Feel so overwhelmed and fed up with my first house but can’t talk about it

[housesarehardwork]

Hopefully I can have a moan on here without upsetting anyone. Feel free to have a moan too if you’re fed up.

I bought my first house last year after renting and savings for years, a great little bungalow. I’m very happy here. I love the house, the street, neighbours are nice and quiet. But, there’s always something wrong or something that needs fixing and it’s really getting me down. I feel so overwhelmed with it all. I don’t have a partner to talk or to help / pay towards things. It’s all on me and it’s so fucking expensive too!

The house was previously a buy to let and it’s obvious with cheap, botched jobs that need doing again. I had a survey but there were lots of little things that the surveyor didn’t pick up. There were things that I knew about but thought they could be done in a couple of years when I had more money but they actually need sorting now or at least in the next few months. I’ve already had a few issues fixed but the work was quite poor so I had to have it done again. It just feels never ending.

I can’t really speak to my family or friends as they think I’m ungrateful. Of course I’m grateful that I have my house own, especially at such a young age but it still doesn’t change the fact it’s stressful, expensive and overwhelming when you’re doing everything on your own. I keep trying to remain positive but it’s just one thing after another. It doesn’t help that people post their perfect houses on social media. I never had these problems when I rented and honesty didn’t care about living with old carpets, peeling paint etc, it just never bothered me. I’ve had a bit of a cry this afternoon which has made me feel slighty better.

I’m not sure what I’m expecting from this post, but if anyone has been in a similar situation and felt overwhelmed / underwhelmed by their first property it would be good to hear from you. Thanks x

It's the nature of the beast. You don't experience it with renting because repairs etc are down to the landlord.

It’s normal - I see jobs that need doing all the time. Homes are never quite done and need upkeep. Just focus on maybe one job a month and ignore the rest til next month?

I don't know enough to know whether you have a claim against the solicitor. I might start by googling and poking around property /legal forums, then eventually see a solicitor depending on what comes out of that.

I do know that owning a house is a constant expenditure. I don't even want to think how much we have spent on ours in the first two years. Obviously we are hoping to reduce expenditure as we fix some real basics like leaks, dangerous wiring and draughty ancuent double glazing, but atm I can't imagine we're going to spend less than £5k a year on it, purely to maintain it.

Do you have a spare bedroom? Could you rent it out in this expensive phase while you're basically sorting out several years/decades of bodged work?

This is home ownership. And no one really talks about it because owning your home is such a blessing and it sounds ungrateful. But it is non stop (and I live in a new house). I think you do get more used to it. Think of it as adding to your investment.

You don't have to do the little jobs, like fixing a shelf or whatever. You can, it's all on you tube.
There might be a local handyman - use check a trade and FFS get lots of references. Local face book page can recommend.
We have one that charges for a day of jobs, and he can do anything.

Go round the house, make a list, put them in order of urgency and do one a week or something. Research it all first, in case it's more sensible to get someone out.

Yanbu. Owning property is made out to be a thing that will bring less stress because you’re in control, but in reality it’s just a huge amount of expense, work and responsibility. I’d rather have a council house tbh.

Houses are money pits. Once all the serious and urgent jobs are done I find it helpful to put the remainder jobs into room lists and get one room fully sorted and decorated before moving onto the next. It's helpful and comforting at times to see how far you have come.

The pain of seemingly never ending jobs is nicely balanced with never being evicted.

Don't look at the shit on social media. Most people's homes have stuff that needs doing and/or isn't perfect. Mine certainly does.

I feel you. Nobody tells you that you need to constantly spend on a house. And if you don't, when you come to sell it, you will pay the price. We didn't do maintenance on our last house for 10 years and then had a massive project to get it up to scratch so we could sell it. There are urgent things (weather tight, operating plumbing and heating) that you need to prioritise. You need to live with peeling paint and carpets you don't like until you've saved up a bit (and done the urgent things). The way I manage it is to get a handyman in for one day every other month and he just gets stuff done that I can't do / haven't had time to do. When we need something big done I just have to stop that for a while until have saved up / paid it off.

Completely normal. Complain away and keep off SM. And you'll have gained valuable (if soul-destroying) experience of dealing with tradesmen for the next round of fixes/repairs.

I hear you!
If it's not one thing, it's another. I prefer home ownership to renting, but my goodness houses are money pits!

Ignore social media. They are all having the same issues as you. It's normal. I have two siblings who spent years trying to get their new houses snagging fixed. All houses are the same and need upkeep.

At the moment I have a leaking washing machine and the front gutters need replacing.

Do one job a month. Try to negotiate a wfh day so you can let workmen in. You can always have a moan on here. 🙂

It's like people who think that being self-employed is easier than being employed.

I hear you OP it is overwhelming & hard to enjoy living in it when all you can see are what needs fixing & maintaining. And hard if you don’t have anyone to share the load about it or make it fun & an experience with the before & after pics that are all over social media. It is a huge shock & you realise that despite a survey there are things you couldn’t have predicted or foreseen & IME they always cost more to fix (even the ones on the survey that you may have accounted for). And I hate when I get a handy or trades person round & they say “next time just get your fella to do x or y” & I’m like why the hell would I have got you round if I had somebody that could. Money pits & over rated imo! Renting was bliss!!

I am not sure no-one tells you, seems to be there are endless threads and conversations about this. I think it's more a lot of people don't pay attention to those until they have a house...

Anyway, yes, it's a lot in the beginning. But probably very little is thát urgent. Like, if the BTL owners would have sold only next year, they still wouldn't have done the repairs and the house wouldn't have collapsed, likely.

Just focus on all the things that are actively causing further damage, like a leaking roof. Then focus on what's long term/low likelihood dangerous, like electricity works (do get smoke alarms straight away of course) and asbestos. Then focus on what bugs you. Then focus on what else needs to be done. You'll get there.

Just remember why you have a house. All kinds of things try to attack you. Hail, snow, rain, cold, heat, water, storms. Thanks to your house these can't get you because they attack the house instead. It's kinda bad. But it's also very wonderful.

Mine needs so many jobs done l just switch off to it unless it's an Emergency tbh. Partly because of the mess involved and partly because you can't find decent workmen .

I lived in a money pit for years. It can be overwhelming. Just remember, it doesn’t all have to be done at once, and you can compromise in the short term on things you will change later when funds allow.

I totally hear you - we bought our first house 4 years ago & it’s just been one job after another guzzling away all the money I was hoping to save up for a new bathroom. Lots of stuff that wouldn’t get picked up on a survey & the previous owner obviously fancied himself as a bit of a handyman, but it has become clear he was totally shit at DIY.

I stressed myself out about it for the first year or two, but have since resigned myself to living with an old but perfectly usable bathroom for the next few years and just dealing with everything else as and when problems crop up.

I'm so sorry you feel like this. I enjoy the upkeep and the opportunity to change things to suit me. My current home was bought four years ago and I thought it just needed a little bit of work. Four years later and I'm still knee deep in renovations.
I've done exactly what a pp recommended and tackled one room at a time after the bigger maintenance jobs were done.
It is expensive, it can be exhausting and it is hard finding decent tradespeople, but I do enjoy the end result.
I've got most of my good trades from Facebook, and when you find one good one you ask them to recommend others.

When the immediate jobs are done, if you can keep up the basic maintenance, you’ll find it’s not so overwhelming. Houses need keeping up with, even if it’s just basic cleaning. It’s neglecting things that means they are more difficult to fix.

What needs doing so urgently? very few jobs do in reality.

Fixing water ingress should be done sooner rather than later or it grows in issue. Apart from flooding though these are usually small patch fixes in the immediate term (fixing a roof tile or pipe leak or re-pointing a crack/chimney etc...).

Fixing heating etc... might be necessary for comfort especially in winter and to stop damp/pipe freezing but it usually only a few thousand and lasts a decade.

Major unsafe structural issues would make a place unlivable due to risk (although to be honest many condemned houses stand for decade without any maintenance and some are then brought back albeit big jobs).

Really houses can go forever with little to nothing, my landlord has done virtually fuck all maintenance in 15 years and I live in an area battered by major storms. The house is a falling apart shit hole (hence us moving) but we still manage to live in it perfectly fine. Houses can take a LOT of punishment and neglect, things rarely need doing as pure urgency.

My brother and parents all got married very young. What I have never been able to convey to them is how difficult managing certain aspects of life can be when you are perpetually on your own. Yes I have boyfriends, but I have never had a “life partner” someone who is there to lean on when things go wrong. Whether it is something practical like knowing there are two wages coming in should one of you lose your jobs, or having 2 diaries should you need someone to be in for a plumber; or just moral support knowing you aren’t going through it alone.

I know this answer doesn’t help, but your post resonated with me. There can be a loneliness dealing with life’s perpetual issues when you are single that those in longterm relationships will never appreciate.

Yes, that’s home-ownership .

I know it’s expensive, but my mum had a regular handyman. I think he was a neighbour, and seemed to be always fixing or doing something

My experience is very similar to yours :)

I bought my first house 2 years ago, had a full survey and yet I had lots of issues to deal with.

So far: full rewiring, new boiler, new gutter at the front, fixing a toilet cistern leak, fixing a broken kitchen gulley, removing a dangerous gas fire, fixing the shower drainage...

I probably will have to do work on the roof next year.

I think that's what most people have to deal with when it comes to home ownership.

Mine is a 1930 house so that means it needs regular upkeep and having to deal with decades of previous dodgy DIY and botched jobs from builders...

Yes. Yes. Houses are work. Cracks appear all the time. Bits of damp. Marks on walls. Leaking gutter. Grout crumbling off. It really is endless.