Funny property stories
We recently ran a competition asking you for your funniest property related stories, and you sure do have some entertaining tales to tell!
The competition has now closed and we’d like to congratulate Angela, Annie and Catherine on winning a £50 M&S voucher each for submitting what Rightmove deemed to be the funniest anecdotes of the lot.
Thank you to all of those who shared your stories; we’ve selected some of our favourites to share with you. If you can relate to any of these stories, let us know in the comments section below.
We have sorted the stories into categories for easy browsing… Enjoy!
| Winners | General |
| DIY | Animals & Creatures |
| Renting | House hunting & viewing |
| Selling | Buying |
Winners
I and my husband were moving from our rented house in to our first bought house.
I couldn’t get time off work, so I helped pack everything up the night before,
leaving instructions with my husband.
We had hired a van, and his friend was helping. I popped over at lunch, and my instructions had been mixed up. The bags from the front room were supposed to go to the tip and the bags from the
dining room for the new house.
Yes, he had taken all his clothes to the tip!
My boss took pity on me and gave me the afternoon off, and they spent the
afternoon rooting round for his clothes!
Catherine
I agreed to rent a flat at a great price, on the condition that I cleared out the belongings of the previous tenant (a very elderly gent who was a friend of the owner, and had passed away in hospital a few months
before). I didn’t mind at all because it was mostly small furniture and books, plus a pantry full of paper bags and cooking pots. Not a problem!
Moving-in day came and I was going about my task with gusto – so much so that I
had worked up quite a sweat.
Handily, in the pantry the old gent had
stored several string bags full of lovely soft white cloths cut into small
sizes, which I used to mop my perspiring brow.
All was well until I stopped for a cuppa, and wondered just where these
wonderful, lint-free, snuggly-soft cloths had come from…
I dug a little
deeper in one of the bags and saw something which made me stop in my
tracks; that all too familiar stitching that makes up the Y on the front
of a pair of gent’s under crackers.
I’d been wiping my face ALL DAY with
an old man’s pants.
Still, nice flat 🙂
Annie
I hadn’t been in my house long (so didn’t know the neighbours well), when a
removals van pulled up outside of a house that had been on the market for
ages. The two men were very pleasant and hard working – one of them
even broke off to help me with my shopping bags.
As the owners weren’t
there I returned their kindness by giving them both tea and biccies. Eventually they left.
Then, two days later, the neighbours returned from holiday to find their house
completely empty!
Red-faced, I gave a description of the two men to the
police, the men were never caught and the neighbours never spoke to me.
Angela
General
When
I moved into my last flat, the previous owner had a friend who was helping him
move all his stuff out seemed like a pleasant chap. It came to key exchange day
and all went well, and we moved in with no problems.
A few days later we had a
knock on the door and it was the friend that had helped the owner move out, we
invited him in for a drink as we were unsure why he was here. He then took his
shoes off where he had no socks on just bandages that looked like they were
from ulcers on his feet; I didn’t know what to do! He then proceeded to tell us
that we owed him £200 for helping the other owner move out!!! I couldn’t believe
what I was hearing!
Luckily I managed to get him out of the house, but for the
next few months he continued to knock on the house and demand the money. He
even started posting letters through the letter box! Luckily he appears to have
given up now at least I hope!!!
Rebecca
When I was a kid my family and I moved house. We had to
move in with my great uncle for a couple of weeks until our new house was
available. This was one big mistake! My uncle had lived alone for some years in
a large old Victorian house. The house had not changed for years and all of his
things were from the 1960s or older and had never really been used.
The first
thing to happen was my mother wanted to turn up the heating, this caused one of
the radiators to leak, which in turn soaked through the floor and through to
the room below. The first we knew of this was when puddles started appearing of
the rather expensive parquet flooring. It had run down the velvet curtains ultimately
causing them to shrink. My mum then proceeded to do some washing in the rather
antiquated washing machine. Unfortunately the seal had perished and the machine
leaked, flooding the kitchen.
A couple of days later the toilets all got
blocked due to the increased usage so my dad had to spend the next few days
down the sewers removing the ‘waste’. My uncle attempted to use a metal rod at
one stage and managed to smash the toilet which had to be replaced. Being an
antique toilet it wasn’t a cheap replacement. All in all it was an eventful
time and one I’ll always remember.
James
When our furniture left Germany heading to Dundee with a
removal company everything went smooth, until the furniture van arrived a week later,
all excited to get off and into our new home. Everything unloaded and we
started unpacking and placing it into the relevant rooms. When my husband asked
where is the tool box. We looked high and low and could not find the tool box
that contained every screw and alan key to our flat packed furniture.
We
got onto the moving company explaining what had happened and low and behold it
had been left on the van as the delivery drivers thought it was theirs. A week
later a huge truck appeared in the street carrying yes our tool box. At last we
could sleep properly in our beds at night.
Julie
We had lived in our house for about 6 months and a new
property was being built on land next door.
Our neighbours on the other side suggested that we went
and had a nosy around the new property as the builders had left a door open.
Whilst we were looking around upstairs the new owners turned up. Caught red handed! We were panicking a bit as there was no escape. We quickly went
downstairs to face up to what we were doing there.
We apologised profusely for being on the property and
admitted that we just being nosy. Fortunately the man and woman who were to
become our neighbours admitted that they would have done the same and just
laughed. Phew,we were expecting the police to be called!
We agreed that there would be no more nosy visits as he
said that when the house was finished they would invite us all round for a
grand opening!
We’ve lived next door to them for 18 years and couldn’t
ask for better neighbours.
Sue
When we moved house a few years ago, there was a lot of
things on the day that we decided needed just throwing out. The stack of
rubbish at the side of the bin quickly grew in size. I didn’t want to leave a
mess for the new occupants, so decided (when the removal men were hard at work),
to go to the tip. I pulled up in the car next to a very large and very full
skip and started to empty my car.
I had jogging bottoms on with no pockets, so
held my car keys in my hand. It was only when I went back to the locked car to
discover I had thrown my keys in the skip. It took the council men over half an
hour to find them, with me both in tears and completely embarrassed. My husband
went mad when I finally got back home. The next day I took the council men a
large box of chocolates for their trouble. They reassured me that at least one
person does it every day? If I move house again, I won’t be taking a trip to
the tip.
Sarah
I
well remember showing a gentleman around a house when I was an estate agent. He
wanted to see everything and asked to go down to see the cellar. When I opened
the door he went down thinking there were steps but in fact it was a sheer
drop.
Fortunately
he dropped into an old bath filled with foam so he wasn’t hurt too much only
his pride and my job.
Swinithia
When we moved into our new house, the previous owners
were really stingy and had taken literally everything possible – even the
doorbell, and of course being so stingy they didn’t want to pay to redirect the
mail either, but I was surprised when the previous owner came round and
brazenly knocked, seeing as there was no doorbell left for her to ring, just to
ask for all her mail! Quite a cheek but did find it quite funny.
Anna
I had only been working for a couple of weeks as the
new show house representative at a development of ‘executive’ homes when the
general manager decided to drop in on me.
Luckily, I was very proud of
the development and when he asked me to show him around the house I was happy
to extol its virtues.
I gave him the tour, pointing out the double aspects,
fitted wardrobes, large kitchen/dining room etc.,
They had made a great
job of furnishing the show house and had used top of the range furnishings in
every room.
My embarrassment came when I walked into the master bedroom
(with my boss behind me) and innocently announced “I am very fond of
yew”.
(Now say that aloud).
I immediately realised I had
walked into a bedroom, with a total stranger and – to his ears at least – had
told him I was very fond of him.
I almost had a heart attack.
To
make matters worse I started wittering on about how I liked oak and pine and
beech and birch, until I ran out of woods to mention.
That truly was a most uncomfortable time in my life as
a show house rep.
Sharon
I have a few property-related anecdotes which
I would like to share with you.
The first one concerns the time my parents were selling
their property in London, quite a few years ago. They were quite keen to move,
so were delighted when it appeared that they had found a potential buyer. The
gentleman expressed great interest in buying the property and said that he
would be willing to make an offer…on one condition. Before making an offer,
he wanted to check how long it would take for the bath to fill up.
Subsequently, he asked my parents to turn on the taps, as he timed with his
watch, just how long it took for the water to fill the bath. I have no idea how
long it took, or what time he had been expecting but clearly it was not to his
satisfaction, as no offer was made and my parents never heard from him again.
My father had turned up to view a property for sale, in
South West London. The owner seemed genial enough and after welcoming my father
inside, proceeded to show him around. The conversation was in full flow, when
all of a sudden and for no explicable reason, the owner started to howl like a
wolf. Naturally, my father was shocked but didn’t say anything. The howling
went on for a few seconds, after which point, the owner fell back in to
conversation and acted as though nothing had happened. A couple of minutes
later, the howling started up again and then, as before, the owner acted
normally again. Unbelievably, my father stayed for the duration of the viewing
but needless to say, he did not make an offer.
My last anecdote concerns my father again and launches
into Carry on house hunting
territory.
My parents had recently
put their house on the market and were going through a busy time of receiving
lots of viewers. One Saturday afternoon was particularly busy, as several sets
of viewers were booked. My father was a chain smoker and although my parents
did their best to air the house thoroughly and disguise any odours before the
arrival of viewers, a slight smell of smoke would often remain. It so happened
that one of the viewers that afternoon, was a lady who had recently had an
operation on her throat, which had rendered her extremely sensitive to
particular odours. Midway during the viewing, she became increasingly
aggravated by the smell of smoke, which was starting to cause her some
distress. Clearly, her discomfort became intolerable, as, deciding that she
could take no more; she fled from the house and hurried to her car.
Unfortunately, the next viewer had decided to turn up a little earlier than
arranged and was accompanied by her father, who also happened to be a Pastor.
As they approached the gate, they were met by the sight of a lady exiting the
house in a terrible hurry, clutching her throat and gesticulating wildly, with
my father standing at the front door, looking both bemused and ever so slightly
guilty. Needless to say, no offers were made that day.
Alison
I was looking for a house in a quite ‘studenty’ area
and I went for one viewing that I don’t think I’ll ever quite get over.
I knocked on the door and it was opened by a young man
who had (somehow) stuck cheesy Wotsits all over his body.
Worst of all, he acted like there was nothing unusual
about this and I was so embarrassed by the whole thing I let him show me around
anyway. He even offered me a snack! Horrible.
Gemma
I am the
worlds most organized person so even though I was moving house 10 days before Christmas
I wasn’t too worried.
I’m single mum
and my daughter was 3 at the time of the move so we decided to hire a moving van
that offered to move our things for ££99 (it was less than 5 mins drive away).So
on the day of the move I had everything packed ready, my landline was off and
my mum had come to see the guys put everything in the van. Me and my daughter
went to the new house to clean and wait for the van.
My plan was –
have everything in the house for 5ish have takeaway and sit down to watch the
x-factor final!
After an
hour the van
hadn’t turned up. There was no landline so I tried my
mums mobile and she had no signal.
So I thought they must have been on their
way.
Almost an hour
later my mum rang me and said ‘where are they?’ the van hadn’t turned up.
I rang them
and was told that one of the men hadn’t turned on so they were waiting for
someone else and would be there in an n hour.
2 hours later
we were still waiting, still ringing them, they were ignoring my calls and I
was panicking!
Eventually my
brother arrived and saved the day he went to the van hire place and we scraped
the last bit of money we had between us to hire a van and eventually moved
everything ourselves in the pouring rain with my daughter and 4 year old niece
running round.
We eventually
finished the move about 6 o’clock and were freezing cold; all I wanted was a
hot shower. I was thrilled to discover the plumber had made a mistake and
plumbed the bath/shower into the cold water.
At my wits end
I sat down, cold, dirty and shattered to watch the x-factor final only to find
the TV aerial didn’t work.
Not the best
move ever!
Lindsay
When myself and my partner Owain got the keys to our
first home we moved in straight away. All we had was a bottle of champagne, two
plastic flutes, a flat pack Ikea bed that needed to be assembled and a duvet.
That was all we needed for the night.
However, what was supposed to be an exciting and
memorable mile stone in our life was quickly damped by what can only be
described as a mega gross toilet situation.
The excitement and the champagne all sped up ‘nature’s
call’ so I went to test out the loo. All was going well, until I flushed it.
Nothing went down. The water started to rise. Panic kicked in. Luck was on my
side at that point because it stopped just at the edge of the bowl.
Owain’s Mum quickly came to the rescue and brought
round some strong drain unblocker and some rubber gloves. Feeling reassured by
this, I went back to my champagne.
Being the man of the house, Owain put on the gloves and
poured drain unblocker down the pan. Seconds after the liquid met the water,
there was an ominous rumble in the pipes. Panic quickly came back. Suddenly,
all of the previous owner’s sewerage was coming up and out of the toilet. Brown
slush engulfed the entire toilet and was making its way onto the bathroom
floor.
The plastic flute was snatched from my hand and I watch
Owain try and frantically siphon it off into the bath. Waste was sloshing
around everywhere – the floor, the walls, and the window. The smell was so foul
it made my eyes water. I had to get out.
I gingerly stayed down stairs whilst Owain spent two hours
trying to get the waste to go down.
It got to 8:30pm and I decided to
admit defeat. We hadn’t eaten, the champagne was warm and we were in desperate
needed a plumber. A plumber came. After assessing the situation (without
batting an eye lid to the mess or covering his nose to prevent the smell
contaminating his nostrils), he pulled out a household mop from his van and
plunged it down the toilet. It took him less than a minute and the water and
waste retreated. Hurrah!
I then spend the rest of the night bleaching the entire
bathroom from top to bottom. From then on every time I used the bathroom the
mega gross toilet situation would rear its ugly head. I was mentally scarred. I
can just about see the funny side now that we have a brand-new bathroom suite
and a proper toilet that flushes.
Jayne
As a Domestic
Energy Assessor I get to visit properties early in the selling process and so
far I have been accused of being a Government spy! had my right leg dry humped
by a Labrador! Brought Xmas decorations down from the loft ! Had my right leg
dry humped by a Jack Russell !, caught in the middle of a domestic argument
about when the double glazing was done ,seen some dodgy men’s reading material
in the loft !, had my right leg dry humped by a Scotty ! (dog, not person!) had a client replacing light bulbs in front of me with an energy saving one
and trying to convince me he had 100% lighting! Been told a property is
efficient because it was so warm (ermm, no it’s because your room thermostat is
set too high!) And went into a room where a big snake was kept; At least it
couldn’t get to my right leg!
John
We had lived in our first home, an
Edwardian terrace house for 10 years when the man next door moved his new girlfriend
in. She was very keen for him to do lots of DIY but he always did it when she
was at work or visiting her parents. He was very friendly and sorry afterwards
but after a couple of weeks it would start again. Over time we were barely
speaking and finally after 3 years of living on tenterhooks, never knowing if
he would start drilling at two in the morning we put our house on the market.
Moving day dawned and the man from the
Electricity Board came to “read off” the meter. He was chatty and remarked “I’m
going next door too, they’re moving today as well”
We were completely amazed as no “For Sale”
board had been up and all we wanted was to cancel the sale and stay put!
Worse was to come though as our old
neighbours moved into the house next door to our new home – mercifully it was
not joined on to ours and we managed to stay friendly with them for years.
Loma
I had sold my house but not found a new
house to move into so was storing all my furniture in my dad’s garage & in
their spare bedroom. Dad grudgingly allowed me to use the garage as his car is
his baby & is never allowed out in the cold.
There had been a spate of car
thefts in the area so when I heard a noise outside my bedroom window in the
middle of the night I quickly got out of bed to investigate. I was horrified to
see someone crouching down in Dad’s car. I didn’t stop to think twice but
opened my window & climbed out in my nightie. I don’t know who was more
shocked when the person crouching down looked up, it was my Mum. There I was
one leg on the ground, the other leg on the window ledge. I just waved my arms
at them & climbed back in my room.
When they returned in the morning they
told me they had gone to pick up my sister from the airport but hadn’t told me
about it. The funniest thing was that Mum asked me if I’d have climbed out if
they had been real car thieves to which I replied ‘Well I wasn’t climbing out
to wave you goodbye’. I’ve never lived it down.
Liz
A year ago
today, we completed and moved into our house. As I was 9 months pregnant, I had
to stay out of the moving and I stayed at a friend’s house during the day – and
I was driven round to the house at about 7 o clock in the evening. We had a
celebratory drink amongst the multitude of boxes, and then went to bed amongst
the only thing unpacked – our bed.
And of course – at 3am the next morning, I went into
full blown labour. So I had to have all my contractions around all the boxes,
and as my daughter came hard and fast, that was quite a challenge!!!! And when
we decided the only thing I could possibly sit in that might help was the bath,
when my husband tried to run it the tap fell off!!!!! Needless to say, with
such a crazy labour, she ended up coming incredibly quickly and I had to be
ambulanced to hospital, where we had our daughter within an hour. So because we
were in hospital, we had a rally of friends at the house, and so we missed the
bulk of the unpacking!!!
My daughter is 1 tomorrow, and we will always
remember what will always be viewed as the most epic weekend ever!!!
Amy
When a family turned up to view our
house, they arrived in an old car and my husband remarked that they would be
time wasters as they wouldn’t be able to afford to purchase it.
They
viewed the hall, lounge, and entered the newly fitted kitchen, and the lady
turned to her husband and said she wanted it.
My husband who was obscured
from their view pulled a mocking face at me, but the laugh was on us as the
gentleman turned out to be my husband’s new boss who was moving to the area to
take up his position, and awaiting delivery of his new executive company
vehicle.
The company issued a free bridging loan to him and he completed
extremely quickly for our full asking price which enabled us to get a good
discount on the purchase of our selected property. A valuable lesson learned
about pre-judging here I think!
Jo
As a landlady I have had various tenants stay in my
flat, but a few years ago my flat was let out to a large guy , a real man’s man
who was a rugby player as far as I know he was single and enjoyed the bachelor
lifestyle. My property is opposite a pub which I think he found appealing,
Imagine my shock then when we did a property Inspection after he vacated only
to find that he had left behind various items including a collection of Disney
‘Tiggers’ some of whom bounced, others were just cuddly there was about 8
different ones – just shows you that there is some truth in the saying Big
Softie.
Emma
From the outside, the house looked fine. It was a bit
rundown maybe. The garden certainly could do with some work. Grass needed cut
lots of weeds. The agent assured us it was all cosmetic. I could hardly wait to
see inside. The agent was right it did need some work. Every room would have to
be redecorated. The strange thing was, as I walked from room to room the floor
seemed to slope. The agent assured me it was my imagination. I was sure
something was wrong with the floor. He insisted that I was imagining it. I
managed to find a tennis ball in the overgrown garden, when a placed it on the
floor it rolled into the corner. The agent said “well you were right, never
mind I have another place I can show you”…
Eileen
I went to visit a property near Marylebone in central
London once; when the estate agent and I arrived it became clear that we had
interrupted the current tenants while they were doing their deeds (despite
having an appointment). So we had to wait outside while they were getting
dressed etc. It was excruciating embarrassing!
Silvia
I did a mutual exchange to swap a 1-bed flat for a
1-bed flat.
As the other elderly gentleman did not appear to have all
that much in the way of contents to move: A single bed, a couple of
arm-chairs etc. – and what
could be no more than half a dozen boxes
and
a Baby Belling Cooker,
I offered to do his removals
too.
But little did I know at that time I would live to regret
that kind offer…
I had hired a Luton van and was up early to get everything packed and
was
away by 07.00hrs
on a Saturday morning.
When I arrived with my van
load an hour later and knocked on the door of my new home – the gentleman was
casually eating spaghetti hoops on toast for breakfast and I was shocked to see
he had done absolutely nothing by way of packing contents of his drawers or
cupboards and I had to say: “You are moving today!”
On top of
having to help put things in boxes and carrier bags to speed things up – I
noticed the Baby Belling was no longer there and in its place was a huge
Jackson Topline cooker with a rotisserie spit on the top – there was a lift in
his flat – but 3-flights of stairs in the flat I had just left!
Malcolm
We had just
moved into our new home, my wife and daughter were playing in the front room
and I was unpacking upstairs.
My daughter
points out of the window “ohhhhh” when my wife turns around a police
officer is tackling a women to the ground on our front lawn!
It
transpired that the two young women had stolen some meat from the village (who
steals meat?!?) and ran on to the estate to escape the constabulary, they later
claimed they lived at our property!
What must
the neighbours think of us now!
Roy
DIY
My father in law has always been a bit of a Frank
Spencer at DIY, with lots of accidents and disasters.
One day he decided to fix a floorboard that squeaked in
the main upstairs bedroom. He sawed three sides of the floorboard out in order
to replace it and then managed to step back onto the loosened board.
It
gave way beneath him and he fell in a spectacular way through the living room
ceiling to land on the sofa below (hitting the wooden arm on the end – ouch!).
Luckily my mother in law was sitting at the other end of
the sofa and had a strong heart!
My father in law was black and blue with
bruises for weeks.
Considering he was in his 70’s at the time, it is
amazing he survived and he has now been banned from all DIY.
Elizabeth
The funniest thing that happened to us was after we bought a ground floor flat in a dilapidated house, which had 2 flats above us which were rented out. We discovered lots of dry rot in our ceiling/first floor flat living room floor, and various floorboards etc had to be replaced. This meant opening up a big hole in our ceiling, so we and the tenants could look through it and see each other! They ended up having to move out temporarily but we put up with the hole above us and the workmen cheerily calling down to us etc while they worked, until eventually it was done.
Carol
My friends bought a quaint old cottage in a remote
Devon village.
It needed completely modernising and they began by
pulling up the tatty ancient stair carpet. Unfortunately the stairs then
collapsed, having been
held together by the carpet!
Benita
When stripping
walls in friends new house we found several holes which had been badly filled
by a builder or the previous owner.
They had used
as little proper building materials as possible, and instead filled the holes
with boxer shorts, socks and vests.
I always
wondered if they were naked by the time they finished the renovations!
Jean
I remember when we had started decorating our first
flat together. We decided we needed to steam off the wallpaper which when we
started doing we realised that there was six layers of wallpaper to steam
off.
The hall ended up like a sauna with all the steam building up and when we
looked up at the ceiling, there was nicotine dripping off the paintwork.
It looked
like tea but we knew that the previous owner had been a heavy smoker. I ended
up wearing a polythene bag rolled up over my head to stop the drips landing.
Ewwwh totally disgusting!!
Under the carpets, we discovered that the old owner
had used papers as a carpet lining. Some of the newspapers were dated from the
the 1950’s.
In the garden, there had been bin bags of rubbish which
had been dumped sometime before and were now overgrown with grass. To level the
garden, we had to bring in a JCB.
In the kitchen, there was the old pulley
attached to the ceiling and the original deep sink with a scrubbing board. It
was like taking a step back in time. The likes of the deep sinks are sought
after now.
It was hard, hard work but we look back on it now and
realise that it was worth all the hassle. We pass our first place from time to
time and the front door we put on is still there and I have a little chuckle to
myself about the ‘dripping tea’!
Sharon
Animals & Creatures
My wife and I went to a
view a house occupied by a nice, but entirely bonkers old lady. As she was
showing us around we could hear a commotion in the kitchen. ‘Oh, don’t worry,
that’s just Albert’ she said and we thought no more of it.
That is until we arrived
in the kitchen to discover that Albert was in fact a badger who breaks into her
house through her cat flap and gnaws on her kitchen units.
Strange enough, but soon
to get stranger.
In order to get Albert
to leave the house, she removed a fish from her fridge and began to gently slap
the furious beast in the face with it until it scurried out of the kitchen.
For a moment I genuinely
thought that she was going to be mauled to death (which would have been tricky
to explain to the estate agent), but it turns out that Albert is terrified of
fish. Obviously.
Needless to say: We.
Did. Not. Buy. This. House.
Andrew
At Northfields we are very used to finding people new homes but this is the first time we’ve ever had to think about re-housing fish.
For 10 years Jane and Phil have had three goldfish in a half barrel in their back garden. Having made the decision to move to France where they plan on enjoying the food and wine, Phil and Jane have taken the first step toward their new life by selling their home near Ealing Broadway.
With the house under offer, Jane and Phil are now thinking about what things they may leave behind. They told us that although goldfish do not usually form part of the fixtures and fittings included in a house sale, they are hoping the new residents will be happy to adopt their goldfish. The remaining two fish, Ron and Harry (Hermione mysteriously went missing a while ago) “sadly are not fluent in French”, according to Jane, but she reassures us that they are fluent in English and fully house-trained (or should that be barrel-trained?).
Predominantly, the fish are quite self-sufficient, but Jane hopes that the new residents will love the two fish. In any event, our Sales Manager reassured Jane that if the new residents do not want to adopt the outdoor goldfish then he can put his relocation skills to work and to find them a new home with his niece. Maybe fish relocation isn’t what we do on a daily basis, but as far as we are concerned no fish gets left behind on Northfields’ watch.
Colleen
Moving
in to our longed for new flat at last, my husband unlocked the door, we walked
in holding hands examining the kitchen and the hall squealing with delight. We
made our way to the sitting room and I let out a piercing scream, my husband
jumped then realised what I had seen – DOZENS of dead and dying wasps crawling
on the cream carpet near the window. I ran out the house in a panic closely
followed by hubby! He of course had to return after digging the hoover out the
van and dispose of the beasties. We think one had been trapped in the empty
house and laid eggs or something, unable to get out they had just died. Luckily
we had no more problems but it did take the shine off our special moment!
Michelle
We were very excited at buying our first house and
couldn’t wait to get the keys.
We felt lucky that everything had run
smoothly throughout the whole process and couldn’t have been happier on the day
we moved in.
Everything was delivered on time, the previous owners had
left us a lovely card and bottle of wine and, although very tired, we were
looking forward to a good night’s sleep in our new home.
I was a little
too excited to sleep but my partner was soon snoring away until I started
elbowing him in the ribs to wake up because I could hear noises.
I wasn’t
sure where they were coming from but I was certain there was something in the
house.
We got up and searched every room including the loft.
No
sign of anything untoward. My partner assured me
it was
nothing
and he quickly went back to sleep but I couldn’t.
Intermittently, the noise would start again and I was imagining ghosts or bats
or rats!
What if our dream home was haunted or infested?
The following morning the noise had stopped and we
carried on as normal getting the house in order.
At lunchtime there was a
knock at the door and we opened it to find the previous owners on the doorstep
along with their tearful child.
They explained that their beloved pet
hamster Daisy must have escaped from her cage before the move and was hiding
out in our house.
She had apparently done this on numerous occasions
previously and had a favourite place to hide in the small bedroom.
That
would explain my ghost then! After a short search she was found safe and well
and we all sat down and had a good laugh about my sleepless night in the
“haunted” house!
I was just so relieved that our little furry
friend was not anyone visiting us from the “other side” and couldn’t
believe that something so small and cute could cause such a fright!
Josie
I was staying in rented accommodation with my then fiancée
and the bathroom was downstairs.
I came downstairs in the middle of the
night to the loo and didn’t put the light on.
I was frightened half to
death when I tripped over a cat – we didn’t have a cat, but it had come in
through the old cat flap which was supposed to be locked.
I don’t know
who was more scared; me or the cat.
Marie
One evening
just before Christmas we were sitting in our living room -which has a fire
place- and heard a noise coming from the chimney.
No, it wasn’t Santa
but a bird stuck inside!
We looked up and saw the wings of a baby seagull
flapping and trying to get out.
Not sure what to do we phoned the RSPCA
for advice. ‘If you cannot get it out yourself, please wait until we can send
someone out to you’ was their response. It was already 10pm and they told
us someone would be with us the next day.
As there was nothing we could do we shut
the door to the room and went to bed.
At 4am there was a big bang and we woke up
to find the bird had struggled free and fallen down the chimney! As we
carefully opened the door to the living room we found it sitting on your sofa
and staring at us! We phoned the 24 hour RSPC helpline again. They simply told
us to get a large towel and throw it over, trying to capture it and then
release it in the garden. Easy!? Well, not if it has wings!
After 1.5 hours and completely exhausted at
half 5 in the morning we finally managed to capture it, took it outside and
released it.
When we came back to the room we noticed the
lovely present the bird had left behind on the carpet… It took hours of
cleaning to get rid of it!
Stephanie
Renting
When we moved into a new rented house (not the one we
are living in now!), I found a pair of false teeth in a jar under the sink!
Sure someone must have been missing them…
Becky
When we were students, we phoned the landlord because
there was the most disgusting smell coming from the lounge. He had no idea
where the smell was coming from- he thought it was possibly from blocked
drains. However, my parents came to visit one weekend and discovered the source
of the smell- a fish tail that a “friend” had secreted behind the
back of the sofa!
Susan
Desperate for a place in London, I agreed to a
short-term let without viewing the property.
The landlord assured me
there would be plenty of room for my stuff, he was just going to leave the
stuff he had hanging on his walls, and his clocks.
Yep, he left all 87 of his clocks in the place! I never
did count the pictures!
Sarah
I once viewed a house
share – it was tenanted by
an ‘alternative’ lady at the time. She had removed all the cupboard doors from
the kitchen. Turned an upstairs bedroom to a sitting room and had one
of
the bedrooms as a meditation room. It was all about the freedom of the
house she said. That was all fine and dandy but then the following day I got a
call from the estate agent as she had accused me of ‘stealing her purple
marbles’ from the meditation room! Needless to say I found a house elsewhere!
Lorraine
Two years ago I had my university year abroad in Murcia
in Spain. I looked at many flats and ended up settling for one that was on the
main shopping street called gran via. Having spent a week in the flat, I
noticed that the doorbell kept ringing. I mentioned it to my housemate and she
told me that there was nothing to worry about; it was just the gay brothel next
door. My Spanish was not great at this point, so I thought that I had
misunderstood. But she had proof, a website called tropicalchicos. Of course I
went on and the next day I ended up in the lift with the transvestite that was
on the website. I was in absolute shock. After living in the flat for 6 months,
the brothel moved. But those first 6 months were certainly an experience.
Anjuli
I am about to move from Edinburgh to St Ives. So it was time to
go flat hunting in Cornwall. This was
not, I might add, like flat hunting in Edinburgh, which is jam-packed full of
the blasted things.
No, St Ives, it transpires, is a baron wasteland
of habitable rental properties.
There were times when living in a caravan was looking like
an
extremely
appealing option.
Choosing a house sorry, flat, sorry, box to rent is not fun,
not at all.
I do not care if the bathroom suite is avocado, but I do care if
damp covers an entire wall. ‘I’ve never seen it like this before’ insisted the
estate agent. And I will not be seeing it again period.
It is genuinely not considered good etiquette to comment on the
cleanliness in front of the people who live there.
‘I
don’t think this house has ever been cleaned,’ I muttered under my breath at
the sight of a number of dead insects on the kitchen lino.
‘Don’t mind the wife – she’s just in bed with the norovirus – go
on in,’ said an enthusiastic tenant. I breathed in and popped my head
round the door. Then made a mad dash to the exit and bathed in antibacterial
hand-wash.
The final straw was viewing a flat in a converted attic. The
owners couldn’t
find the keys to the door, so I had to go up through
the entrance in their home. As I entered the flat the owner laughed, ‘Don’t
worry, once you live here that door will be always be locked.’
I was about to move into a Bronte novel.
So one thing is certain, when you finally find somewhere that is
mould free, does not have a carpeted bathroom or things growing on the lino,
you will not remember anything about it like how big the lounge is, or
whether you can fit a table in the kitchen.
You will simply be glad that
you will not be living in Mr Rochester’s attic.
Rachel
I recently viewed a flat to rent;
unfortunately on the day my best friend couldn’t come to the viewing so I went
alone. I met the estate agent (who I have to admit was rather ‘dashing’). He
showed me around the property while I blushed and made a lot of bad jokes in
the vague hope that he would find me somewhat amusing….and would ask me out
on a hot date (hmm?!).
The viewing came to an end and on the way
out I asked to use the loo, as I returned I saw him smirk and look at my more
than ample ‘behind’. I thought it was odd but it wasn’t until I got outside
and felt a bit chilly that I noticed my skirt was tucked in my knickers and
he’d had a right eyeful, sadly there was no hot date after that! Oh the
shame!
Amberley
Back in the early 90s I studied in Bradford and spent
quite a bit of time searching for the perfect two bedroom house with my best
friend Jo. One Saturday we thought we’d found the ideal spot near the
University. The door was answered by a very tall Goth dressed in a leather
coat, who proceeded to show us round the (actually rather nice) house. Just
before we left he said “…and of course, the best thing about this house
is that the Yorkshire Ripper used to live here!”
We didn’t move in.
Di
A few years ago I rented a ground-floor flat with a
friend in West London.
It was a lovely area, but we had issues with damp
– particularly on one occasion….
Luckily it was a weekend day; we had been out the night before and were waking
up late.
My flatmate managed to exit her bedroom first, and called out
“Amy, the walls are wet!”
I thought the problem wouldn’t be any
worse than usual, but when I joined her in the hall we could see little rivulets
coming down the wall that appeared to originate from the ceiling, and a
spreading damp patch above.
As we pondered, the flow began to increase,
and slightly anxious, we fetched a bucket to catch the stream and realised that
it must be coming from the flat upstairs.
We staggered up to knock on the
door of our (slightly unusual) upstairs neighbour – who seemed to be always in
and constantly moving furniture around no matter what time of day or night –
but on this occasion, there was no answer.
We returned to our flat to find that the flow was slightly faster than before,
and began to be quite concerned!
I rang our landlady, who had a number
for the man upstairs and tried to call him, but with no joy.
I then found
a plumber in the phone book, who advised that if the leak wasn’t coming from
our flat, there was nothing he could do.
What could we do?
Running
out of ideas, I rang a non-emergency number for the fire brigade, who
heroically agreed to come to our aid.
About 45 minutes later a fire
engine was squeezing down our road, and six burly fire-fighters were in our
flat assessing the leak!
Goodness knows what they thought of my flatmate
and I still hung over and in our pyjamas approaching lunchtime.
They
agreed that the leak came from upstairs, and thankfully said they could see a
window through which they could enter the upstairs flat.
By this time, a number of neighbours were out to witness the commotion of the fire-fighters
climbing a ladder to squeeze through the upstairs window – and a few minutes
later, the leak slowed back to a small trickle.
We profusely thanked the fire-fighters,
who let themselves out of the neighbour’s front door and came down to tell us
what they had found.
What had caused the leak?
Oh, he had left a
tap on.
But not any tap.
Our neighbour had gone out and left his bidet running!
Amy
A few years
ago I viewed a cheap rental property in Cardiff, the person showing us around
apologised for the mess and said that the current occupiers had been asked to
tidy but on previous viewing they hadn’t bothered even doing the dishes. When
we entered it was a mess but it could be cleaned so no big issues, on entering
the bedroom there was clothes and underwear on the floor, but more disturbing
was the couple in the bed, obviously naked and having a cuppa. They were
successful in putting us off the property!
Gemma
When I was looking for a flat to rent with my boyfriend
we went to view one in a 4 story new build. When we got there the Letting
agent was waiting for us, he said he had already been up and opened the flat so
if we wanted to go and have a look round he needed to make a phone call and
would join us shortly.
I thought he said it was the first left on the 2nd
floor, so off we went to have a nosy. When we walked in I was really confused
as I had thought it was being let unfurnished, but the flat was beautifully
done out in very stylish furniture. I was thrilled (especially at the
price) and was just admiring the coffee machine in the kitchen when a very
angry man came bounding in on us. At first I thought he had also come to view
the flat, but as he began shouting at us I slowly realised we were in the wrong
flat.
It turns out the owner of the flat had been down to the bins and (rather
trustingly!) left his front door open. I have never been as mortified in my
entire life as we tried to explain we weren’t about to burgle this blokes prized
possessions – he was really angry!
Luckily at this point a very confused
Letting agent came and found us and verified that we had made a genuine
mistake! Even though we loved the actual flat that was up for let when we
finally saw it, we never took it as I was too embarrassed to share a building
with Mr Angry!
Amy
I only needed to look at the outside
of this house to know that this was not going to be the rental accommodation of
my dreams. The overflowing bins, the mouldering cauliflower which lay on the
floor like some grotesque mockery of a bridal bouquet, the crumpled cigarette
packets and the wires merrily trailing their way out of the front window “ all
help to explain my horror. I turned round to make a run for it and there,
alas, was the landlord. I shall merely say that he was not the kind of person
you would ever get in a car with.
Onwards! The door opened….and I was met by a fug of cigarette smoke. Ugh. I
looked down at the floor. Double ugh. I steeled myself to walk into the
darkened front room, where a girl in a dark tracksuit sat in front of a TV
complaining that it wasn’t working. The landlord said he had to pop back out to
get something. I said hi, she said hi, she asked me where I worked, I asked
here where she worked…she said she didn’t. It was a short conversation. I
glanced at the Miss Havisham style chairs and died a little inside.
Further in! The kitchen was full of overloaded laundry racks that looked like
they’d sat there for centuries. Ditto the towering stacks of washing up. The
blind at the window was in two halves and dangled sadly into the sink.
The bathroom looked as if it was going to start growing stalactites from the
ceiling. The smell was awful…the reek coming from the toilet next door was
worse.
Then the landlord proudly opened the door onto the yard to reveal
– and I am not joking – a carpet of cigarette ends. There was a bin, but
evidently no one had ever thought to use it.
After this, the room itself came as something of an anti-climax. By now I was
expecting some sort of dungeon of despair, but even when it turned out to be by
far the nicest room in the house (admittedly no hard feat to achieve), I was
hardly about to take it. I made my excuses and fled!
Claire
I have always been a tenant,
and whilst viewing a 3 bed terrace property in Kettering, Northants, and the
letting agent was walking me through the awful, damp, stinky house, when he led
me into the major bedroom, and realised the previous tenant had left some
belongings behind, as there was a large wooden crate in the centre of the room.
He looked into it, and became very flustered. When I glanced over, emerging
from the crate was a very pale, latex ‘doll’ with ruby red lips. Slowly
growing, and trumping as she did so!
Carol
My
funny story concerns a tenant I once had at a luxury flat I own. The letting
agent had done their homework and the tenant – a Maserati-driving chief
executive of a large company – passed the credit and reference checks with
flying colours. He stayed there for two years, but it was not until he moved
out that I realised exactly how this well-heeled gentleman had lived. He had
seemingly existed totally on Chinese takeaways. when I opened one of the
kitchen cupboards it was full to bursting with hundreds and hundreds of silver
takeaway trays all neatly stacked up and a set of laminated takeaway menus.
He
had clearly only ever used just one plate, one mug, one knife, one fork and one
spoon, as all the other new equipment I had kitted the flat out with was still
in its wrappings and the cooker and hob had never even been switched on!
To cap
it all, when I came to do a thorough clean before handing over to the next
tenant, I swear there were grains of egg fried rice in every conceivable nook
and cranny – down the sides of sofas, under carpets, in mattresses and behind
radiators; which just goes to prove you can’t judge a book by its cover –
Bizarre behaviour indeed!!!
Margaret
House Hunting & Viewing
During the
seventies property boom we were house hunting for the first time. Properties
regularly sold the day they came to market especially those suited to first
time buyers. We received a call from an estate agent highly recommending an
early viewing on a renovated period property that had just come to market. “Go
tonight;” he suggested, “but you’ll need a torch. No electrics.” On a November
night with a drifting fog this was not a pleasant prospect. With no torch of
our own we borrowed a battery-powered bicycle lamp from a neighbour.
The property
was located in the old heart of a nearby town, the last house at the top of a
steep street that ended with the churchyard. Following instructions for finding
the key we opened the double gate into the pocket handkerchief of a garden and
looked under a stone – a very big stone for the key was easily six inches in
length, ornate and certainly not pocket-friendly. After a struggle we got the
door open. It creaked and scraped the floor slightly as we stepped inside. The
ground floor consisted of a single room with no obvious straight wall anywhere.
Even the walls along each side zigzagged their way somewhat. A fireplace at one
end and a couple of small radiators standing proud of the wall were all there
was to see. In one corner steps lead down to the kitchen, built into what had
been a cellar. The walls had been painted white but the only window was above
our heads. Did I say “painted” white? It seems not. Brushing against the walls
left white marks and damp patches on clothing.
Back in the
living area we made our way towards the narrow wooden staircase that lead up
from the opposite corner. At the top were two openings without doors. Straight
ahead lay a tiny bedroom with barely room for a single bed. At right angles was
a slightly larger room which might just have accommodated a bed and small
wardrobe but nothing else. Placing them would be the difficulty for, as with
downstairs, none of the walls ran straight.
As we stood
there in the light of the lamp, slightly bemused by all we had seen, the church
clock began to strike the hour. The house visibly shook with the shock of it.
Only after we had cautiously descended the stairs, succeeded in making the
ancient lock turn and replaced the key in the garden did we see the funny side.
We did not bother exploring the garden which sloped as steeply as the road but
in the opposite direction. No way could a car be turned in here as the agent
had optimistically suggested. A car would have to be parked in the road in gear
to avoid it running away overnight.
This property
still featured in the property ads for weeks to come. We often wondered how
many others were tempted to make a moonlit visit to this creaking “gem.”
Ann
Well it still makes me laugh now. I was carrying out a viewing on behalf of a vendor for a very executive applicant! He happened to be a top London Lawyer and the property had all the latest gadgets etc. It was the first time I had viewed this property so was still working everything out myself.
We entered the bathroom and the Lawyer wanted to know how good the water pressure was in the walk in shower. So trying to get a deal I entered into the shower un-beknown to me that it was an automatic power shower!!!! I got wet!
Anne-Louise
While out one Sunday, the missus and I saw a lovely old
house with a For Sale sign in the garden. We were looking to buy at the time so
we knocked on the door, in hope of an impromptu viewing?
A man answered all smiles and agreed to us having a look around. ”But please
put these on your feet”, he asked, they were shoes with brushes on the bottom
”Keeps the carpet perky”, he said! I daren’t look at the missus else I’d have
cracked up, so, with our ”shoes” on we proceeded to look around. Living room,
great, utility room, great, dining room, ok, Kitchen! now, along the 1 wall
were photographs!!, I asked why etc. and he told us, whenever they have a meal,
if it’s a meal they feel is just absolutely finger licking scrummy, they
photograph it and display it???? WTF?? There were about 6 or 7 pictures,
chicken dinner, full English, a curry (I think)….I couldn’t get my hat on.
We carried on around the house, bathroom…OK, bedroom 1 great, bedroom 2
great, bedroom 3 was shut, and coming from inside was a weird noise, like white
noise on the telly?, ”Can’t go in there unfortunately” said the man, ”The
wife’s meditating”……….What a strange couple, we couldn’t get our breath,
we thanked him for showing us around and made our way out. It really was one of
the strangest encounters we have ever had!!
Roland
Back in the
80s we went to view a house and told to meet the estate agent at the
property.
No mobile phones back then and so when the agent didn’t turn up
on time we presumed he was merely delayed in traffic. The very elderly
householder greeted us and made a pot of tea. We spoke about the decor and she
spoke about all sorts of things…the cat, the dog, the goldfish, Uncle Tom
cobbly and the price of cheese. When in despair we asked politely could we take
a look around the house reluctantly,
but oh so sweetly she said ‘well I
would but it’s ever so messy, another time maybe’. Miffed we left only to see
our estate agent arrive at the house next door.
Amanda
I once went to view a house, the estate agent told us no-one was
in, showed us around downstairs then said “I’ll leave you to it, go and
have a look upstairs” we looked in the 3 bedrooms then thought the
bathroom next… The door was closed, when I opened it a woman was sat in the
bath, not completely covered! Embarrassed was not the word!
Rhian
My husband
was an estate agent and his funniest story is one time he was showing a couple
around a flat.
Now, he had knocked and it appeared no one was home so he
left himself in with the keys.
All was normal until he went to show the
couple the master bedroom.
Upon opening the doors to the built-in
wardrobes, they were greeted with the site of the property owner – stark naked
inside the cupboard!!
It nearly gave everyone a heart attack.
The
owner dashed out shrieking into another room and re-emerged a few minutes later
fully dressed.
Needless to say, the couple didn’t offer on the flat!!
Megan
We went to view a show house on a new development. The
receptionist showed us to the house and then left us to look round it while she
returned to the reception area. When we had finished looking round the house we
tried to exit via the front door, only to find that we had been locked in! The
back door was locked as well but we managed to climb out of a downstairs
window. When we got back to the reception area the receptionist was amazed to
see us and asked “where have you come from?” She had locked the house and
gone off to lunch, completely forgetting that we were still in the show house.
Although we had been a “captive audience” we decided against buying
the house!
Hazel
When we were looking to buy our first house years ago,
we viewed a property that needed quite a bit of updating.
It had a mirror placed in the meter cupboard to be able
to try and read the meter (had to read it backwards!) and on the property
details it mentioned it had an “en suite” – which turned out to
actually be a toilet in the fitted wardrobe!
Even the estate agent who
showed up round was laughing.
Angela
We’ve been house-hunting for a
little over a year now and heavy users of Rightmove (we have 178 houses saved),
we finally had an offer accepted last week.
Along the way we’ve had some pretty
entertaining experiences, the highlight has to be a viewing of a flat, with
tenants in situ.
Naturally you spend the entire time
going, “yea, this is really nice”, “wow haven’t you guys kept it
well!” If utter British
politeness
isn’t enough to distract
you from the task in hand, at a recent viewing, we met the current tenant at
the front door who kindly offered us free reign of the house.
“Go in any room guys, no
problems” he encouraged.
Upon trotting into the lounge I’m met
with the sight of a shirtless woman, tenderly breastfeeding her child. She
barely batted an eyelid as I stumbled round for the
least innocuous
adjective I could find. All I could muster was
“nice hearth” remarking at the feature fireplace. Raised eyebrows all
round.
Needless to say, I can’t even remember
how many bedrooms it had as I performed the quickest viewing known to man and
got out of there.
Paul
A few years ago my husband and I went to view a
property that we already had decided we were no longer interested in.
We were shown around by the vender who was a lady of
maturing years wearing very tiny shorts.
Every room we went into she insisted on bending over in
front of us to switch on lamps that had been placed on the floor.
Deeply disturbing.
Lynn
The wife and I had visited
quite a few different flats, but here was one particular estate agent who was
obviously on auto pilot when showing us a possible new home…he told us all
the normal spiel about heating wiring etc., then said there was potential for
developing / extending the property with an extension or a conservatory. Or
loft conversion…..
The wife and I looked at each other very confused we were on 3rd floor of a 5
story block…
Mark
We
have recently just bought our first home after renting for years we had finally
saved enough for a deposit. We must have viewed 20 plus houses and I had estate
agents ringing me with viewings and I would scribble them down in the diary,
one day we were off to view a property and I remembered the agent saying it
does not have a for sale sign up but gave me the number.
After driving around
for ages we finally found number 97 so we walked to the door and knocked, the
owner was very quick to open the door and asked if we had come to view and we
said yes and went in at this point I was thinking the pictures look different,
she asked us to follow her through only to take us to a room with puppies in!
It turns out we were meant to be at number 79 and she was expecting some people
to view the puppies for sale.
Needless to say we were both left embarrassed and
did not see the funny side until later on!
Nicola
One when we were looking for a property we
went to a house where 3 men had been sharing up to that point I thought the
dirty grey baths that were used for cleaning product adverts to show how good
they were had an element of the ridiculous about them because no one’s bath
could get that dirty – how wrong I was! Needless to say we didn’t put in an
offer.
Our last property
we bought had a rather odd gentlemen (I use the term loosely) living there – he
smoked like a chimney and never seemed to empty the ash tray, he had a gun
cupboard in one of the rooms and samurai swords on the wall – I overlooked all
this as it was at the time when properties were getting snatched up as soon as
they went on the market (those were the days!) and we were struggling to find a
bungalow – this was priced right and we put in an offer and moved quickly. However
I didn’t realise how odd he was – on the day we moved in we found underpants in
the fridge he’d left – I still have no idea why?!
Rachel
I brought my first house back in 1984. Estate agent
details didn’t have to be so scrupulous back then. My viewings often made me
chuckle. My first ever viewing was a house with rooms full of soft toys. When I
asked where their children were, they sheepishly said they didn’t have any.
Several viewings later a woman spent about 10 minutes explaining why she put
her dustbin in a certain place in her front garden. I was then invited to view
the back garden with an enormous German shepherd dog barking and snarling in
it. Like all good News of the World journalists, I made an excuse and left.
The piece de la resistance however was a house which
described its’ back garden as “not overlooked” To my surprise, when I arrived,
the house was an end of terrace. Intrigued on this apparently miraculous secret
garden, I waited in anticipation until we went to view this secluded
masterpiece. I was greeted by a bulk standard garden with a 4 foot fence
running around it. Plucking up courage I asked about the secluded garden. Full
of confidence, the owner, an elderly man, said “Well, the only place next door
where you can look into my garden is that window up there” pointing to an
upstairs bedroom window next door – “And he never uses that room” Suffice to
say, I didn’t buy the house – but I often wondered what the owner had done for a
living before retirement – estate agent or politician!!!
Chris
My husband and I have moved quite a few times and
always use the Rightmove website as it is so helpful and easy to use!
Our funny story happened about 5 years ago when we were
looking for a new house! We found a gorgeous property and arranged with the
current owners to go and look around. When we arrived we were welcomed inside,
but instead of being shown around the property we were shown the lady of the
houses’ doll collection (which was vast and covered every wall and surface of
the downstairs). We had to be introduced to several of the dolls by name and
talk about many of them individually. How she had come by them?? How old they
were etc.
When we finally plucked up the courage to ask about the
house and her moving arrangements she said that she didn’t really want to move
anymore as she didn’t think the dolls would enjoy the move!!!! Bless!! Made us
laugh all the way home though!!
Laura
Once
when looking to buy a new house, we were shown around the property by its
elderly lady owner. She seemed very pleased with her sales technique of
pointing everything out as a ‘ feature’. This included the vast and extremely
heavy wardrobe, the hall mirror with lethally looking wired light bulbs around
it and the corrugated & plastic homemade porch amongst many others. We
decided the property wasn’t for us when she went on to point out that the
ordinary bog standard light switches were one of the properties best features!
James
When my elderly aunt wanted to move into a small
one-bedroom flat, my wife and I suggested showing her around a few suitable
places and helping her with the whole process. We viewed a couple of nice
places but the third place showed us something we hadn’t quite been expecting!
The estate agent said that the current tenants were away on holiday so he let
us all in and started to show us all around the lounge and kitchen.
However,
from an en-suite bathroom through the bedroom it sounded like water was running
so expecting a leak or burst pipe we all went into the bedroom and opened
the bathroom door.
To our (and their!) surprise a young couple were sharing a
shower and everyone jumped in shock!
Later, after much laughter and some
embarrassment it transpired the dates had been mixed up and the couple had come
back that morning.
My aunt said with a smile it was the best viewing
she’s had that day!
Adam
Home Selling
The day that we moved into our current house, the people who
bought our old house decided to invite their whole family round to have a
welcome to their new house gathering.
Meanwhile my husband, I and brother in law were trying to get
all of our possessions into the removal van. So we had to work around them,
whilst they were eating fish & chips and eating cake etc… Total
nightmare.
Paula
A few years ago my parents were selling their property and had a viewing arranged for the same weekend that they had their 2 grandchildren stay over (aged 7 and 4)
The would be purchaser was a, shall we say, portly solicitor who seemed very impressed with the property. All up until the moment when the 4 year old came bursting into the room shouting at the top of her voice “lawyer, lawyer big fat lawyer!”
The said solicitor made a quick exit and when questioned we realised that the 4 year old was being told stories by her older brother and was actually saying “liar, liar big fat liar !! to her brother”
Needless to say the solicitor didn’t put an offer in!
Simon
When our flat was on the market, we had a
viewing booked in, I had done the usual tidy and twenty minutes before
they arrived I did the last check around.
I spotted a bag of rubbish I
needed to hide so I went out of the front door to put
it in the
outside cupboard.
As the door closed behind me I heard a suspicious
noise, my heart started thumping at what I thought I had heard!! I tried the
door and it was indeed locked, my 1 year old son had turned the low lock and
locked me out…… and to make matters worse my phone was inside.
I was
desperately trying to get him to turn the lock back but of course to no avail
as he was a 1 year old!
My neighbour having heard me acting
like a crazy lady in the stairwell came out to ask me what was wrong, I
hurriedly told her whilst still trying to get my sons attention and at least
keep him by the door so he didn’t get into any more trouble!
My neighbour had the idea to ring the
estate agent to see if they were on the way as they had a set of keys – the
office said that someone was already on their way, so when they
arrived they hadn’t
had the message, they entered the main door and
were faced with me
completely stressed and begging them to let me in my
own flat, not a good impression from the off! They let me in and I swept up my
precious monster ignoring all the chaos he’d caused while I was locked out,
while the estate agent and viewer
tiptoed over the mess and tried to avoid
eye contact with me!
Needless to
say we didn’t make a sale!!!
Claire
When selling my two bed ground floor flat
in Heaton, Newcastle, I was in the process of writing up my PhD thesis, so we
arranged with the estate agents that they could market the property for three
weeks before having a series of viewings over a couple of days.
This
allowed me to get on with my thesis in the meantime, and meant the flat didn’t
have to be in a perpetually tidy state.
PhD = untidy house and
mind!
When the time came for the viewings, my wonderful mother came to
visit for a few days, and helped me blitz the flat, making it fit for viewings.
We had about twenty viewings lined up,
a lovely clean and tidy flat,
and I’d already received an
offer on the flat…and then we realised we
had to deal with
my anti-social and agoraphobic cat, Grace.
We had
no idea how she would deal with all of these strangers, traipsing through her territory.
In the viewers came, and as I’d be welcoming a couple
through the
front door to the flat, my mum would be showing someone else around
the
garden.
To our complete surprise (and
relief),
Grace sat
on the edge of my bed all day,
fluttering her
eyelashes and purring at anyone and everyone who paid
her any attention
and fuss.
It was only when the last of the potential buyers had
left, mum and I were able to breathe a sigh of relief that Grace also reverted
to form: she jumped from her vantage point, left a very large and stinky
deposit in her litter tray, and then threw up on the hall
floor.
Thankfully by that point, we had all done enough to make sure we had three
firm offers on the flat!
Lisa
My boyfriend had his house up for sale and had several
people interested in viewing
the property. In order
to
accommodate everyone at a time that suited I agreed to show one young
man around on an evening when my boyfriend was at work.
He arrived with his mum and was really keen on the
house. After about half an hour they were leaving and said they would be in
touch soon. Just as his mum stepped out of the door I heard a shout and looked
out to see her prostrate in the front garden. I know that I shouldn’t have but
I couldn’t help bursting out laughing. We eventually got her gathered up and
luckily she wasn’t hurt but she definitely didn’t see the funny side of it and
not surprisingly they never made an offer.
Ellen
I was selling my house a couple of years ago, and just before we
had a very promising viewing my 2 year old daughter had come down with a nasty
tummy bug and had thrown up everywhere! I had to mad rush to clean it up with
minutes to spare before the viewing started, and spray everywhere to get rid of
the smell. We quickly went to sit in the car, sick bucket included! It turned
out to be a waste of time as they weren’t interested. I felt so guilty not
cancelling when my daughter was poorly. The things we do to sell our houses
during the recession! It didn’t sell in the end due to being unmortgageable,
sad times.
Emma
When we were selling a property, we had 6 viewings booked for
one day; we noticed that 3 of the 6 viewings all had the same surname of Brown,
which we thought was coincidental. The 1st Mr Brown arrived on time, we showed
him around and off he went.
30 minutes letter the 2nd Mr Brown arrived, apologised for being
late (he wasn’t) and rushed in, now this in fact was the same Mr Brown who had
been shown around just 30 mins before, but he walked around as though seeing it
and us for the first time, very odd, anyway the 2nd Mr Brown (who was the same
person as the 1st Mr Brown) left and said he was interested but has another
property to view.
One hour later and the 3rd Mr Brown arrived, I couldn’t believe
it when I opened the door to see the same Mr Brown on the doorstep again, this
time apologising for being early (he wasn’t) and apparently not recognising us
or our property that he had already viewed twice before on the same afternoon!Â
We duly showed him around for the 3rd time and left.
He never even put an offer in, but until we sold we lived in
fear of another booking from a Mr Brown!!
Tony
When trying to sell my house I had a couple round who
they asked to use the bathroom for a number 2 as this was very important to
them, if they felt relaxed in the bathroom doing this then it would feel like
home, needless to say they didn’t buy my house!!!!!!
Helen
When I moved into my house, we decided to remodel the
back garden. While digging down to build a pond, we found some strange things
buried a couple of feet down – a lawnmower, and some venetian blinds. Why would
someone go to the trouble of burying those things?
Diane
Home Buying
One of the funniest property moments I’ve had happened
about 4 years ago. I was viewing a property with a view to buying, refurbishing
and letting out. The estate agent warned me before we went in that it was in a
really bad state and that the last person to view had left hurriedly, gagging
all the way! Sure enough it was bad inside. I couldn’t see the kitchen at all
as it was stuffed full of bin bags, the living room was also piled high with
bin bags. It was obvious by the smell and the flies that many of them contained
food waste.
Undeterred, and luckily in possession of a cast iron stomach,
I negotiated the rubbish strewn stairs. As to the state of the bathroom, some
things are best left unsaid. On entering the back bedroom I discovered yet
another pile of stinking bin bags and a mattress on the floor covered in a pile
of dirty duvets. To my great surprise the pile moved and rose up to reveal the
dishevelled owner of the property. The estate agent was mortified, but I found
it rather amusing. I bought the property. It took 5 builders skips to remove
all the rubbish!
Julie
Came home one day after a hard slog at work to see a sold sign in our front garden..would have been a wonderful sight if we were selling the house..however we had only just recently brought and moved inthe sign was for two doors down¦
Jamie
We had just bought a lovely mid-Victorian era house in windsor
(It is close to the town centre and good transport)
We were moving are stuff in when some youths offered to help me and my wife they worked for 5 or 10 mins and then tried to run of with my wife’s necklaces and a police car came past and caught them straight away
That taught them a lesson
Eric
