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Original poster

Fuck This House!!

30 replies

dotdotdot22 · 23/09/2024 18:00

Quick job to combat our gloomy hallway with new lighting, should have only cost a few hundreds has turned into thousands 😭

Dodgy plasterwork fell on the electricians head, cue full re-plaster. Decorator comes today after months of it looking awful and for some reason the paint absolutely stinks like WET DOG. It's nauseating and when you Google it comes back with results about people having to totally re-paint.

FFS, why?! It's not even an old house. It was built in the 80s and has ZERO character which would make this more forgiving.

Please join me with your house woes, it feels never ending!

OP posts:
SingingSands · 25/09/2024 00:05

Our decorator didn't finish the job he was doing for us because he was arrested for having indecent images on his laptop... and then jailed for 4 years.

Original poster
dotdotdot22 · 25/09/2024 09:46

dogpool · 24/09/2024 17:54

Ahh I feel everyone's pain here. The house before our current one had basically everything wrong with it, as soon as you start poking it all fell apart.

First it was the boiler, packed in in November (a week of cold showers in winter 😭😭), previous owner didn't service it once in 14 years 🥴

So that got replaced... But a few months later the pressure kept dropping. Can't be the boiler again, it's brand new!! NOPE it was several minute leaks in the entire heating system because whoever put it in originally used the wrong kind of pipes that can't be laid under the floorboards. So they were slowly disintegrating. Right so floorboards up through the house to replace the pipes. This was a slow process too because the plumber had to try to find where the leak was (haha idiot us thinking it would only be in one location) so he was having to check room by room.

As this was being investigated... Turns out the floorboards under the bath were rotted. Because the leaks were small, slow and steady. Used this as an excuse to redo whole bathroom. Which was a project on the back burner anyway that just got prioritised (goodbye rest of savings). This did also reveal an external wall in the bathroom that was getting drenched every time it rained and it was perpetually damp and caused the plaster to crumble.

If we thought everything was fine now, we'd have been suckers.

One day the FRIDGE kept tripping the electrics. Got an electrician round who said half the sockets were on a second circuit that was a bodge job and unearthed 😭😭😭 everything that had been plugged into this shitty circuit got replugged in elsewhere via several extension leads because we didn't have enough to do a full rewire at the time.

THEN we got an infestation of big fat flies with no idea of the source. Looked in every single cupboard and behind every single piece of furniture that could possibly have rotted food hidden. We were baffled because there was no smell. It was a dead rat in the sewage system at the entrance to our wastewater 🤢

And thus began the rat hell... That became a hideous cycle because every pest control we tried insisted on chucking down poison... So they were dying under our floorboards where we couldn't remove their stupid little corpses... Which brought more flies...........

There was also an infestation of little flies at one point that we never found the root of, but after months of putting up the sticky yellow pads they eventually disappeared. Tried everything from flushing out drains to treating every single houseplant to sealing every loose food item to no avail.

Somehow managed to stay in that house for 8 years... Have never been so happy to get shot of a place.

OMG - you win!!

We had rats in our last house (and mice!) as the previous owner had taken out the loo in an outbuilding leaving an open sewer pipe. What made it worse was we had a gardener who clearly knew what was going on but didn't mention it. We only realised when all our tarps were being shredded. So grim when you've got small kids.

OP posts:
Original poster
dotdotdot22 · 25/09/2024 09:47

SingingSands · 25/09/2024 00:05

Our decorator didn't finish the job he was doing for us because he was arrested for having indecent images on his laptop... and then jailed for 4 years.

This is horrific!! Don't think I'd ever want a tradesperson in again after that. At least he's in jail

OP posts:
Monkfish24 · 25/09/2024 10:50

Sounds like my house... every single job no matter how small turns into a massive (and expensive) fucking ball ache. We've just had an expensive few months where all my kitchen appliances have thrown in the towel at the same time. We have an integrated washer and paid for the old one to be removed and the new one installed. How hard can that be, you'd think. It took 2 men about 2 hours and they were on about potentially having to take up floor tiles. The man who came to replace the dishwasher a few weeks later had a similar experience. Even replacing a tap is bloody nightmare, my kitchen sink tap won't tighten up no matter who tries or how hard they persist. So it just wobbles about now. The shower is leaking and despite being looked at by several different plumbers, and my dad who can fix absolutely anything (but not in my house apparently) it continually drips. The ancient boiler has started rattling and I dread to think about how big a saga that's about to be.

Giggorata · 25/09/2024 11:27

I can't get trades!
After the last one, who took ages and cost me an arm and a leg AND left the job unfinished, no one else turns up when they say, if at all.
So I have two large cupboards with doors that aren't hung properly, plus crap finishing in the hall. And the window needs to be replaced.
And we have a bedroom where a roof leak caused the plaster to bubble.
The kitchen needs a new floor and countertops, at the very least.
The whole outside needs to be repainted.
The upstairs loo needs floor tiles and tongue and groove on two walls, to match the other two.
The boiler room needs flooring and units to make it into a utility.
There's more but I'm losing the will to live.

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