved in and still waiting over a year later for some things that we were told would be done before or when we moved in plus things we discovered ourselves. Finally found a house to buy again and hope we have a more successful time this time (last one fell through on day of exchange due to a seller changing their mind about moving), can’t wait!

You have been very lucky renting then. Every rented place I ever lived in needed a good clean. A friend of mine moved into a flat and found the remains of a roast dinner in the oven complete with maggots.

Oh god that would have had me junking the oven!

There was a turd in the toilet of the house we moved into. Had been there for days. As well as tonnes of junk and every surface sticky and not even a cloth run over anything.

I had spent the previous day scrubbing our flat whilst 7 months pregnant. Left a welcome pack of wine, flowers and a personal welcome to the neighbourhood guide and £100 for additional cleaning as it still wasn't pristine. I had a huge hormonal tantrum. I still shred all their post the fuckers.

I don't get how people do this. You are literally giving them hundreds of thousands of pounds.

It's crazy isn't it!

They did leave a card and wine, and are apparantly coming tomorrow to move the stuff

I had the same. When we arrived she was still 'cleaning' hoover in hand apologising for being late as she wanted to get the house in order for us. Walked in all chuffed that it would be in the same immaculate condition we left our flat In. It was a stage! My husband spent the first 24hrs just scrubbing the kitchen from top to bottom it was so digesting. Also left stuff In cupboards, in the shed and in the loft. A week later she called me to ask me if her engagement ring was behind the radiator in the upstairs bedroom. It was her hiding place for it. It was there and I'm not going to say it didn't cross my mind to say no! When she arrived to collect it I dumped a boxful of crap they'd left in the loft In her arms and closed the door. Some people are unbelievable

*a state

*disgusting

The easiest option is to just suck it up and pay for a skip yourself or take the junk to the tip. A solicitor may charge to write to them which is extra cost and time. You'll have a hard time proving the oven wasn't working as you didn't check it and items can randomly break down at any stage so it's reasonable to assume the item could have been working up until completion.

If it's any consolation (and it's not) I had to have two skips to empty the previous owners junk from my first house. They had left the loft rammed full of junk, the chest freezer was frozen to the carpet in the utility so that's why they didn't take that and the oven was faulty and the earth had been disconnected to stop it tripping. I only discovered that when the open door was touching my leg as I lent across to the sink to fill a pan. I still remember the feeling of 240v flowing through me. The last surprise was that they had run a company from the house and ran up £10k of debt. I only found out when bayliffs turned up. Cue sleepless nights and a lot of worry for some time. People are just pigs.

Oh gosh hope it's all sorted now!

If they don't do the decent thing, I'll suck it up but just enraged! ( am realising more and more slight annoyances i.e they've taken the landing light and bsthroom ceiling light, removed handles off a couple off cupboards etc!)

With my last house the seller left 3 skips worth of stuff. When my solicitor got in touch he denied any of it existed. Theres little you can do. I wouldnt entertain them coming around to pick it up. Get a skip and dump it all.

The lack of pride some people have!