Hellobee Boards

Oh we had quite a lot of "fun" thanks to our sellers. These people were such jerks. We moved in July when it was like 85 out and the upstairs was boiling hot. The house has central AC and I kept telling DH something was wrong. He thought it was just the door being open for so long. Nope, turns out they'd manually disconnected the thermostat in the basement. So even though it was set to 70 something, it wasn't turning on the air upstairs.

They also cut the water line to the fridge instead of just unscrewing it. So when our new fridge got delivered they had to leave it in the middle of the kitchen and they told us we needed to figure out what part we needed and fix it ourselves. God I hate those a-holes.

I was literally just thinking about this. We just bought and haven't closed yet (closing a week from today!) but realized through inspection that neither of the 1.5 baths have electrical outlets. Just no outlets in the bathrooms at all. Wtf??

When we bought our house, got the keys, and showed up with all our stuff we had the "fun surprise" of the previous owner's stuff still being everywhere, barely packed, and nobody was there! Like, all her clothes were in the closet, cupboards fill of food. We sat around for four hours (my husband and I, my parents, and some friends who were helping us move) before she finally rolled in around 6pm, said "oh, sorry, my truck cancelled and I was out trying to find a new one!" Then suggested she would give us "a few dollars" and we could go grab a coffee while she "finished up". She wouldn't let us help because "you don't know how I want things". It was 1am before we were able to start moving our stuff in.

@IRunForFun: DHs condo is/was like that. When I first started staying over I was like how am I supposed to blow dry my hair? Luckily he was able to install some really easily. I can't imagine we would be able to rent that place without outlets.

As first time home buyers, our surprises were little nuances that somehow we overlooked before buying. Like how the kitchen has no drawers large enough to hold a standard silverware holder, so our silverware is up in a cabinet next to the paper products. Lol. Very strange indeed!

@IRunForFun: yeah the wires are there for the lights so not like you have to run all new lines.
@Foodnerd81: yeah I know it expires but you would think since they haven't lived here for years(they rented it before they sold it) they would have it all changed.
@avivoca: we also get mail for stager that lived in the house while it was for sale.

Several layers of wallpaper and several layers of crappy flooring.

In this house we realized the generous crown molding is actually a trick with trim and painting.

In our old house we came to learn that all of the nice looking updates and renos were unpermited DIY jobs for the most part. Fixing the issues that came up were a little costly.

@Foodnerd81: haha we saw houses with painted over wallpaper. So fun!! Congratulations on the closing!!

Surprises: rotted wood under freshly painted siding. The half bath cabinet under the sink STUFFED FULL of personal items from the previous owner. Shoddy handy homemaker "fixes" like improperly installed doors, closet shelves that are too narrow, missing moldings?!?! So weird!

@Foodnerd81: hahahaha!!! Thank you so much for that laugh. Bikini wallpaper! I think I'd be up there immediately peeling that off!

@Foodnerd81: ugh we have painted over wallpaper too. Why do people do this?!

We had painted over wallpaper in one of the girl's rooms too - I'm actually glad it was wallpaper though as it would have been a complete pain to paint over (see attached picture!)

Our not so fun surprise was all the half assed DIY projects that had been done by the previous owners. We think the guy fancied himself a bit of a DIY expert and took on a lot of little projects, but he just did such a shitty job with all of them! Nearly two years on and DH is still going around the house most weekends, fixing up the messes.

@IRunForFun: Maybe the owners were British? Building regs here don't allow for any outlets in bathrooms other than the little shaver outlets. It drives me mad that I can't plug anything in in our bathrooms here!!!

Here's a pic of the painted wallpaper from our inspection. I think it freaked our 9 month old out for the few weeks she had to sleep with that on her walls!

Our "fun" surprise was that the morning after we bought our house, DH and I both took showers in the upstairs bathroom, then when we came downstairs, we realized there was a huge wet spot on the ceiling of the downstairs bathroom. Turns out there was a plumbing problem but the woman who lived in the house before us (alone) never used the upstairs shower. During our inspection, the water hadn't been on long enough for the plumbing issue to present itself (although to be fair, it seemed liked it had gotten worse since the inspection).

We tried to get some money for the fix from the seller but she refused and there was really nothing we could do. At least we got the plumber who came by to give us a full plumbing inspection for free (and find some other problems at the same time). But yeah, it was fun to have a hole in the ceiling of our new "move-in-ready" house in day 2 of living there.

ETA: That stinks about the paint over wallpaper thing. My dad got painters for his house recently and they did that (seriously, professional painters) in the basement. I told him that he should make them re-do it and he wouldn't. He said they tried to remove the wallpaper and it was impossible. But I feel bad for whoever moves into his house after him.