Memorable bodge jobs in your new house...

Louise.H

Just wondering what were the most memorable discoveries people had made when they'd moved into houses in terms of bodges, dodgy DIY etc.

This morning we discovered a leak in the upstairs toilet, it turned out the previous people had gaffer taped a leaking cistern and then left it for probably years. :eek: Before that there was a very interesting sealant job done on the bath which meant it leaked from all corners.

Mrs_Arcanum

Gaps at the top of the doors. Architraves/skirting not firmly attached. Light switches that do not work. Home made high level cistern.

Tomato soup orange/terracotta/yellow everywhere.

Sounds like you had a similar problem to a friend. Their previous occupants just wrapped a j-cloth round the leaky tap connection allowing it to totally soak the back wall (they suspected at least 20+ years of leaking).

paddyrg

A friend's place was an absolute hoot -
*Upstairs loo went straight into the garden without a septic tank.
*Hundreds (like 400+) of hooks in every surface for hanging 'stuff'
*Best of all was the electrics - the DIY-er's son used to work on building sites and pilfer junction boxes and ends of cable - the whole house was wired with lengths of 18-24" punctuated by junction boxes.
*Garage roof sheets overlapped in the wrong direction, actively channeling water into the garage - the inspection pit doubled as a foetid pond.

That's on top of all the obvious things like poor-fitting doors, etc!

bluebluecow

ours, and not in this house but last where ...

Rebuilt stairs, the top stair was really big and then a tiny little stair on the bottom.

Drainage pipe from overflow attached to hose pipe and then down the conservatry roof

Conservatory built by him, dodgy walls and plastic ceiling

Kitchen cupboards hand built in pine panels

Angelicdevil

I've just moved into my first place and I discovered:

* plug sockets attached to the wall with cellotape (!?!?!?)

* the cold water supply for the washing machine hacked off

* holes and hooks in every wall possible - why would you need hooks in the corners of the room up near the coving?!?!?!

* the worst filling of gaps around windows/doors ever. I'm female and I've already fixed the gaps (they were big once I picked out all of the dodgy filling) in my bedroom around the window....it's not rocket science!

* the cold tap in the bathroom doesn't work and the loo flushes quite poorly - I dread to think what I'm going to discover when I attack the bathroom!

rosyw

The immersion heater in my last place wasn't properly wired in, they'd fittted a 13amp plug which went into a socket in the airing cupboard, the whole thig was red hot as they'd wrapped tin foil around the fuse!:eek::eek:
They'd also fitted the hot/cold connectors the wrong way on the plumbing for the washing machine, which I discovered having shrunk a load of my daughters clothes!

Mrs_Arcanum

Forgot to mention, all the bodge jobs in our house were done by someone who is the Handyman for a 400 year old former Grammar school. :eek:

smileytiger

I've had a bath not actually fixed to the floor & only held in place by the sealant round the top!

But the best has to be when removing kitchen tiles once to redo kitchen - there was actually no window sill - just a piece of MDF wedged across which had been tiled which we took out to reveal a huge gaping hole to the outside wall :eek: we had to build the inside wall up and put in a windowsill..lol

smileytiger

Angelicdevil wrote: »

I've just moved into my first place and I discovered:

* plug sockets attached to the wall with cellotape (!?!?!?)

* the cold water supply for the washing machine hacked off

* holes and hooks in every wall possible - why would you need hooks in the corners of the room up near the coving?!?!?!

* the worst filling of gaps around windows/doors ever. I'm female and I've already fixed the gaps (they were big once I picked out all of the dodgy filling) in my bedroom around the window....it's not rocket science!

* the cold tap in the bathroom doesn't work and the loo flushes quite poorly - I dread to think what I'm going to discover when I attack the bathroom!

To hang your tacky Christmas decs up from corner to corner:D - i remember those days well when i was a child:rotfl:

rubyrose

The previous owners of my house knocked a hole through the kitchen wall into the living room to put the tumble dryer tube through the vent that was already in that wall. To cover it up they put a wooden box round it which also reduced the draught into the living room, only problem was that this was also the vent for the gas fire + boiler and was way too unventilated!

Browntoa

I've seen polystyrene tiles screwed to a curved part of the ceiling

A pine clad ceiling where the ceiling rose has been covered over with them and the only lighting in the room as from come wall lights . I'm convinced it was a case of forgetting about the wires until the job was done and it was too late to find them