Surely everyone cleans the house they're moving out from?

[MyVisionsComeFromSoup]

Bought a house last week, the sellers faffed around so much on their moving out day and didnt get out for 6 hours after completion, which annoyed me to start off with.

But then I realised that they hadn't done any cleaning whatsoever, it's taken us the best part of three days just to de-grease the kitchen!

Surely you'd leave a house at least vaguely presentable?

Same happened to me. They were very late moving out and didn’t have time to clean. But it turned out they wouldn’t have been able to clean it all on the day anyway. The kitchen and carpets were bad enough, but I went into the bathroom and I’d forgotten the bath had a frosted shower screen - nope it was limescale and soap scum, pulled it back to find the silicone and grout which were redone for the sale were the blackest and furriest I’ve ever seen. I kind of get it because it’s not your house anymore and the new buyer is hardly likely to sue you, but they’ve also paid hundreds of thousands for that house and will think you’re grimey and dickish. When I move again I will just expect it to need a full clean and be pleasantly surprised if not

It took 3 people 2 days to properly clean the house I bought. Some people are skanky.

When we bought out place, the previous owners didn’t clean up. That’s ok! I mean the house is completely empty so very easy to do so. It’s not a rental to get it professionally cleaned before moving out.

Yeah basic courtesy really isn't it, also not leaving a lasting impression that you are a slob. However, I would still give the new place a thorough clean myself regardless anyway.

To give the benefit of the doubt… we recently moved out of a rental, and luckily we had a few days’ overlap between our new home and old, so we could go back the next day and clean, because I have no idea how people manage to move out, clean, and move into the new house all on the same day…

We were still up packing until 1am the night before moving day (just totally underestimated the scale of the operation, plus it being really difficult to pack with two little children (including a wild toddler who can’t be left unattended for a second, and kept trying to unpack each box as I was packing it), husband out of the house 12-13 hours a day (which was the reason for the move!) and no family support nearby. And unfortunately that meant general cleaning got neglected the week before moving as there simply weren’t enough hours in the day to pack, take out nails, fill holes in walls, all that stuff on top of our already hectic daily life… And on moving day as soon as the removal van left we had to follow them so they could get us moved in and get themselves home at a reasonable time (new house a couple of hours away), so no time for cleaning… and all the end of tenancy cleaners we enquired with said it’d take 6-7 hours to clean a 3 bed house from top to bottom… I know they are extra thorough, but even if you spent half that time, we simply wouldn’t have had time for a 3-hour clean on the day itself. And if your vendors were still moving out hours later, it sounds like they could have just been very disorganised and underestimated the scale of the task, rather than necessarily being filthy so-and-so’s lol.

You can make it a condition of sale. Most people don't think to though as they would clean.

I think most people don’t because it’s impossible to enforce. No-one would waste legal fees suing the sellers for not cleaning the house, if it was otherwise empty and not damaged

I would have thrown the pots and pans in the bin.

I guess people would dispute what was said though and they also know where you live!

Well I booked cleaners to do paintwork and carpets once each room was emptied finishing in the kitchen. Our movers were a ware of this and turned up 2hours late and understaffed to pack up the kitchen and empty a 3 bed house. Cleaners could only do half what they were booked for!

We do here in NZ, as you can have a final inspection before you shift in. This happens with your agent before the keys are given to you.

Any costs for cleaning would be between vendor and agent I would think.

I’d say time and moving constraints could have let them down, moving takes so long- benefit of the doubt I’d say everything piled up until the last minute.

In the uk at the pint you had already exchanged and there would be no way to stop the completion. A inspection when the house was empty of the old residents belongings but completion hasn’t started wouldn’t work timings wise most of the time.

the day of completion money starts moving at 9am, you hand over keys when your money has landed. Why would you allow anyone in what is legally your property prior to that? And when money is landed it’s too late.

but also we don’t allow
Something as tenuous as cleaning to decide a house purachse. The house shouldn’t be actively filthy, but you are not obliged to deep clean either. Dust from moved furniture etc is acceptable

When I sold my old house I’d not been living in it for almost a year, XHB had and it was filthy. Mould in the oven filthy. About two weeks before moving day I tried to go round and start cleaning and sorting/dividing possessions with him and he told me I was a vile toxic person and he couldn’t stand to be around me, he was so much better off without me and he hoped that one day I looked in the mirror and realised what I’d done and what I’d lost, if there was anything in the house I wanted let him know and as long as he didn’t want it he’d pack it and get rid of anything else. (I’d left him because he was abusive btw).

I actually did a thread on here because he didn’t sort anything and stopped speaking to me, I didn’t want to go round after his absolutely horrible outburst that day. On moving day the house looked like it’d been vandalised, he’d not bothered forgot to pack some of the things I’d asked for and I ended up shoving them in bags for life so they could be moved, there were literal piles of things I didn’t want that he couldn’t be bothered ran out of time to get rid of and I ended up filing the black bin for the new owners. He’d kept my cats inside so I could fetch them and they were literally hiding under the debris that was boxes/stacked furniture/balled up sets of curtains and there were several dirty litter trays with bits of dirty cat litter kicked over the floor.

Goes without saying once everything was in the vans it was NOT clean. I even contacted the buyers after everything was done to apologise.

I used to be really judgemental, I’m a lot less so now. Lol.

The first time I moved house as an adult, I completely underestimated how long it would take to pack so I had to leave without having cleaned.

The second time, I was ready a week early 😁

When we moved in last year the house had not been cleaned for months. We had a welcome gift of leftover Chinese takeaway in the microwave that had gone mouldy. The smell was awful and no amount of lemons could make it smell any better!!

When we bought our house 20+ years ago we realised upon getting the keys that the previous owner had cleaned absolutely nothing between accepting our offer and handing over the keys.

We thought the cooker hood was brown. Upon deep cleaning we discovered it was white. Each room filled the vacuum!

I was a FTB so had to do a deep end of tenancy clean on the flat I was moving from. I even got an email from the landlord after saying that it was immaculate.
My new house was surface clean, but not deep cleaned. The freezer was left full of food, the black bin was full and the kitchen was thick with grease. The oven had been professionally cleaned though and overall it wasn't bad. But I was glad my parents came and helped me to scrub the kitchen, skirting boards etc as having just done all that in the flat I wasn't loving having to do that again!

You would think so but no. The house we bought was left filthy including an open tin of dog food left in fridge with a fork left in it! It took myself and four professional cleaners 5 hours just to get it presentable.

Before I moved out of my last house Icleaned it top to bottom, proper clean, coving, skirting boards etc, once furniture was out I hoovered right through. I had a lovely card from the buyer saying thank you for leaving it so clean. The house I moved into was spotless on viewing day, but on moving in it needed a thorough clean🙄

We were so lucky, when we moved in the lady selling and her neighour (our new neighbour) had cleaned the house top to bottom and also left a folder with all sorts of useful information! So lovely!
^^

It is common. When we completed on our current home in January, the place was dirty - bathroom wasn’t clean, kitchen was grubby…. Floors were disgusting…. and the worst…. stale stench of cigarette smoke!

They even left a load of junk behind that they thought we would want and find useful. It cost us to get rid of it in a skip!

In contrast, the house we sold, we had cleaned the property from top to bottom and even the windows! The place was gleaming and we even had a message from the new owners thanking us for doing it!

This happened to my daughter and her partner the sellers were so snotty and up themselves she couldn't believe the state the house was in. Food left in the fridge the bins chocker block with rubbish. They left all their crap they couldn't be bothered to take to the tip. She got straight onto the estate agent who contacted the seller . Daughter dumped all their old crap outside the house and they came in 2 cars to collect it including emptying the bins in full view of the old neighbours

I’ve had this a few times after we had Molly maids in and it was immaculate - I do think there are agencies just looking to make money from it - let’s charge her £350 and get someone in for an hour etc -