Memorable bodge jobs in your new house...

shegirl

On the more minor side,in my last home, was discovering some idiot had thought it would be a good idea to plaster over vinyl,tile effect,wallpaper:rotfl: Half of the kitchen walls had been stripped of it and painted,I guess they got bored of how much of a pain the stuff is to strip so plastered over it instead?(very badly I may add,it would've looked smoother before!!!)Had enourmous fun getting those bits off :mad:

In my current house,I don't know who the hell done all this,but the electrics were a pain!Not sure if it was some idiot doing diy or a seriously dodgy electrician,but on the day we moved in the board was constantly tripping.Had someone out who replaced the cartridge thingy for the cooker.Then it all started again.Poor electrician was going through the house for ages trying to find the problem.Ended up not only finding the screws for the cables from the boiler were loose but live touching neutral in a couple of the plug sockets.THEN,when I had my new bathroom put in 2 years later and all the tiles were ripped off,walls done etc the guys discovered a cable hanging down which turned out to be the cable from an old electric shower that used to be there and was still connected and ON....

There are some complete morons around:rotfl:

Gingernutty

The shocking state of the walls......:eek:

At some stage (during the '50s or '60s) someone decided that everything should be level.

The 'picture rail' consisted of one colour of paper, the mid section to dado was another colour and there was a third colour down to skirting.

So that EVERYTHING could be level, the eejit cut everything from ceiling to picture rail level INCLUDING the arch over the doorway into the downstairs back room. The decorative 'ends' (corbals?) have been lost forever. :mad:

The holes in the walls where hooks and nails had been have been filled - someone's fingermarks are still visible in the white filler/plaster of paris. :eek:

At some point the guttering failed around the back of the house. The walls must have absolutely soaked through - there was evidence of mould right through all the levels of wallpaper.

The guttering was fixed but the plasterwork in the upstairs was shot to pieces - no attempt was made at repairing it.

The middle bedroom still had the original tongue and groove wooden wall. It had warped long ago and someone tried to cover it with plasterboard.

The board was stuck up the wrong way round and no attempt was made to smooth the cracks or render it with a bit of plaster.

The house was so unloved that the slumlord who sold me this dump just used woodchip paper everywhere including the bathroom. No attempt was made to smooth anything or take off any of the old papers - he just smacked it up with some extra strong glue.

When my family and I took the woodchip off, large portions of the walls came with it - there is bare brickwork still showing in the back bedroom.

There is no ventilation between the kitchen and the adjoining bathroom but to show willing, some eejit screwed the face of a plastic vent on to the solid wall.

The cheap carpet that was everywhere was stapled down with not even newspaper for underlay.

The cement for the kitchen floor was so badly laid that I needed a hammer and bolster to knock out thumping great stones to get the appliances in. :mad:

And polystyrene.



Everywhere. :eek:



If not tiles, then polyroll across all the ceilings. In the back bedroom there were even two types of ceiling tiles as work had been done to install a boiler, cold and hot water storage system.

I've kept a few of the tiles and the vendor left me a roll of woodchip. I've got an art installation in mind once I've finished this place. :beer:

Edit : Reading the post above me - the electrics for the bathroom were eye opening - there is a 3 pin plug socket about five feet up the bathroom wall and some holes in the ceiling where I think a heater might have been - that's live. As is the switch for the old boiler which is in the cupboard above the bath. I'm under strict instructions from my electrician brother not to touch anything but the light pull in there.

Better_Days

Wires sticking out of the wall in the cupboard in the bathroom about five feet up and with yellowing sellotape wrapped round....yep the wires were live:eek:

phoebe1989seb

I don't know where to start......but in our current house (300+ years old) the previous owner who had spent 20 years working on it, only to sell it as a 'half-finished project' had amongst other things (like a previous poster) attached hooks to every surface......walls, ceiling beams, you name it - we now refer to him as 'Captain Hook' In fact we thought maybe he was operating a 'house of ill repute' and that they had a more sinister function than suspending his chistmas deccies

Worse than that though, in our upstairs bathroom we have a high level cistern loo - not original, but fitted by Captain Hook sometime during his tenure - however the cistern is not in the bathroom......it is on the floor of the attic bedroom above, so that the pull chain goes up through a hole in the ceiling to the cistern and anyone sleeping up there can hear when you have used the 'facilities' :eek:

Mind you, not a botch job but DH came across something even worse - not looking to buy, but actually collecting an ebay purchase - at a flat that was about to be repossessed.......the couple that were on the verge of being repossessed had taken out not only the usual stuff, but also all the floorboards in the top floor flat. DH and the ebay seller had to carry a large butler sink unit across several rooms whilst being careful to only tread on the joists!

lucylooby123

Current home: millions of holes in walls, screws, think they had wall to wall shelves in every room.

Went to view a house that belonged to a young lady whose boyfriend had DIY'd the lot then left her. House was advertised as 'immaculate'. The house had fire damage in one room which the agent told us was from a faulty TV. We had a basic survey done by a friend with view to putting an offer in. This threw up:

The water tank was held up by a piece of cardboard. Ditto one end of the bath (both upstairs).
None of the doors closed because they'd been put in wonky.
The whole central heating system was WIRED to the boiler, and liable to set the house live if it got damp.
The electrics and GAS had been revamped by the ex boyfriend and were a fire waiting to happen.
Chimney about to fall off, held on by the tv ariel.
Front wall had been knocked out, no joist to support it.


House LOOKED immaculate and we were seriously thinking of buying it.

^^ this is why you always always get a full survey done!!

(vendor refused to accept there was any problem with house, and it's still on the market - beware!)

This woman had small children in the house!

Tr1pp

[QUOTE=Gingernutty;52318439
There is no ventilation between the kitchen and the adjoining bathroom but to show willing, some eejit screwed the face of a plastic vent on to the solid wall.

[/QUOTE]

That actually made me me laugh, brilliant!!.

nothing major at the moment but im about to pull out the shabby bathroom and kitchen so we will see whats waiting.

just some sloppy painting, and some gaps filled by expanding foam and poorly smoothed over. The storage heater had been moved from one side of the room to the other but the socket it was hard wired into didnt. the previous owner ran the cable up the wall (not concealed) through part of the ceiling down another wall where the wire was poorly chased into the wall at a snaking 30 degree angle then loosely around the skirting, there were 3 junction boxes used to make the full length of cable. detailing was not a strong point of the previous owner.

Wellington_B

I love this thread - it's making me feel so much better about our house!

Notable ones for us were -

Garage doors that were nailed into place and couldn't be opened (survey didn't spot that one);
Dining room 1 foot wider one end than the other and parquet flooring put in from edges so not a straight line in sight;
Curtain stapled to the wall to hide the fact that the wall behind was bare plaster and pipes, and had been for the past ten years;
Huge shed in the back garden, fully insulated and wired, but with one thin sheet of chipboard at back so the entire thing was damp and rotten;
Previous owners had got fed up with tiling the bathroom so had just put up a big square of wallpaper in the middle of the wall. And the window sills looked tiled but weren't, they just had loose tiles put on there;
'Tangerine Dream' bedroom - yellow patterned carpet with yellow, bright orange, white and cream walls and a lovely patch of dark red where they'd painted around the bedroom furniture;
The blue room where the walls, ceiling and carpet were navy blue with shelves all the way around about 15cm down from the ceiling.

And lots more besides!

Why, oh why did we buy?! We were deluded by the space and potential, now a lot sadder, wiser and poorer 5 years down the line.

seven-day-weekend

We bought our house in 1976.

The owner told us that there had been a little bit of damp in the dining room, and the wallpaper was coming off, but he'd fixed it.

When we moved in, we realised he'd fixed the wallpaper to the wall with drawing pins.

chris_m

phoebe1989seb wrote: »

Mind you, not a botch job but DH came across something even worse - not looking to buy, but actually collecting an ebay purchase - at a flat that was about to be repossessed.......the couple that were on the verge of being repossessed had taken out not only the usual stuff, but also all the floorboards in the top floor flat. DH and the ebay seller had to carry a large butler sink unit across several rooms whilst being careful to only tread on the joists!

Hehe, reminds me of the classic Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em episode, where Frank had removed most of the house interior and the rest fell down as soon as they were out of the street ;-)

missile

When we refitted the kitchen we found electrical sockets hanging out of the walls and bare wires>