Did you clean your old house before you moved out?

Ha ha! That's so funny! You'd think someone would have the guts to admit " I left my house like a sewer...." ! The thing is those who live like scum in abject filth think it's perfectly normal, well it is -for them! I've been in plenty where you wipe your feet on the way out.....and they're as happy as a pig in muck! Offering a brew in a jam jar......and tea/coffee(guess?) Is always a milky grey colour....bless em

I thought everyone cleaned their house as they moved out! If you don't have time yourself, there are companies that will happily do the job for you!
The sellers obviously had the idea that you would be instantly replacing everything that was in the house as soon as you moved in or was it sold as "needing improvement" in the estate agent blurb ?
Whatever, it's really rude to leave things in such a state so that your first days are spent cleaning everything!
Makes you wonder what other things you will find!
Could be worse - my cousin moved into a house that when she viewed it was absolutely beautiful.
When they arrived , fairly late in the day after a long journey, including the removals van having a flat tyre, she realised that although it might have been left fairly clean , all the door handles from the kitchen cupboards had been removed, the shower head had also disappeared, several curtains (that had agreed would be left) were not there and most of the lights bulbs had gone! They spent their first night by torchlight (the previous owner had very kindly left one in one of the handless cupboards) and unable to pack away kitchen equipment because they couldn't open the rest of the cupboards!

I am 'hoping' to move by the end of September to avoid the Stamp Duty, but it's not looking likely now as it is exactly 2 weeks today!!

I have had to sign something to say that my house will be left clean and tidy when I leave, but as I unable to do it myself, I will need to find someone to actually do it! I do know the house I am moving into will be spotless as apparently she is there daily doing things to the house and garden, and I would be mortified if I left mine in a state for the new owners, although they have said not to worry, but I do!!

I got in one of those teams that do end of tenancy cleans and they came in with steamers and everything. The new owners sent me a card to express their appreciation.

Yes Katyj, also ex military and I got a thank you card from the couple who moved into my old house. There is no way I would leave a mess for someone else, the last thing you want to do on moving day is start cleaning before you can put your stuff in.

my brother recently moved out and 3 people independantly made sure everything was out and the place was left clean and tidy.
However it was not good enough for the new owner who is taking him to court claiming over £300 for a skip to remove 'rubbish' such things as a fitted bedroom to even include a bar of soap and a spray bottle of window cleaner.

So make sure you take photos of how you left you old house as people can be very mean!

I personally would never leave my house uncleaned.

I left that to H as myself and our pets were already living in our new property which was three hundred mile away.

I am in the leave it spotless group as we always do if we rent a holiday cottage. However, I cannot imagine anyone responding and saying that they would leave a house dirty.

My fil and his new wife lived in my first house for 3 months prior to our getting back from honeymoon. They had moved out just before we got home and left the place filthy. I remember sitting on the loo crying at the state of the new bathroom. And she’d used the new kitchen work surface as a chopping board. Never liked either of them but there again they soon went off each other. When I divorced I was happy to have nothing more to do with them.

Always tried to leave a property as clean as I would like to find a new property. Last time I move my neighbour was told new owners felt they could eat their dinner off the floors.

When we moved into our current house, we were leaving a new-build flat where we were only three years.
Of course it was always very clean and we left it in the same condition.
Our previous owner in this property was an elderly lady who had passed away and the house had been empty for about a year. We heard from our neighbour that she was a hundred and one years old with hearing and visual problems so we did not mind that the house needed plenty of TLC.
We have now refurbished and got it to a reasonable standard.

Always left houses sparkling and received thanks from new owners.
Other than when moving into a new house we have never been lucky enough to get anything similar! Old broken furniture, carpets - once their furniture was gone - filthy. Heartbreaking to have to scrub and clean before even unpacking the kettle to make a drink!
It reminded me of when I offered to help my neighbour - local Dr's wife - when they were moving. I was asked to let the removal firm in and hand over the keys as they were off for a few days holiday. They had left trash cans overflowing, the remains of breakfast on the table, and when the furniture was moved, you could see nothing had been moved in years and no cleaning had been done! The new buyers called their Solicitors in - who thinking I was the seller - promptly took me to task over the mess !!

eazybee Thu 16-Sep-21 09:19:51

Every wife I’ve ever known has left her (military quarters)house “absolutely spotless” to march-in to a house “absolutely filthy
I agree. No experience of military living, and I have only moved into new houses. but so many women like to complain in martyred tones that their new home, even holiday let, is filthy and they have had to clean it from top to bottom.

Mine was one of these 'absolutely filthy' ones.
It had been snowing heavily in Germany before the march-out
All the carpets had been cleaned but with so many people moving about to check on me, I had laid down newspaper where anyone might tread to inspect my cleanliness ( Sin # 1)
The sofa supplied had been atrocious.... hard and covered in tacky orange nylon so I had requested that the formerly-used, overstuffed, squidgy Sanderson fabric sofa be left in its place. This was comfortable..... we could even use it.
I did not realise until too late and I had moved it out of the room to clean the floor that it had sprung a leak underneath. It was not too big a thing but too late to do anything with. My husband was charged £200 for the assault on the delicate senses of our replacement when she had a tiny trail of stuffing to clear up. Interestingly she would rather be uncomfortable so the nylon effort came back
Cyprus.... Everyone quaked at the thought of march-out. The officer carrying out the inspection was so ill-tempered and assessed everything ....usually
I had , however, signed up to take Greek classes and he taught the small group
March- out came.... he leant against the door -frame and peered into the depths of the house. 'I can't see anything wrong here at all'( There wasn't either') and it was passed immediately as fit.
HK..... plates sealed together with curry and henna hand marks on towels. The inspectors found nothing so I demurred ' Madame, the occupant was a Colonel.... you can't stop him taking his flight'
One of the doctors dis-assembled the gas stove , could not re-assemble it again so left all the spotlessly clean pieces in a polythene bag

Meanwhile in the UK....0ur own tenanted house had been painted chocolate brown.... one of the windows nailed open with a 6' nail, the 2 y.o twins had been allowed to run riot with a pair of scissors on bathroom tiling and woodwork, ink spilled on pale carpets......
Their replacement ran orgies I think. In fact saw our house in a travel programme on Forces tv. We found cupboards containing leather skirts and whips... others full of bottles... a wavy brown line just below ceiling level which the ''agent'' aassured me was from cannabis fumes..... traces of large dog activity and decent crockery and cutlery used for digging the garden
We moved 31 times in 34 years but we never received satisfactory recompense for all the damage caused in our own home. It was always a nightmare

Our sellers even took the loo seat!! I can't recall that it was anything special, just a standard wooden one. But when we got here there was a pink plastic seat and the wrapping and leaflet with fitting instructions was on the floor! It meant it only needed a quick wipe over (And given that there was a carpet in the loo which we removed pretty quickly due to the smell I am glad they did take the old seat with them.)

We moved to our present home in May this year and like most people who have written here, left our old house spotless. I even employed the cleaners the removal company offered to vacuum and wash the floors as the removal men moved from each room-every other surface, skirting board, window and cupboard were already done. Sadly the house we’ve moved into was filthy. The lounge stunk of wet dog, every corner in the house had black cobwebs hanging, every radiator was clogged with animal hair and dirt, every cupboards was dirty. We had to have everywhere professionally cleaned before we could put anything away.
I could say so much more but when you’ve made the humongous decision to move, the thrill of being somewhere new is totally killed when you walk in to your new home and find yourself in a “dirty” nightmare! How some people can actually have the nerve to leave a house like it is beyond me.

I've moved lots of times and always left houses clean. DH jokes that the last view of me moving out of a house is on all fours, bottom first out of the front door, cleaning cloth in hand. I plan to get a professional cleaner in for the next (final?) move.

Yes I did, and would never leave dirt for someone else. We bought a filthy place (luckily we were able to live elsewhere for a month) which took months of renovating and I can only imagine they never cleaned! The garden on the other hand was lovely.

Yes, I did as it was sparkling when I moved in! It was forty years ago but I can still remember walking in to the smell of polish and the dazzle of shining windows. And I left it in the same condition. The house I moved to was...well...not clean at all. I had a six week old baby and I had to sit on a packing crate to feed him while my mother found somewhere not too grimy to feed my two year old. (And I'm not Tabitha Twitchett -our family's name for obsessively houseproud people - by any means, but I don't think the house had been cleaned from the day it was sold to us to the day we moved in three months later.

Yes cleaned everything to the point of my adult daughter saying I was going over the top, also left wine and card
The house I moved into was ok but not as clean as the one I left

I’d have been too embarrassed not to! I had things fixed, the chimney swept, replaced a bird bath that I was taking with me, because I knew the birds relied on it for water. It had been in the same place for more than 50 years, apparently! I was really sad when I learnt that it had been swept away by an extension, but it was none of my business more. I must have spent over £300 and 20 hours cleaning and sorting things out during the last week…

If you’ve spent most of your married life in service accommodation it is ingrained in you! Though I put my all into cleaning our last quarter for March out as usual only be told, as the inspection team were admiring their reflections in the floor tiles? that it was not going to be occupied as the MOD were selling the land they were on!
The couple who bought our last house were about to give birth in very short order and I felt it incumbent on me to leave her absolutely nothing to do, so yes, it was spotless but would have been anyway. I wish I could have said the same for this house when we moved in.

When my DD moved out of her flat I scrubbed it from top to bottom even though it was going to be demolished, I couldn't help myself it's just the way i am.

When we moved to our last house, we had fleas in the top bedrooms, a flood in the cellar, the kitchen was a no go area and the whole place was disgusting. I had a 2 year old so we concentrated on getting her bedroom done first and the bathroom.
I could never leave a house in a filthy mess. It is unacceptable

I scrupulously clean before moving! One house I moved into was horrific! I’d only been able to view the house in evening, family eating meal, so a fairly quick look, when moving in discovered carpet in dining room sodden with dog urine! Bath disgusting, whole place filthy, spent two days cleaning before unpacking!! Only time it’s happened in several moves!

We left a bottle of wine for the new owners of our old home and a welcome to your new home card. They sent us a lovely letter saying how useful it was we’d labelled all the keys and told them where the stopcocks were etc.
The place we moved to was a big mistake. We must have been mad to buy it. It was the filthiest house you have ever seen. Makes me squirm just thinking about it. We have since moved again I am pleased to say.