Stuff your vendor left in the house you bought

billybear1

Our first house was a repo also, our finds:

- A broken Dyson
- Collapsable Crates in the Garage
- 100's (Maybe 1,000's) of yellow BB's
- 10's of holes in the walls
- A door
- Ongoing debt letters

We then had to replace the bath panel as it was coming away from the bath, this, we discovered, was the man's hiding space for his vintage 1980's nudey magazine.

Elfbert

aileth wrote: »

God forbid whoever buys our house when we eventually sell though, they will find some beauties in our veg patch. My sister used to breed hamsters and, having no garden of her own, used our veg patch as a cemetary. There is probably about 15 hamsters in there now, some of which were buried in their houses.

I know the farm my old place backs onto has a field full of buried dead horses! Not sure if it was before everyone cared about people burying 'fallen stock', or if the farmer swung it that they were all 'pets', but I'm pretty sure they're all there... in a few hundred years some archeologists will probably find it and make up a great backstory

GalaxyStar

Update on ours having got round to clearing the garage out as it was full of stuff on a boarded area in the eaves - hundred of the vendors paintings! Must be his life's work, really nice too, and most are of places he's wrote the name on like houses in the cotswold and churches. We have e-mailed the estate agent to ask if they can contact them to see if they actually want them as it felt wrong to do anything with them as it seems to be his lifes work! Some are framed and have prices on too! We are going to keep a few as they're so nice if they don't want them, could always sell the other good ones for a few quid each!

New_Mum_2

When I moved into my house 18 years ago the previous owners had left a bottle of wine in the cupboard and some useful shelves in the garage & in the understairs cupboard.

Reading this thread has made me nervous of what I might be left with when I move into my new house ....

laurel7172

A loft full of soft toys-my dad bagged most of them to decorate the Rotary Christmas float.

Enough pink shag pile to carpet a friend's bathroom.

Masses of odd bits of wood, a Z-bed with no mattress and every single wardrobe in the house.

I'm still using the wardrobes in my bedroom-good quality but somewhat dated even then.

mandragora_2

Our house was a repossession (there's a theme emerging!), and we were left:
the stale leftovers from two ferret cages;
rancid milk bottles;
a speedboat in the garden (rotting);
a Harley Davidson motorbike in the garage.

The 'man with a van' who'd moved out stuff relieved us of the speedboat hull as payment for the move; the neighbour's son turned up pronto to collect his bike when we let it be known it would be regarded as part of the fixtures and fittings if it continued to be left 'for storage'. No-one wanted the ferret leavings or sour milk bottles, funnily enough.

We also bought a couple of houses as a renovation project, again with former tenants who'd flitted. There was loads of stuff in there, but some of the many finds were:
a wholesale size box of Werther's Originals soft toffees;.
a Dartington 'gurgle' jug that was one of the first things we ever sold on eb*y, launching a hobby that kept us in 'free' money and entertaining Sunday evenings for a couple of years in the halcyon days when eb*y was fun;
an enamel sign from an American football ground;
a new Delia cookbook which was an exact replica of my old tatty one, which was immediately pressed into service and my old one thrown away;
several really pretty paintings - one seascape oil on board, one pastel and two water-colours. I re-framed them all and we now have them at home. Must take them and get them valued - you never know, I might have a lost Old Master there!
a budgie cage, as unclean as the ferret cages had been.

As an inveterate 'flinger or seller' of redundant things, in both cases I was astounded at how much 'stuff' people, who were hard up enough to lose their homes over debt were prepared to just throw away. The ferret and budgie droppings also suggested a theme, too!

Davesnave

Elfbert wrote: »

I know the farm my old place backs onto has a field full of buried dead horses!

We only got two of those, but no one told us.

It was over a year into our occupation when the man from the council turned up one day to 'inspect the horse burials.'

We asked when the animals had been interred and he replied that one had gone in about 7 years previous and another "Only about 4 years ago."

Four years sounded long enough, but he explained that a colleague had fallen behind with his paperwork, then retired, and the horse burials were among things found in his '"in" tray! Well, it was a nice day, so he thought he'd just check-up.:rotfl:

We consulted the map, found the relevant places....and, of course, there was nothing to see.

About a week later we received a plan and an official headed note saying that the burials were both satisfactory.

s1ipmatt

Lots of dirt/grime. Why did the property look so much cleaner when viewing?
Found a painting by numbers on top of the kitchen cupboard, sadly the paint had all dried up or I might have been tempted to complete it.
A good sized table and shelves in the attic which I still use for storage.

InsideInsurance

My mother was going to downsize and initially move in with her sister so didnt want all the carpets, light fittings, washing machine etc and so approached the buyer to get at least a token offer for them as most were relatively new and he was a cash buyer wanting to move into buy to let (though never knew if ours was being bought to let or if they intended to move into ours and use their old property to let out - ours was the much larger property)

The official response we got back from their solicitor was "we dont want any of your old tat"

So left behind was 6 bed house worth of carpets, heavily soiled and a large number of red wine stains and cigar burns (all strangely occurred the night before we left).

One washing machine with a number of internal seals split. One dishwasher with a number of internal seals split and a 3L bottle of industrial detergent having been put into the system. One cooker with thermostats removed.

Two sets of secondary shelves/hangers inside built in wardrobes with a fresh (but not for long) chicken forced between the top of the unit and the built in wardrobe of both.

One small shoal of mackerel evenly distributed between the double radiators through out the house with the remainder in the loft water tank.

One 1940s sack barrow with one seized wheel.

One bottle of Tesco Value wine as moving in gift.

Obviously all very childish and could potentially have resulted in bills etc but was seen as a good way of venting frustration at the "old tat" comment and thankfully she never heard anything from the buyer afterwards

mandragora_2

Lovely....