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

Our were minor compared to these. Woodworm, 2 kitchen cupboards were actually filthy, broken built in fridge and freezer, brand new fences just placed above ground and not concreted in, they just blew down in the first bit of wind, leak in loft and bedroom where chimney flashing had come away.

I would love someone to leave me a cat though, our DCat wouldnt agree

One half of the living room had no electrics. We think they must have actually removed them as it is part of the original house so would have had them, it's not that old.
Extension had no insulation in the roof, and roof had not been integrated with existing roof, just added on.
Pipe under bath not fixed together, just resting on each other. We were lucky it hadn't leaked!
Random switch that did nothing (we think!)
Sockets inside the built in wardrobe, unclear if they built around them or added after. They're not in a position to have been used for an internal light or anything.
Found a place in a bedroom wall that had been patched with a piece of wood. It seemed quite secure so by this time we agreed we'd rather not know what might be behind it and left it.
Lots of awful cheap white emulsion slapped over everything to hide the hideous decor.

We did also have to replace the kitchen but we knew that from viewing and had budget for it.
Suspect we'll find more stuff when we redo the bathrooms and downstairs loo, but that'll be years away.

In a rental house in Bristol where owners were leaving

Back window fell out on opening it. No keys to most of windows

Kitchen floor needed to come up after4 months due to a very dodgy drain under it

Back shed had a tree fallen through roof and not sorted(wasn't like that when we viewed)

Dodgy electrics everywhere

After 4 months we invoked our get out at 6 months clause

Wow!!!! Not RTFT so someone else has likely asked, but in case they haven't - what on EARTH is going on there???

@Deguster. Good God, they didn't have to sell to you did they, this is a whole other level of vindictive!

Mine was fairly mild. All light bulbs removed, dirty socks left in airing cupboards, green mould in the kitchen cupboards and burst pipes so all the ceilings downstairs had to be replastered. Refused to get the post redirected so I still get letters for him 24 years after we moved in. I have never understood why the vicar would do that.

Ours left the place stinking of dog and quite grubby...but they also left about £10 in loose change on shelves in the garage and in the shed. That paid for a fair amount of carpet shampoo and bleach.

@RandomCatGenerator gazunderer is a word I have never heard of until last week! In our case we were hours from exchange and our buyer was suddenly hard to get ahold of despite relentless harassment trying to push exchange in the previous 8 weeks.

Our EA gets an email saying he can no longer afford the offer price and the only way for the purchase to go ahead is by a reduction of £40,000. He is FTB with parents and we had an onwardnl purchase.

As much as I'd like to have told him to fuck off, I desperately want to move so we came to agreement with our vendor for a counter offer. I did not ask the vendors to input, as I'm not a fucking cunt like him, the EA got together and approached up the chain.

I'm not sure how to avoid to be honest. Our buyer made asking price offer two days on market to get it off the market clearly. I'd be wary of a really high offer at the moment as ours was just before mini budget.

I wish him all the shit in the world!

I like sharing ours, we had a huge jar of weed and a bong 😂 sadly neither of us are into it so it was flushed down the loo!

Thank you for sharing all these stories, I must admit there is something therapeutic reading them and realising we’re not alone!

As for us - fiance said he found a silverfish in the letterbox on the ground floor 😂 I’ll ask our next door neighbours to see if they’ve had any, though I think I know the answer…

Also while cleaning the top of the kitchen cupboards (to keep silverfish away) we found a hole in the wall 🙃 so the little bastards definitely have an easy way in… also some dodgy wiring, can’t wait for the electricians to come around next month 👍🏻

I really hope we can look back and laugh about this one day!

Rats 😱 A historic problem that we found out from neighbours had gone on for a decade that the previous owners (a landlord) had done nothing about. All sorted now thankfully (I hope!)

So do I, what a cunt!

None of the 3 toilets flushed anything away! No idea how they lived with that! And generally most things have been bodged, sloppy paintwork etc.

And a barrel of water in the garden had a pet fish in! No mention of this previously. But we like fish and have now added 2 fishy friends 🤣