What would you like to say to the previous owner of your house? - Page 5

[surrogate]

My Turn!!!

Dear Landlord

First off, thank you for totally renovating this home with all new everything before I moved in. However, you are a farmer, not an electrician...this isn't going to end well

New carpet is fantastic. However installing said carpet when you obviously did not know how leads to carpet that was not "pulled tight" and now has odd lumps.

Thank you for adding extra outlets! However none of the said outlets work ? Nor do half the light switches in the house. The lights flicker and things plugged into outlets turn on and off on their own...scary

Thank you for the new paint! However, patching holes and not sanding and priming means that I can see every.single.patch on the walls and cealing. And no, popcorning the cealings did not cover that. Scratch that, there is no popcorn, it is just "textured".

Thank you for the new tub surrounds and toilets! However the odd window in the guest bath that extendes floor to cealing IN the bathtub...what were you thinking! And no caulking the hole between where the surround ends and the window begins....well that just doesnt replace putting wood there. Also, when you install a toilet, a gasket under it is not optional *sigh*

Thank you for the new central a/c! However cheaping out and buying a smaller unit than the house needs does NOT help my energy usage. The a/c guy said you were just cheap...i now see this.

Thank you for the new kitchen appliances! However cheap kitchen appliances that do not fit the holes do not look good. My refridgerator is 10 INCHES deeper than the counter. Also why are there no outlets in the kitchen? Ever thought I might want to use a toaster?

The house was vacant for a year, did you not think to bring in an exterminator before you chose to rent it? I am now dealing with extra inhabitants that are not happy with me living in their home.

I could go on and on...those are the basics. I can't complain too much, cause I got a great price on my rent...but it still stinks

[aratiaw]

Originally Posted by StephandOwen

I have to ask... your baby seriously poops so hard it gets on the walls?? I have a 6 year old. I was a nanny for years. I worked in a daycare (mostly infant room) for years. I've seen many many many explosive baby poops. Not one has gotten on walls. Cribs, swings, changing tables, floors, me, etc all have fallen victim to the explosive baby poop. But never a wall. I am intrigued. LOL!

Ooooh yes! If the baby is exclusively breastfed! I was changing DD2 once and copped it in the shoulder, then part of it flew past me and I heard it hit the basket behind me, at least 4 feet from the source. DH had a similar thing happen with DD1. We both instinctively duck if a baby breaks wind during a nappy change.

[redvlagrl]

Originally Posted by StephandOwen

I have to ask... your baby seriously poops so hard it gets on the walls?? I have a 6 year old. I was a nanny for years. I worked in a daycare (mostly infant room) for years. I've seen many many many explosive baby poops. Not one has gotten on walls. Cribs, swings, changing tables, floors, me, etc all have fallen victim to the explosive baby poop. But never a wall. I am intrigued. LOL!

Yup! Walls, doors etc etc. DD was far worse than DS. DD felt the need to release one whenever her diaper was off (and we didn't EC until she was 4 mths. How stupid...well, not that it worked anyway). We were cloth diaper newbs so we would be discussing the best method to apply said diaper and she would shoot out a poop that would fly about 4 feet. Apparently BM is quite creamy/fatty. Ask the oily wall stain.

[bezark]

We bought our house from my grandparents, so I have gotten to say my piece on more than one occasion.

Let's just say it was bad. Really bad.

What I'd really like to say is "Get help. Please."
This could get really long and ranty, so I'll let pictures do most of the talking.
All of these pictures were taken after they'd moved out. It took 6 months of constant work to clear everything out, and we only got to the two main living levels. We still have an attic, basement and 2 car garage FULL of stuff, and we probably will until my grandma passes and we can just chuck it all.

Foyer
Dining room Thank you for that fabulous wall paper combination.
Family room
Living room More totally awesome 70's wallpaper. Thanks, grandma!
Master bedroom
DS's room
Kitchen

I admit, I'm guilty of painting over wallpaper. I started out doing it the "right" way, but this is a very old house with very old plaster walls and I REALLY didn't want to be patching and sanding after move-in day with a baby in the house. You can't tell though. I did a skim coat of spackle over all of the seams and tore out and spackled any really damaged/wrinkled parts.

I'd really like to thank the original owners/builders of this house for building such a beautiful, sturdy house with so many great details. Pocket doors? We've got 3 sets. And gorgeous bay windows in 5 rooms.

[NightOwlwithowlet]

Dear former owners,

Sea foam green carpeting through out the upstairs? Why? Probably to cover up the seven layers of linoleum laid over trashed pine floors, patched in places with plywood. Area rugs now cover most of the floor in DS's room, but I've come to love the blue swirled fake carpeting linoleum circa 1937 in my bedroom. The old lady across the road remembers when you put that in.

It's former "handy" man I'd like to thank for installing baby poop yellow carpet over paint splattered hard wood floors. You couldn't use a drop cloth? The cat pee smell was a nice touch!

The drop Styrofoam ceiling that lowered the 8 foot high ceilings 10 inches were a nice touch, especially since there were perfectly nice asbestos free ceilings underneath. It was very cozy! The new pop corn ceilings (circa 2005) in the kitchen and bath, why? Why?

Plumbing in the bathroom only accessible by ripping out the bathroom floor or by the 6 inch high crawl space? Again, why? Are you the same person who papered the walls without priming the walls? Or painted the kitchen cabinets with one coat of lipstick red paint, so they are always chipping? Did you have paint over the drawer pulls and hinges? Did you install the the baby poop brown fake wood paneling through out the downstairs? Or are you the one who fixed the porch and didn't use exterior paint, so it is peeling and the wood is rotted?

All of that I can forgive, it is the person who ripped out the former owner's flower gardens and put down weed blocker cloth and covered it very poorly with sod so the cloth showed through. I've seen pictures of her gardens and I want to weep. Roses, fruit trees, hundreds of tulips, daffodils, and lilies destroyed. All that is left are some shrubs along the property line and one tree. Every time I work in the garden, an old lady will hobble out and tell how beautiful Prospera's garden use to be. When my roses bloomed this year, Mrs. L next door almost cried because she hadn't seen roses there in 30 years.

However, it is structurally sound house (mud room needs to be re done) and the price was right. I like the town and I love the neighborhood.

[clutterwarrior]

Originally Posted by NightOwlwithowlet

I've seen pictures of her gardens and I want to weep. Roses, fruit trees, hundreds of tulips, daffodils, and lilies destroyed. All that is left are some shrubs along the property line and one tree. Every time I work in the garden, an old lady will hobble out and tell how beautiful Prospera's garden use to be. When my roses bloomed this year, Mrs. L next door almost cried because she hadn't seen roses there in 30 years.

Oh that is sad after all the work she must have done.

However I have to admit I am not a gardener at all, and would not know how to care for a garden like that. Perhaps the person who bought it didn't know how to garden either, and could not afford a gardener?

[Katie T]

When you add a addition onto a house in Iowa please put insulation in the walls! Take all of your crap when you move, finding a basement full of old appliances and broken toilets is not what i wanted to have to pay to get rid of.

Clean just a little before you leave. Finding pubes on the toilet was the most sickening thing ever, along with the fact that the bathroom floor was not a dark shade of gray but white! Imagine that! And I had to scrap grease off of everything in the kitchen with a puddy knife because yes it was that thick!

I could go on and on but those were the major irritants when we moved into this place.

[hollytheteacher]

When you put in the flooring, why on earth didn't you take off the molding instead of adding another molding butting up to the existing molding...


Why did you let your cats scratch all the door frames?

Why did you skimp on some of the edges of walls that you painted?

Why didn't you sweep after you took out all your stuff (there were dead flies on the floor when we went for our "final walk through" which specifically says it is to be broom swept)?

Why didn't you repair the holes you left in the walls when you removed all the baby gates?

Why did you leave us a yard problem that you were contractually obligated to fix (the retaining wall was rotting and chipping off into the neighbors yard and they filed a complaint with the city and the city required the owners to do something about it and they didn't so we ended up replacing it).

[hollytheteacher]

Originally Posted by StephandOwen

Thanks to all who are contributing to this thread! I've gotten many laughs. LOL!

However.....



I have to ask... your baby seriously poops so hard it gets on the walls?? I have a 6 year old. I was a nanny for years. I worked in a daycare (mostly infant room) for years. I've seen many many many explosive baby poops. Not one has gotten on walls. Cribs, swings, changing tables, floors, me, etc all have fallen victim to the explosive baby poop. But never a wall. I am intrigued. LOL!

hhahaha this happend with my ds when he was like 5 days old (it didn't stain the walls though...thankfully). DH put ds in one of those changing pads that is like contoured on the sides to keep the baby in the middle, but he placed it on top of our dining room table. he was standing between the wall and the table (which was reallly close). After he took of ds's diaper, he let out a giant i-just-breastfed-2 seconds-ago-and-i'm-a-newborn poop (we used to refer to it as a rocket poop) and it landed all over dh's arm, the wall, and the floor. The look on DH's face was priceless!!

[becoming]

We're closing on our new house day after tomorrow, and I already have a couple:

Painting over wallpaper is a bad enough choice. Choosing shiny turquoise paint is even worse. Also (same room), a kids' bathroom would probably... probably... benefit from having a bathtub/shower combo rather than a giant stand-up shower that looks like it was built for a (grown-up) celebrity.

Some people who buy 4 bedroom houses actually have 3 kids, each of whom needs a bedroom. So making the master bedroom & two of the other bedrooms gigantic & the fourth bedroom super tiny is not a really great idea. Now the littlest gets a teeeeny room while the other two kids get huge ones.

Plumbing pipes should vent OUTSIDE the roof, not INSIDE the attic. (The sellers had to pay to have this repaired.)

[Masel]

Dear Bill,
Thanks for all the work you did around here. The addition was nice. A few things though. Why when you redid the basement didn't you make it just a smidge deeper. (He redug the floor)
What was with the hot and cold being backwards?
The basement stairs in the dining room. Really? That's the best you could do?
I'm glad you stopped by that one time to show us pictures of the rennovation. We were really wondering about the insulation on the interior wall of the outbuilding. Also, DD1 has been enjoying playing archaeologist in the back yard. It belongs in a museum.

Dear next owners of my home,
I admit it. I painted over wall paper. Here is the story. There was wallpaper on three sides of the dining room. It was a neutral color with a light texture. I thought about taking it down but part of it is in the older part of the house and part in the addition. Considering all of the other shortcuts the previous owner made I figured it was what was holding the place together! Okay, I'm kidding about that (a little) but I was also concerned about what was under there in the older section. I didn't want to displace lead with little kids in the house. Please forgive me and don't type nasty stuff about me online.
I know the planters around the patio are weird but they used to be worse. Trust me.

Sincerely,
The yellow house on second street

[ASusan]

Originally Posted by surrogate

My Turn!!!

Dear Landlord

First off, thank you for totally renovating this home with all new everything before I moved in. However, you are a farmer, not an electrician...this isn't going to end well


Thank you for adding extra outlets! However none of the said outlets work ? Nor do half the light switches in the house. The lights flicker and things plugged into outlets turn on and off on their own...scary



I could go on and on...those are the basics. I can't complain too much, cause I got a great price on my rent...but it still stinks

Turn off the circuit that goes to the outlet(s). Take off the outlet covers and tighten the wires. The wire should be wrapped around in the SAME direction as you screw, otherwise, you will get flickering.

I had mystery on-off switches and outlets in my house. (Bathroom light would turn off and on on it's own, and worked reliably only when something was plugged into the living room outlet. Turns out, the plugged in thing was keeping the contacts tight. Rescrewing everything solved my problems.)



And, I'll add another thing to my old owner: Why did you put little dots of white spray paint all over the cupboards and walls? I think you were trying to cover little holes and marks before you sold the place, but it was really obvious and weird. The drips of paint extending from each quarter-sized spray were a unique touch.

[babygirlie]

Everyone had glitter on their ceilings where I grew up. I thought it was a special mandatory thing when I was young. I always thought.. when I grow up I'm going to figure out a way to get me some anti glitter flat ceiling but I bet it's waaay expensive! Never dawned on me people did it on purpose until I was much older :P

Thank you for not doing anything in the contract for purchasing your home, like putting up the ceiling fan (still have a bunch of wires hanging down) or sealing the roof from leaks. But most of all thanks for dry walling over the black mold. Didn't work.. it just grew over your new drywall.. wtg. My paranoi is at an all time high with that crap in my garage as it is the wall that attaches to my bedroom. FABulous.