Would you clean a house you leave?

Savvy_sewing

I am about to embark on my 40th home move. My parents were in the RAF and we had to be Marched in/out of homes, until I was 17. If you didnt leave it to order Dad was charged.
As an Adult, my moves have all been hectic, but I have always tried to leave a place clean from top to bottom, and I have the carpets cleaned too.
I should hope that where I move into is clean, but as already said by someoneelse, I would clean a house all over again anyway.!

(I am hoping that at my age, this may now be my final move. But then I thought that this cottage was!).

young_money_saver

when we moved from our old private rented property out in the countryside we had to paint every room (walls and skirting boards), restain the wooden doors, repair our damage (minor things such as scratches on door from moving a sofa from room to room and a doorhandle), repaint the front and back door, weed the large patio and cut the grass, remove the sky satellite, clean the carpets, show proof of all bills etc have been paid and upto date and the companies notified of address change (we also got postal redirectory for a few years) and finally clean the house which was already clean apart from the floor underneath the washing machine.
i've noticed with all the property we have rented including our current house they all have shi*ty locks on the doors. nice old houses let down by a door with a cheap lock. im sure that you need a 5 lever mortice lock to claim insurance if you have been burgled. this week im going down to the locksmith to replace the 3 lever mortice lock with a 5 lever mortice lock. I will also install a yale lock, when we first move in I also put a chain on at the top of the door.
how is your rented property security? good solid locks or cheap shabby locks quickly installed by a landlord.
lol i've got copies of keys from most of the houses I have lived at. my old house about 3 miles away still after 2 years has the same lock I have a key to! lol

G_M

young_money_saver wrote: »

lol i've got copies of keys from most of the houses I have lived at. my old house about 3 miles away still after 2 years has the same lock I have a key to! lol

Now how could you know it has the same lock........?

PasturesNew

It can be difficult to clean it when you move out, depending on what's happening, how much time you've had between exchange/completion and if you're on your own.

In my case, I had 48 hours between exchange/completion - and everybody I'd lined up let me down. House goods sale: Nobody turned up. Charity shop to take everything away: Turned up to say they were full and weren't taking anything. "Clear a House" man organised, no show and it took me 5 hours to track him down. He said his van had broken down and could I just leave it all in the garden and he'd get round to it. Well, no. ... it was the entire contents of a 6 bed house, everything. And I was on my own.

Had it all planned lovely: Sale of goods, stuff would go. Charity shop, loads of stuff would go. Final remaining stuff, house clearance man would take.

It should have been a breeze, it turned into a nightmare.... I was still getting stuff out of the house up to 10 minutes before the call saying it'd completed.

tbs624

PasturesNew wrote: »

It can be difficult to clean it when you move out, depending on what's happening, how much time you've had between exchange/completion and if you're on your own.

In my case, I had 48 hours between exchange/completion - and everybody I'd lined up let me down. House goods sale: Nobody turned up. Charity shop to take everything away: Turned up to say they were full and weren't taking anything. "Clear a House" man organised, no show and it took me 5 hours to track him down. He said his van had broken down and could I just leave it all in the garden and he'd get round to it. Well, no. ... it was the entire contents of a 6 bed house, everything. And I was on my own.

Had it all planned lovely: Sale of goods, stuff would go. Charity shop, loads of stuff would go. Final remaining stuff, house clearance man would take.

It should have been a breeze, it turned into a nightmare.... I was still getting stuff out of the house up to 10 minutes before the call saying it'd completed.

Have done exchange/completion on the same day (which was gut-churning) but why leave the countdown sort out until the very last minute? Even if that sale hadn't gone through, you would have been trying again presumably so could have allowed yourself more time and had less stress

Coveredinbees!!!!

before we moved out our old house we had to quickly repaint a bedroom due to a nasty stain behind a wardrobe, it's surprising what you can do in very little time when you need to.

Luckily most of the stuff in the house was out before the final completion, we weren't even sleeping there right at the end due to bad neighbours.

jenny74

I cleaned our old house as the removal men were emptying it. The Vendors of our new house did not, unfortunately pay us the same consideration. Our buyers were delighted with my efforts and sent me a thank you card. :-)

I appreciate not everyone is in the same situation... Our Vendors could have made an effort, but chose not to.

motherofstudents

Yes I would and do always clean. Our last move I did 'normal' cleaning and it was fine but because of the awful conveyancer we did not complete until a few days later so as all our stuff was in storage I had time on my hands and super cleaned everywhere. I would always cut the grass too and leave a card and a plant for the new owners. Sometimes we have had the same done for us but quite often not.

young_money_saver

G_M wrote: »

Now how could you know it has the same lock........?

the house is out in the countryside and its not to far from my house just now so when im out cycling I sometimes go past it and I have noticed it has the same old lock on the front door (the house is right on the country lane which is why its so visible). another bad security point.

sonastin

I cleaned mine as I was leaving, but all the time moaning to anyone who would listen (and quite a few who wouldn't!) about how big a waste of time it was as the first thing the buyer would do would be to clean it from top to bottom all over again. But still, common courtesy wouldn't let me not clean