General Chat

We were really lucky Wendy, the previous owners had left it spotless - I was so glad because I had two young children and was pregnant at the time.......

... errr .... a filthy hovel that needed tons of work doing to it ! Six years later, it's still a filthy hovel, but I've done all the work ! ... just not big on housework :-)) Elaine :-)

Our first one was new, so just bare boards and the back garden was just bare earth (with odd bricks sticking out). Our present one was clean, but the previous owners had taken a couple of light fittings and left bare wires. And when they removed their gas cooker they didn't seal the pipe, just put a cap on it, so the first night we had British Gas out to make it safe!

When we moved 4 years ago, I cleaned our house from top to bottom. I even had the carpets cleaned and the window cleaner came 2 and half weeks early - windows done inside and out so. Meters and everything all perfect. Spotless - we left everything labelled and gave them clear instructions on things. I left the local taxi number, drs surgery and takeaway menu cards for them. I made them up a lovely little basket with teabags, coffee, sugar, fruit, biscuits and crips and a New home card. Hubby thought I was mad ! They apparently went in with the keys, dumped some black bags inside and left with the basket. Three weeks later we had a letter from them sending us an electric bill for £1.06 !!! We just paid it, but I was a bit cross. I had checked the meter and they had obviously read from the days after when they moved in. The worst thing was that we were living in a house that was a pit. We bought the house from a oldman that went into a home. The sons had tried to clean it up a bit, you could tell from where they had stripped out the carpet to burn and had previously wiped the door frames down to the carpet. You could see black oooze along that level. When we ripped out the kitchen I put my hands under the sink unit to lift it and got a handful of hair and black ooooze. They had also left the toilet which had not been working well, now completly broken with a disgusting bucket next to it. The worst thing was on the 1st nite sleeping in the one reasonable room a mouse ran across the bottom of the sleeping bag. Hows that for yucky.

Hi, 'Two houses ago' we bought a very pretty 200 year old cottage, completely smitten with the layout and location. We bought from a youngish couple, who it seemed were 'puppy farmers' and not exactly into cleanliness. The bathroom was a combination of canary yellow and black, and filthy. We found mummified dead rats in the bathroom cupboard and airing cupboard, frogs hopping down the inner hallway, and a septic tank that was backfilling. I initially thought somebody had died under the floorboards, until we located the source of sewage outside the sitting room window!. Mice had built up a breeding colony (inside and out), and in every room there lurked one of those old fashioned stick-on air freshners. We actually counted over 20 of these air freshners - on the ceiling beams, in cupboards and behind the loos - which the previous owner thought a much better idea than actual housework. Well, these things one doesn't notice when viewing the property in the height of summer with all the doors and windows open........... My husband was attached to the Services abroad, so we had the obligatory 'march-out' from a each quarter at the end of our tour - and by golly, nothing was missed. Hard work at the time, with three kids in tow, but at least you knew that the next quarter you moved into would be spotless. It never fails to amaze me how some perfectly fit and able folk can live in such squalor - soap, water and a bit of elbow grease costs nowt! Chris

Ours wasn't brilliantly clean - she had made some attempt at cleaning it, but not that much. She also left some rubbish and old furniture which she knew we didn't want. The house needed a ton of work doing and has been a bottomless pit where money is concerned - just the Kitchen to replace and Double Glazing to fit and it wil be finished. Should only take another 10 years! lol Kaye x

Christine March outs were quite something, weren't they? There were always tales of what had happened to other folk.....mirrors to view under toilet rim, rolling back carpets etc. but I didn't experience that. I did have a chap run his hand across the hall floor tiles in Cyprus though, at a pre marchout. Thank goodness the red dust from the desert wasn't blowing that way that day. Gwyn

Gwyn, I found the march-outs nerve-wracking, and was almost compelled to stand to attention whilst these bods checked the place out even though we were civilians! Must admit my little chest puffed out when we were commended - daft, isn't it? I was emulsioning our kitchen in Germany, prior to our departure (easier than scrubbing the 'orrible walls!) when I came a nasty purler off the step ladder. I was just finishing off above the eye-level grill around the cooker when the ladder went out from under me. I finished up in an unladylike heap, entangled in the step ladder, and thought I was dying. What a mess I made of the cooker! Support pans finished up on the floor, and the front of the grill was facing the hob, having clobbered it on my way down. Up to the medical centre where they said I had just badly dented and bruised my leg bone - not broken, thank Gawd. Not good news a week before we finished our tour............ Chris