What “surprises” awaited you after moving in?

[BlessedKingfisher]

Feeling a bit down atm so just wanted to see if anyone else had a stressful time after moving in to their new place?

We are FTBs, because of many different reasons (the market earlier this year, pregnancy, low salaries etc) we didn’t really have a lot of choice and kept getting outbid on properties in our price range. We finally settled on a flat and moved in recently - we knew that some decorating needed to be done (painting, new carpets) but since then found out that the boiler needs servicing, we probably have a small leak in the pipes (but not sure where..), the electrics need testing and now it looks like we also have a silverfish infestation!! thank goodness we have money left over but it’s not going to last long at this rate…

So if you have a story to share about the weird/expensive/nasty surprises that you had after moving in, please do so - misery loves company

We had almost 6 months delay getting into our house . Had the survey done and came back with no concerns ( it was a self build ) Moed on and found :

Infested with thousands of mice . Everywhere . They would run up and down the curtains and across the back of the sofa . Pest control came out and we were finding rodent bodies for a year.

All the piping was plastic . Even where it wasn't legal . Turned out the owner would put copper in to get the certification , then rip it out and put it in his next house .

Oven had something living in it . Ripped out the day we moved in .

All the windows were second hand . Some didn't fit , we had 3 different sets of keys for them and some were locked shut until we replaced them 4 years later . Conversely the back door which was a stable door type had a hole in it , which we had to tape a bin bag over until we could replace it .

Outside barn was wired up with bare wires and push together connectors . In a hay barn . Got immediately condemned .

The kitchen floor had an inch of dog crap under the wooden bit .

Oh and half the house was built with stolen bricks that he'd 'appropriated' from his daughter next door .

Sometimes we add up what we've spent to remedy it . £100k so far I reckon.

Oh and when we cleaned the carpets (that had never been cleaned) we had a flea infestation. I've since learned the warm vibrations of the carpet cleaner awakens flea eggs and dormant fleas. 🤢

Boiler literally blew up 2 days after we moved in. They had run the oil down so low that sludge had been drawn into the boiler.

Left a huge shed full of rubbish

Left a smashed greenhouse on the drive.

Shower was leaking into the kitchen- ceiling came down.

Carpet had been stapled onto the stairs ( condition of sale was stairs would be carpeted)

It was filthy- literally hadn't been cleaned for the two years they had lived there I don't think.

One of the pipes under the sink was kind of just resting in the "attached" one so when we emptied the sink we got very wet feet until we figured it out.
The loft was full (about 4 car loads) and it isn't even floored so it was really hard to get it all out.
The boiler which we thought had been serviced (paperwork filled out) the month before we moved in hadn't, of course we didn't find that out until this year when we got it serviced again and the boiler guy said it looked like it hadn't ever been serviced (it's 20!).

All sorts of plumbing faults, boiler faults and an area on the landing where it was sagging and the board was almost through. Crap surveyor. I don't know how he missed it.

many surprises

in the house….
mouse droppings and poison in the fitted wardrobes,
cutlery left in the drawer, kitchen filthy, dishwasher broke after 2 days, oven after 2 weeks.
ch not working so no heating or hot water for ages (luckily there was a wood burner and an electric shower)
mouldy blinds left in conservatory
generally filthy
dog sick in living room 🤢
unsafe electrics in house (tripping every time certain lights were switched on)

outside….
Very unsafe electrics in front garden, back garden and summerhouse (unsafe as cables eaten through by rats in back garden, in front electrical joint in plastic sandwich bag in the pond).
decking completely rotten (was under snow when we viewed)
garage full of boxes of old trophies and records. Sold the records.
greenhouse had boxes of social services notes, with names. I burned those.

9 years on, last December, we had a parcel delivered for the previous owner. I ran after the van driver and gave it back saying she hadn’t lived here for 9 years and I didn’t have a forwarding address. 2 weeks later she text a neighbour (who hadn’t had any contact with her for 9 years) asking her to ask me about said parcel. I told neighbour I’d returned it. She apparently then text neighbour calling me a “fucking bitch”.

that was cathartic!

A large plastic garden bin full of dog poo.

A shallow grave full of the pond fish. They'd offered to sell us the fish. We said no thanks (had plans to fill in pond due to having small kids). Didn't think that meant they'd kill them!

The dishwasher and huge desk they wanted us to buy. We didn't need them (had our own). So they left them behind: the dishwasher was actually broken and the desk was so big it wouldn't fit through the doorway so needed dismantling.

Lots and lots more bits in the garden and shed. Some weird, some useful. And the house was left dirty under a thick layer of pet hair.

The single mum drug dealer next door with her bratty horrible noisy kids!!

Username checks out

A dangerously leaking gas fire

And a cat asleep on the windowsill in one of the bedrooms. 😀

Beautifully sanded original floorboards caught my eye at viewing.
When we moved in, it became clear the boards had been sanded around items of furniture, leaving large areas of unsanded board covered in ancient carpet glue.

The location of the silverfish infestation pinpoints the leak.
They like damp.

The remnants of a cannabis farm In the loft (neighbours later confirmed they had been arrested for it 3y previous)

An unmetered gas supply terminating in the garden (feeding their 7ft deep coy carp pond. Didn't know about the gas supply until we demolished the pond 2y after moving in.

Plus Dodgy electrics, plumbing and half finished projects all over the house!!

Jesus 😨

We got keys 2 weeks ago and it's been a bloody nightmare!
So far the plumber has been and attached the toilets to the wall, sorted the empty one, replaced the kitchen sink and tap and removed an electric shower where the waste pipe ran straight into the garden.
He's coming back to replace the boiler as we've got no hot water or heating.
The shower doesn't work and the bath can't be used due to the massive crack, but no hot water so not a problem!
Bedroom window has a half inch gap most of the way round and the conservatory doors leak.
It smells like a zoo and I've been scrapping dog shite out of door frames for days.
Slime and grease everywhere and dead flies in the fridge, sugar soap has become my new best friend. I can't even say she stopped cleaning after accepting our offer, it's been years since the house has seen hot soapy water and a cloth!
Carpets needed ripped up due to the zoo stench and I can only imagine why the skirting boards are soggy in one corner 🤢
Skip is coming next week to get rid of everything left behind.
It's a good job we had already decided to keep our rental and move slowly because there's no way you could live there just now.

Soooooo many things!

We bought a house that had had a lot of repair work done after a fire.

The dining room door doesn't fit and close properly. It's out of alignment by about 3mm but as it's a glass door I can't just hit it!

The bathroom door and loo door both didn't close properly, one had no latch or lock, the other was misaligned, the shower didn't work, the boiler didn't work, the washing machine flooded the utility room, the boiler didn't work, and the tv didn't work - well there was no aerial on the roof, it hadn't been replaced.

The boiler was too small to power the number of radiators, so it was always cold.

We managed to get most of the things fixed, except for the dining room door. That's still annoying 15 years later!

We got past it, but it took a while...

A raging carpet moth infestation.

It was such a nice, neat and stylish place and the owner was a very put-together person, but once we were in, we noticed the carpet was literally moving. It was horrifying.

Where the large furniture had been there were chrysalis all over the walls and ceiling and parts of the carpet were eaten right through. I never want to experience that again!

Did you keep the cat?

The half potato is genius. I have a rental house and the tenant smashed lightbulb in situ, had to get an electrician out to remove the stub safely.

A leaking roof.
Windows too small for the hole and patched up with leaking plastic trims.
Damp and mould everywhere.
Dog wee soaked carpets and underlay.
Leak underneath floorboards in one bedroom, slow dripping leak which must have been going for years.
Broken and missing floorboards under carpets.
A hole in the wall filled with a plastic bag.

These are the things the survey missed, there are lots more but the survey did pick those up.

dry rot
original tile/cast iron fireplaces that had been boarded over, marble surrounds painted over

So it’s ups and downs

The biggest wasps nest I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter - in the loft - you knew it was there Lucy Reynolds 😡

Used toilet brush complete with wee and poo. A kitchen so disgusting and mouldy we’ve had to prioritise getting a new one and got a camping cooker to use in the meantime. . Years and years of filth. Broken light up Christmas decorations on dusty filthy shelves that could be seen on the listing 3 years previously when they’d tried to sell the house. A broken operators chair. So much garden tat - broken ornaments etc. a kitchen cupboard full of revolting crockery. Rotten skirting boards, radiators that stank when we tried them as they were covered in dust. A picture frame covering live wires hanging out of a wall. A room that absolutely stinks - not sure what the stink is and it won’t go. Various random other tat.

@MarcelEtCeleste we had carpet moths - we have no pets and a very clean and tidy house. We had the carpet fitted brand new and a few years later noticed a very small frayed area behind the sofa. We found evidence of carpet moths and instantly ripped it all out and replaced it all with hardwood flooring.

Apparently they love carpet with a high wool content and areas that are hidden behind furniture so the expensive 80% wool carpet we had bought was dinner for the grubs.

you can imagine my DH face when he came home from work and saw our our downstairs carpet on the front lawn 🤢🤣

Jeez how long you got.

There are times I wish we never brought our house as it and the garden are the gives that keep giving.

One of the weirdest things has definitely been the phone sockets in every room including the bathroom on the thick red
shagplie carpet glue to the bath panel of the eye catching avocado bath suite.