Previous homeowners...

[BoxsterSteve]

Maybe my wife and I are too OCD.
We sold an 11 year old house that showed as new.
We bought an 8 year old house that we knew had some bruises, but wow!

Half of it hadn’t ever been painted except by the builder, so it was marked and scuffed seriously.
Exterior windows and window tracks look like they’d never been cleaned.
Their son’s bedroom... I stopped counting after I filled 52 holes from wall anchors and nails
The furnace and HRV looked as if they went filterless for years.
Very poorly done DIY drywall muddling and taping in the extra basement room.

I can go on, but his takes the cake.



I had to remove 7 chain links from the dining room chandelier because the chain was so slack that the entire weight of the light was hanging on the wires.

Ugh!

Do I need new meds or just a stronger dose?

[varmint]

Bought the dream house on the lake last year. No regrets. But wow.


Every one we meet who lived here in the 90s says this was the teenage party house. First owner worked out of town and his high school daughter went nuts. Explains a lot.

[HardDrive]

I bought a distressed house in 2010. I pulled down some paneling that made up the ceiling of a living area the PO had built out in the garage. There was a live piece of lamp cord resting directly on the paneling that was powering the entire space! The guy had layer old news papers on the floor (insulation?), and covered it up with plywood. That was his 'flooring' installation.

[HardDrive]

Originally Posted by varmint

Bought the dream house on the lake last year. No regrets. But wow.


Every one we meet who lived here in the 90s says this was the teenage party house. First owner worked out of town and his high school daughter went nuts. Explains a lot.

I think I got lucky with her once.

[Eric 951]

Originally Posted by BoxsterSteve

Maybe my wife and I are too OCD.
We sold an 11 year old house that showed as new.
We bought an 8 year old house that we knew had some bruises, but wow!

Half of it hadn’t ever been painted except by the builder, so it was marked and scuffed seriously.
Exterior windows and window tracks look like they’d never been cleaned.
Their son’s bedroom... I stopped counting after I filled 52 holes from wall anchors and nails
The furnace and HRV looked as if they went filterless for years.
Very poorly done DIY drywall muddling and taping in the extra basement room.

I can go on, but his takes the cake.



I had to remove 7 chain links from the dining room chandelier because the chain was so slack that the entire weight of the light was hanging on the wires.

Ugh!

Do I need new meds or just a stronger dose?

They hung a chandelier on the wall!

[hcoles]

Just think of all the money you saved because of all the money they saved with DIY.

[dad911]

Too late, but the trick to chandelier links...... Don't open the links by making the gap larger, then trying to squeeze closed. 'Twist' them open, then twist back leaves a tighter gap with less distortion.

[JavaBrewer]

We have been in our current home for almost 5 years. It was built in '71 and the previous owner hired some pretty lousy 'contractors' in the 8 years they owned it.

The attic was filled with open electrical splices and some circuits badly overloaded. Hired a licensed crew to clean it up and install a new electrical panel. They found multiple junction boxes that were covered with sheetrock and various outlets and switches that had wires that went nowhere. All this in a 2200 sq/ft single level home. All the bathroom vents just exhausted into the attic space. All of their kitchen and bathroom remodel work was ripped out and tossed minus some decent appliances. A work in progress for sure.

[BoxsterSteve]

Originally Posted by dad911

Too late, but the trick to chandelier links...... Don't open the links by making the gap larger, then trying to squeeze closed. 'Twist' them open, then twist back leaves a tighter gap with less distortion.

Did it exactly like that. Works great!

[drkshdw]

Been working on a rehab of a 1900's house and the PO's turned a bedroom into a bathroom. In the process they cut the studs of the closet and a pantry 6' above the floor, drywalled across the top to seal it off, took the original antique baseboards and cut them into 16" sections to seal off the pantry window on the outside and then put an electrical outlet in the window inside which was then sealed off behind a layer of linoleum flooring they glued to the walls to form a shower.

I've ignored the fact they removed all the plaster from the house but left the lath and drywalled over all it throughout the entire house. Oh, and their brilliant idea of using extension cords to wire in electrical outlets where ever they needed one. I'm glad I got the house for a song otherwise I wouldn't have taken it.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Those are such minor issues as to be almost laughable. You got off really, really easy.

[Alan A]

My first thought was that’s it?
But we bought a repo. That sat empty while it went through the courts. For 2 years.
And flooded when pipes burst after the heat went off.

It needed a lot of work.

[RKDinOKC]

When my brother sold his old house and bought a newer one. First he had to jump thru hoops and fix up the old house so it would sell well and pass inspection. Because of the he and his wife decided before they moved into the newer home they would fix everything 100% and to their liking instead of fixing up the house for the next owners.

[LWJ]

Then there was the genius that cut 6" out of 2x8 flooring joists to run a pipe. First house.

Second house was worse. Lots.

Third house worse yet.

But I made a mint on all of them. Buying nasty fixers is a great way to build equity.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by LWJ

Then there was the genius that cut 6" out of 2x8 flooring joists to run a pipe. First house.

They did that in my last house - new construction and they cut two consecutive 2x10s floor joists down to 3". It apparently passed inspection.
I learned today that in our county it is legal to bury an electrical wire spllce in a wall as long as it is in a box. The inspectors would not allow that in the remodel I did 5 years ago.
Currently working a the third or maybe fourth remodel of a bathroom that had once been a kitchen - abandon wires and plumbing everywhere.

[look 171]

Its a used house. No, stay off the meds. SAve them for the kitchen or bath remodel. I have stories to tell about opening up ceilings, walls, floors and discover all kind of nasty stuff home owners never want to see or hear.

Enjoy that house, its only little holes on the drywall, even with that wall mounted chandelier

[legion]

One of the reasons that I bought my current house is that the previous (also original) homeowners seemed to contract everything out and pay top dollar for the best long-term fix.

I have duel sump-pumps with a battery backup. There is a solar fan in the attic to keep the heat down. Over the bedroom, where insulation would tend to settle because of the sloped ceiling, they had foam insulation put in. All of my shower valves are the kind with an internal shutoff so that you can change the seals without shutting off water to the whole house. The HVAC system is an absolute top of the line model.

Most of the problems I've dealt with are due to the original builder cutting corners...