The joys of "pre-owned" homes

I was clearing out some brush next to my detached garage recently to open up some more stacking room for my firewood, and noticed a palm sized piece of glass in the dirt. I bent over the pick it up, and noticed there was a lot more. I ended up getting a shovel and dug up four 5-gallon buckets worth of broken window glass that previous owners must have dumped in the side yard, and then let the entire area grow up into weeds and honeysuckle after they made it unsafe to use. I’ve found several other questionable things that the previous owners had done in the 3 years I’ve lived here, but dumping glass in the yard is by far the worst.


So what “surprises” have you guys found after buying a pre-owned home?

 

We bought our current home as a short sale so I wouldn't say we were surprised but they let the dogs and cats use the floor as a giant litter box for years which necessitated ripping up certain sections of the floor and replacing the subfloor, they took all the light fixtures and fixture globes, stole the remotes to all the ceiling fans, took all the light bulbs, left broken down furniture and cats in the basement, left the garage piled 5 foot high with garbage, had to flood the basement and scrape the cat and dog poop off the floor and sanitize all the concrete, slung paint all over the bedroom walls and bathroom with smeared handprints all over the walls and they left all their nasty pet cock roaches running everywhere.

 

My house was a foreclosure, but surprisingly they didn't do much that was destructive. There were 3 rooms that had wallpaper, and in each of those rooms they tore off one strip of wallpaper. They also took all of the crown molding out, and most of the floor trim. But they left all of the CFL bulbs and didn't damage anything else.

 

We have hauled several tons of trash out of the woods, and dug out of the yard. They bulldozed a lot of stuff under, still finding lots of carpet, of all things.

That was after they cleaned it up, which I will admit they did haul a lot of stuff away!

Greg

 

The mostest OMG moment was...We bought my wife's Grandparents place from the estate. As we have been fixing up we recalled Grandma saying she had someone fix an outlet that quit working. In the basement I found a joist with old wires run thru and about 6 feet of charred joist. Only thing that saved the house was a damp basement.

 

Most everything at this house was fine. The biggest problem I found was shoddy wiring work, like tapping into existing wires and wrapping it up with tape. One thing I still need to take care of is the electric to the attached garage. It consists of a piece of romex that's buried about 4 inches down and goes from the house to the garage, but at least it's grounded and goes under the patio.

The older houses in this area often have a spot on the property where there was once a big pit where the home or farm owners would dump all of their garbage or some would just dump it over the side of a hill. Sometimes, heavy spring rains will expose some of the garbage and cans and bottles can be seen poking through the surface of the ground. Another thing people around here used to do and some still do, is dump their old shingles somewhere on the property. But glass?...that's just low brow.

 

I found that pit at my place out in the woods where the owners were dumping trash too. But it's not because it's an older home, it's probably because they bought the house in 2004 and had lost it by 2008 and must have stopped paying for trash removal for several months along with not paying their mortgage. Luckily their trash pit is full of plastic so it's safe and easy for me to clean up. It's all good though, besides that glass I can deal with the rest of the crap. That's the price you pay when you get a deal on a foreclosed home I guess.

 

You too? We have a broken glass collection from our back yard. What would make someone think throwing broken glass into a yard is a good idea??

Farging iceholes!

 

I had to replace the drain line between the house and septic tank in 2003. As I was digging the old pipe out, I uncovered lots of scrap tile pieces that were apparently thrown out the bathroom window when the house was built. When I dug the trench to run power out to my barn, I found the dumping ground for the brick scraps.

Took well over 40 years from burial until that stuff saw the light of day.

 

The 2 X 10 floor joists , being 6' longer than the outside wall, extended through and beyond the east wall and they nailed 2 X 4's to those. And added railings - that was their deck. With someone walking on the deck, you could feel the living room floor flex up and down. So there were non-treated 2 X 10's as deck joists out in the weather for a couple of decades. No vertical supports at the outside edge of this "deck". We removed it right away. I've never heard of building a deck like that.

 

You are not alone. You'd cringe at what I'm replacing.
( the dawg hit a soft spot, punched a hind leg through the plywood cover on the existing crap deck. dawg doesn't go there, anymore. ).....not even for bacon.
She learned...

 

I have plenty of things to select from. My favorite was they hung cabinets using the plumbing for the upstairs shower drain. You can imagine what happens when you put screws into pvc that has water run through it....

 

Say what?!?!

 

We purchased our house on a short sale as well. Last year I cleared an area in the woods next to the house for 4 30' stacks. As I was clearing I realized that the ground was oil soaked. That's when I started uncovering about 10 used oil filters and even dug up a motor oil draining bucket. Some people just don't give a sh#%. Other than that no other surprises so far ( knock on wood )

 

I am "told" that weed is good to manage pain without all the nasty side effects. I found a suspicious plant growing in my garden once. It was outside under my son's window. That plant grew faster than most other weeds. When I found it, I tour it out and tossed it into the fire pit. My son told me it was the wrong sex and of no use. What do I know. I only know I didn't want any trouble.