Anyone else bought a house of horrors....

[Firefightress1]

No not one where a murder was committed although there's still time!

Moved into our 'dream' house 3 months ago and now the timeframe for any issues has passed, we have had nothing but problems costing us a fortune.

The home report is done before sale in Scotland and all items were 1's (no work required, in good condition'. First issue is the roof, last week we had so many leaks in 4 different places. The flat part needs replaced and the roofer has said it's obvious botched repairs have been attempted so the previous owners were obviously aware. Currently looking at 2k plus... how long is a piece of string.

Second issue was the woodburner, it's completely broken, we weren't told so we had to replace it at 3k as it's the main heat source downstairs.

Now the boiler...... the wires were actually singed and burnt at the back which as a firefighter absolutely petrified me! Plus the electrical source to the boiler does not actually switch it off, I had to isloate it at the main fuse box! The heating engineer says its basically fecked and needs so many parts replaced. Again this was a 1 on the home report. Total cost so far 1500 but will go up.
What's the bloody point of a home report if they don't actually look at all the items properly. We obviously paid over the asking too.

Sorry, it's been a long 2 weeks of hell and I'm on my own as hubbie is away so I'm dealing with everything myself, I think I will just pour a massive glass of wine, I would have a bath but with no heating that's a no.

I know it will be an amazing house when it's finished.... won't it?
Just looking for advice from anyone that was in the same situation on how to keep sane! I know it's sold as seen but we declared all the wee problems or previous repairs we made on our last house. and fixed a couple before we sold. Spot the mugs!

Thanks for listening I just need a rant.

And breathe........

Yep..... I'm such a positive person but this has totally ruined me! I just get up every day and think.... what next!
I'm scunnered

Why the fuck are so many people pissy these days!

I would expect any house I buy to need lots of repairs, because they always do. Even new houses always turn out to have a list of defects.

Once you plod through the repairs you hopefully enter a golden decade where everything is up to scratch...and then things start needing to be repaired and replaced again 😥

Yep... I don't think a bit of paint and paper will cut it this time 😦

I agree but I thought we would get at least a year put of it. Our bad!

We’re just coming out of the golden decade. The difficulty is knowing how far to let things go before dealing with them.

@Firefightress1

1dayatatime
I currently have a landing strewn with pots catching drips from the flat roof ceiling. Fortunately I have plenty of empty Celebrations chocolate tubs to catch the water coming in.

I knew eating all that chocolate would come in handy one day 😀

Absolutely love the optimism.... I do love chocolate!

+++

You see it works in two ways - firstly the celebration tubs are great at catching drips and secondly you need to eat loads of chocolate o(in order to create more empty tubs) which makes you happy and forget about the leaks.

However there is one small flaw in my genius plan in that I have created a small mountain of mini Bounties and Snickers (which are vile). Though I could possibly invest in some tubs of Heroes in order to vary my diet and have a more colourful red and purple collection of drip catchers.

I'm hiding from the leaky boiler tonight I've put plastic sheets and towels down, the heating engineer tried but couldn't fix the trickle. He has ordered all the parts, just hope they come soon before the water gets through to the ground floor.

I am very sorry. I'm a 65 year old widow and I downsized to an unlucky for some, especially me, bungalow at No 13 last year. Instead of a cheap and cosy new easy to manage home (I sold a listed grade II 5 bed with maintenance issues) I've definitely bought a bungalow of horrors.

I'm still kicking myself for not having a damp/timber survey as well as the L3, surveyors can't lift fitted carpets or move furniture. Another local wanted the bungalow and when I told her I'd been successful she congratulated me reluctantly - then said 'I hope you find the source of the damp'. I thought she was letting her envy get the better of her.

I moved in here March 2021 and had been here for seven months when I found out that all the floors were rotten. I only found out because I had someone here to fit a curtain rail and he refused to work as the floor was 'unsafe' - when I lifted the carpets every surface was covered in black mould. Wet/dry rot and woodworm in one room with floorboards, other rooms were chipboard and completely rotten. Problem supposedly due to condensation.

Seller had told me on the telephone she'd 'overwatered a plant' in the back bedroom, I wish I'd pulled the carpets up as soon I moved in and might have had some redress. I did contact her when I found out - she insists she left me the floor surveys, she didn't. The company she used went out of business in 2018, two years after she'd had the work done. I've spent every penny of the equity I'd got from my sale having all the floors replaced, and can't afford new carpets until I've saved for a long time. To have the floors replaced I had to have the fitted units/wardrobe/shower completely ripped out, so need to buy new. My clothes are all in suitcases and hanging on the curtain rails, books in boxes, and I can only have a bath until I've enough money to have a new shower installed.

What has really upset me is the affect it had on my elderly dog, he developed a cough shortly after we moved in here. He died aged 14 last month, vet said kidneys, but something had happened to his nose, I think he had aspergillosis.

Then unbelievably the 'new' 2019 resin flat roof over the kitchen/lounge was blown off in Storm Arwen last November, ceiling came down a few days later, sofa and carpets were ruined. Cowboy job apparently as it was only nailed down, not screwed to the joists. We had a lot of damage to roofs up here and I saw his van in my street, cruising for business, I hope he has now learnt how to do flat roofs. I was lucky the insurance eventually paid and my new resin roof was installed in February - I paid extra to have it insulated.

Good luck. I hope you can find trades local to you - have you joined the Facebook community page? Trades here are recommended on ours and comments made.

We knew our house needed a lot doing to it, but thought it would be mostly cosmetic. Upon moving in we pulled up the ancient carpets and discovered the floor was very uneven - it all has to come up and be refitted before new flooring can be laid. The cost is painful, but the length of time the floor saga has been ongoing is even more so.

Wow, who pissed on your chips. I’ve seen some rude responses on here but that is something else. It’s stuff like this that’s ruining mumsnet.

Surveys aren’t worth shit..we bought in February this year,my god I wish we didn’t,we just don’t have the spare cash now to fix everything,I blame covid too,we only got to view it for 10 minutes on a nice summers day!
only 5 radiators for 9 rooms,
boiler broke 2 months after moving in,
single plug socket in every room,
leaking stop tap behind the kitchen unit,
mice,
they had superglued the plinth’s so pest control had to rip them off,
bay window is coming away from the wall,
it all needs repointing,
I could go on 😂

Sympathy OP. We’ve had to do boiler in four houses and roof in two. It sucks but you’ll get there.

@Firefightress1 sorry for your mess too!

@Firefightress1 had to come back to this thread, we took the dining room wall off at the weekend..... This is the same wall that was connected via a extension cable for hob etc.

We have no idea what these wires are for but there's two sets just lying live against the wool insulation 🙈🙈

Combatbarbie omg.

like pps I now also think surveys are a load of shit. Bought first house after divorce, had full survey - not only homebuyers - as was nervous. Well respected local firm.

report said the house all in good order, a bit of arse-covering as suggesting separate inspections for boiler etc.

the boiler is fine (so far). But a long list of nightmares elsewhere. Leaking roof. Hole in thr attic. Lots of damp. Front and back doors that are basically wind tunnels. Unsafe electrics. conservatory that is falling down, despite being described as in good condition. Loads and loads.

if I’d bought a doer upper I would understand. But I bought a house in good order because that’s what I needed! Now don’t have the money for repairs.

Our full survey might just as well have been carried out by our next door neighbour's blind cat.

The seller hid so much stuff it beggars belief. What a bastard. Currently have several buckets on the go in the attic to catch rainwater. And why use plaster on internal walls when you can use concrete instead? Yes. Concrete.

I swear if I knew where he had moved to I would be sending him the shit of a thousand camels in the post.

Yes, I knew the house needed totally redecorating & a new kitchen but found when we got the keys
the oven wiring was lethal, hadn't been put on a separate circuit, the shower was wired in to the circuit that should have been for the oven.

The vendor had sat on a chair & instructed his wife to plumb the bathroom in using scraps of copper pipe & over 100 compression fittings, when the bath was emptying the shower filled up.

There was over 2 inches of chip fat & nicotine on the kitchen floor & walls.

The remaining carpets were welded to the floor with chip fat & nicotine.

From the last viewing the vendor had "helpfully" painted every room in the house dark purple.

I got the keys on 12 October & we moved in on 31 October living upstairs which we had managed to get decorated & carpeted, half a fitted kitchen, a microwave, sandwich toaster & a dishwasher.
We got the kitchen finished a week before Christmas despite my then husband to be swearing the kitchen would be in in 3 days. I nearly cited this as unreasonable behaviour on my divorce application.

& 3 months after we moved in the roof blew off in a storm, we woke up to what I thought was a cobweb on the ceiling & turned out to be a massive bubble of water, we slept on the mattress on the spare bedroom floor for 3 months & sheets of plastic in the loft until we could afford a new roof.

So last night the electricity cut out..... I'm honestly at my wits end. I think it's to do with the boiler but who knows!
I had candles and a cold flannel wash.....
Heatingvenginerr coming tomorrow, o Hooe he can fix it!

So sorry you're going through this @Firefightress1 - I just hope you will have the home of your dreams when you finally get everything fixed!

Some terrible stories of horrors hidden by previous owners on this thread - 💐 to everyone, especially @Salome61 for the loss of your dear dog 😪

We are seasoned old wreck buyers, have purchased our last four homes with cash and therefore no longer bother with surveys, having come to recognise what will be needed (everything ripped out in most cases!) plus DH is a competent DIYer who does most of our refurb work himself. Our current house was bought as a repossession so no-one to answer questions concerning the property but nonetheless we encountered our own catalogue of horrors after completion....

Firstly, we were informed by the EA that water to the rural property was supplied via a well on a neighbouring farm. We attempted to confirm this ahead of exchange - which, being a repo, happened very quickly - but we're unable to make contact with the land owner who doesn't live on site. We were under pressure to exchange so went ahead anyway - living 200 miles away at the time complicated matters - only to establish on completion day that there was no water. The - less than friendly - nearest neighbour informed us that the farmer had cut off the supply some months previously and the other two properties (including his) that had been supplied by the well had been forced to have boreholes drilled. When we investigated the cost of a borehole it was £11k...that we hadn't budgeted for. Fortunately we had savings to cover the cost, but for the first ten weeks - till a drilling company could fit us in - we had no water at all at the house.

The first time we had a named storm with really heavy rain - some ten months after moving in - one of the (newly decorated) reception rooms flooded slightly. Of course there was no recourse via the property information forms as with a repossession it's buyer beware with regards to unanswered questions on stuff such as previous flooding 🙄

Obviously we had all the usual issues associated with a repo too, plus many hidden bodges such as the extension that had been built without attaching it properly to the existing house and the 'windows' made from old broken frames cobbled together and fitted back to front.

Fortunately it was always our intention to gut the place and redo everything properly (for example the polycarbonate extension roof - bad enough in itself but worse because they'd used a patchwork of offcuts pieced together barely meeting so that the lot leaked onto the plasterboard ceiling below!), but we still weren't prepared for how badly the previous owners (and their builders) had done stuff.

Luckily the end is almost in sight for us now, but it's taken nearly five years so far to undo all the previous owner's horrors!

Some very awful stories and so sorry @Salome61, that's devastating to lose your dog.

Got the keys to our place, knew it needed some renovation. However was in such terrible state and dirty that we couldn't leave our stuff in there and had to put in storage. Was hoping to carpet two rooms and slowly do the rest up. However the smell, urine on the carpets and flooring, stains everywhere, damp etc means we will need to rip it all out and thoroughly clean. And live off site til the work is done. Electrics need doing, plumbing, everything

Oh gosh yes, the extension here had a patchwork polycarbonate roof, and the floor was chipboard loose laid over an open drain!

The plumbing is horrendous and the soil stack has blocked again so flushing the loo floods the shower tray with sewage. And the guy that cleared it in September isn’t answering the phone. The router has been off all week but my lovely neighbours have let me connect to theirs. Their house has its own horrors and they’ve been there over 40 years, but they can afford to get things fixed. I can’t.

My advice to anyone buying anything but a beautifully maintained home is don’t, unless someone in the family is very competent at plumbing, electrics, carpentry, decorating, has a head for heights and is happy to go up on the roof. If you can’t do it yourself, have to pay tradesmen, even if you’re lucky enough to find good people, it’s an enduring nightmare.

We knew we were buying a doer upper but found some cracking surprises along the way.

The ceilings had wallpaper on them which is always an effort to cover a multitude of sins. We discovered that the paper was stuck on with PVA, then glossed over and was hiding multiple holes through from the bedrooms to the attic. It had been so damp that when in the loft, the vendor had clearly put their foot through the ceiling several times, leaving damp holes behind. We replaced the entire roof and every upstairs ceiling, including joists.

Took up the front room carpet to find a hole in the floor through which we could see the ground below. No idea what happened. They clearly just carpeted over it and stuck a sofa on top.

Found dangerous and condemned plumbing and electrics throughout.

Found a hidden room which isn't as exciting as it sounds. When they put on the kitchen/bathroom extension years ago, they clearly had an old outside toilet in the way and so they just bricked round it. Nothing done to remove it. Just a complete toilet and outhouse hidden behind two poorly built walls.

Bathroom walls were constructed of chip board and had the texture of cotton wool so were ripped out and rebuilt.

Either got fed up with the electric supply to the garage or ran over it with a lawn mower because the live mains wire was flapping around in the garden.

Instead of plaster in the main bedroom, they'd used external render, applied very badly.

There was so much more. It was just a catalogue of issues meaning every room had to be gutted back to brick. We've still got one room to go and it's taken us so long as it's cost every penny we have. Every job just bodged: rubbish buried in the garden and 15yrs of dog poo to remove; driveway was gravel over mud which washed away and turned into a bog our first winter here; trees removed but stumps not ground down so dozens and dozens of little trees sprouted our first summer here and we had a panic about the roots of the originals being close to the foundations; conservatory clearly "homemade" and not fit for purpose and had to be pulled down and rebuilt as a room; no underlay anywhere.

The good news is that we are very happy here. We found lots of original features like boarded up fireplaces and the original quarry stone floor covered in badly applied levelling compound. Once you've done that level of work, you know for sure that everything is as it should be because you've practically rebuilt room by room.

We planned to do up and sell within 5 years but ended up falling in love with the house and now we've extended to make it work for more years to come.