What's the oddest thing your seller has left in your new home?

cannyshopper_2

an album of wedding photos, left in a built-in wardrobe.
From the style of the clothes/hair etc I think it probably dated from the early 1970's.
It didn't look like the people we'd bought the house from, and I am ashamed to admit I never got round to contacting them to ask. (almost 25 years ago now)

plasticcheese

Bed pans in the loft, an ancient microscope and a selection of industrial welding gas bottles, still full.

n217970

A pile of dog droppings in the utility room (where they used to keep the poor mutt) and loads of stuff in the garage they were coming back for despite them moving out 2 weeks before hand. Among this stuff was a brand new BBQ utensil set. Guess what I used to clean up the dog mess?

They did eventually collect the stuff (and BBQ set) after I let them know it was all at the end of the drive with a "Free" sign on it.

tykesi

My parents found a chest full of postcards, greetings cards, letters and photographs in a house they bought in the early 70's. Still got it to this day and as yet still not gone through it to have a look.

csgohan4

n217970 wrote: »

A pile of dog droppings in the utility room (where they used to keep the poor mutt) and loads of stuff in the garage they were coming back for despite them moving out 2 weeks before hand. Among this stuff was a brand new BBQ utensil set. Guess what I used to clean up the dog mess?

They did eventually collect the stuff (and BBQ set) after I let them know it was all at the end of the drive with a "Free" sign on it.

I hope they didn't use the utensil set for human use. :rotfl:

trailingspouse

A telegraph pole.

Bossypants

I arrived in my previous place to find a manky old wooden table on the patio. It had obviously been outside in all weather for at lease a couple of years and looking very the worse for wear, the wood was totally grey and splitting. It had good proportions and a great carved base, though, so I brought it inside and had my French polisher friend round to take a look. It turned out to be teak, so I paid him to clean it up (started out trying to do it myself but it was too far gone and really needed a pro to bring it back) and now have a beautiful dining table for only the cost of his very reasonably priced labour.

The worst story I've personally heard was when my brother bought his flat. The vendors had left him a lovely plate of homemade butterfly cupcakes topped with fresh cream, only he was on holiday at the time of completion (he was coming from rented with a bit of overlap), so he didn't actually get the keys until two weeks later. This was in July, so the cream was getting quite manky by the time he found them.

tacpot12

As a nine year old, I found six rounds of .22 Long Rifle ammunition in a large tray of screws left in the garden shed of the house my parents bought in 1975. My Dad dropped them off at the Police Station in the village.

TheGardener

Gosh - where to start - great washing basket, fab little bulbous seedling water'er , big vintage mixing bowl, a beautiful mauve cashmere jumper, really good garden fork, about a dozen little pottery wade figures (down the back of a gas fire) a wrought iron candelabra, an early ercol arm chair, a collection of spanners, screwdrivers and other assorted decorating tools...I've moved around a bit but every property has had something and most of the above are still in use.

The only nasties have been a few dead mice, a manky washing up cloth full of maggots and a cat litter tray.

phoebe1989seb

Twenty years ago we bought a house - it was actually four flats that we went on to convert back to a single family home - and moved in to find the vendor had left fifty-seven pieces of furniture behind!

One room had been kitted out as a dark room with polystyrene over doors and windows attached with duct tape and there were various guitars and tennis rackets hanging from the walls. In the cellar were several carpets so damp/rotten they fell apart as you touched them.

Sadly nothing was of any great value so we skipped the lot.

Last house the vendors left two lovely old, weathered staddle stones. Rather annoyingly they took about eight more with them. They also left a carport full of timber. Some was of no use, but there were some interesting old beams we were able to re-use when we restored the property and an unusual pair of Georgian arch-topped doors we couldn't re-use, but sold for a couple of hundred quid on fleabay

Current house the vendor left behind a floor-standing safe in the cellar. Unfortunately it was empty. Nearly three years later it's still there as we've been unable to move the blooming thing :mad: