Homeowners: did any of you discover your new place had a surprise feature AFTER moving in?

Skiddaw1

Titus_Wadd said:

I love this thread!

Me too....

rexmedorum said:

ChilliBob said:

Underfloor heating in the kitchen and a downstairs loo was a surprise, and to my son (age 4) a surprise was shed loads of footballs and basketballs in the garden, and a little play shed. Result! 

how did you not notice a downstairs toilet on the viewing?

Actually, we viewed a house once where the tenants in situ had used the downstairs bog as a storage area to the point where the bog and basin were completely invisible. We'd never have guessed it was a bog had it not been for the floor plan.

nyermen

Minor thing probably already raised on one of the last 12 pages (!), but for me it was just discovering the inspection pit in the garage was more than just a simple hole (it was 6 ft deep, with a lamp and electrical socket).  Damp unfortunately means I disconnected the power, not sure what to do with the hole now. 

oz0707

nyermen said:

Minor thing probably already raised on one of the last 12 pages (!), but for me it was just discovering the inspection pit in the garage was more than just a simple hole (it was 6 ft deep, with a lamp and electrical socket).  Damp unfortunately means I disconnected the power, not sure what to do with the hole now. 

Wine/beer store?

YellowCarBlueCar

nyermen said:

Minor thing probably already raised on one of the last 12 pages (!), but for me it was just discovering the inspection pit in the garage was more than just a simple hole (it was 6 ft deep, with a lamp and electrical socket).  Damp unfortunately means I disconnected the power, not sure what to do with the hole now. 

You probably already know, but best not to use it for its intended purpose. With petrol vapour being heavier than air, they aren't really considered to be a good idea now.  Hence garages all using lifts rather than pits.

Falafels

This didn't happen to me, but to an acquaintance. A mutual friend was helping her put in a path in her back garden, clearing and levelling the soil, when his spade hit something solid underground. They dug down, and discovered it was a cache of guns wrapped in plastic bags! They called the police straight away, area was cordoned off, the entire site inspected and the firearms removed.

A few months later, she came down to find that someone had been digging in the spot where the guns had been buried, but that was it. Apparently the previous owner had been a drug dealer.

badger09

rexmedorum said:

ChilliBob said:

Underfloor heating in the kitchen and a downstairs loo was a surprise, and to my son (age 4) a surprise was shed loads of footballs and basketballs in the garden, and a little play shed. Result! 

how did you not notice a downstairs toilet on the viewing?

I read it as (no longer ) ChilliBob discovered underfloor heating in downstairs loo.  

Sunny_Day

The previous owner!

Hadn't really wanted to sell, certainly hadn't got anywhere to move to, so she thought she'd keep coming back to sleep in what was now MY house.  She'd left a few small items that would add to the comfort of a squatter.  I'd been staying with a friend while I cleaned the house completely before I moved my furniture in, was just leaving one night 10 days after completion, and who should come trotting down the path but THAT WOMAN!  She shamefacedly said, "I came to return this key" (at 10pm?? when she clearly had no idea I'd be there??), grabbed a hanging flower basket that I'd just replanted, and shot off.

A shirty letter to her solicitor warning that police would be called if she appeared again put an end to the problem.

I changed all the locks the next day.

gozaimasu

Ashworks said:

When we stripped the wallpaper in our first house we found 'graffitti' from the couple who had lived there from the 1950s 

My first place had something similar - stripped the kitchen wallpaper to find someone had etched something about "Allah" into the plaster. Not the person I'd bought from but many years before.

rexmedorum

A couple days after moving in we discovered that the wodden trelice attached to the liveing room window giving onto the garden was an absolute bird margnet. So much activity we couldn't bring ourselves to get rid as we had initially planned even though it's a bit worse for wear.

gozaimasu

Extremely strange to have a trellis attached to a window!