Surprise! What did the seller take with them that you expected would stay with the house?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't fathom taking light bulbs. My guess is they use them again in their new home and the bulbs burn out after a month or so... what a PITA to deal with. Same with blinds- it prob. costs more to have them retrofitted than they are worth. They probably end up getting tossed. And seriously- toilet paper? Wowza.

We took the window treatments the last time we moved. My employer hired a (not very) professional moving company to pack up our stuff and move it. I didn’t realize how closely I needed to supervise this process, and I just left it to them. When we started unpacking, I realized that there were several things we took that I hadn’t intended to bring with me.

I wonder how many of these are not very thoughtful movers rather than the sellers being jerks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My seller took his old garbage cans with him even though he knew I was moving from out of state. What he needed it for who knows. Am I supposed to move my old garage can house to house (which I did not)

Are you sure he took them for himself? I'm supposed to return my garbage cans to the trash company when I move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My seller took his old garbage cans with him even though he knew I was moving from out of state. What he needed it for who knows. Am I supposed to move my old garage can house to house (which I did not)

People who move locally or nearby will take their garbage cans. It happens.

What are you supposed to do? Go to Home Depot or Lowe's and buy a new one. When you move into a house, you'll typically spend a lot of small trips or at least one big trip to home improvement store for all sorts of odds and ends that you'll need.

OMG I caught the neighbor rolling our trash can away. It had our house number on it. Nice moment with new neighbors.

[Anonymous]

Seller left his snake and feral cats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine is a flip...something I left but was ordered to take.

When I sold my house, I picked one storage closet and I carefully labelled and left a lot of odds and ends. The paint cans for all of the paint used in the house, so that someone could touch up or repaint areas that needed resurfacing. I know that many people will change colors, but sometimes it's not in the cards to do it right away and you might want to touch up an area until you get around to repainting. There were a few areas that had some wallpaper. I left the remainder of the wallpaper for the same reason. I left unused hardware for things installed in the house, that could be used for simple basic repairs if needed. I left some carpet remnants for the new carpeting that had been installed after we moved out. Etc.

The buyers came in and the wife was LIVID. She called me actually angry and told me I had left a closetful of junk in the house and that I needed to come over that day to remove the junk. I explained what this was, things to repair and touch up things in the house until they were replaced. She told me that she didn't want any of that trash and that I did not do a good job cleaning and that she was going to try and charge me a cleaning fee (we had already closed, so this was not going to happen).

I finally figured the best thing to do was just to appease her. I took a big box, went to the house (we had only moved 2 miles away) and I tossed everything that I had carefully labelled and stored in the box and put it out to the curb. I sent a text to the husband to let him know that I had done as his wife instructed. I went by there the next day and noticed that the box was gone (but trash pickup was still 2 days away). I assume that the husband realized that he was going to need this stuff and found someplace for the stuff.

Similar experience, but not a flip. I had a maintenance binder with manuals and service records for HVAC, appliances, etc, leftover paint, an extra board to repair the fence, and some extra roof shingles. I left them out during the walkthrough and let the buyers agent know what it was and that we'd remove anything they didn't want. She got back to me after the walkthrough and told me they didn't want my "junk" so I tossed it all. My old neighbors are still good friends of ours and they found out it was the wife that told the agent that and the husband was pissed. They had to do an external repair shortly after they moved in and couldn't match the paint exactly so there's a slightly lighter patch of paint on the front of the house.

[Anonymous]

The bathroom mirror!

But they left us the window treatments and the shower curtains.

[Anonymous]

We bought a house here but moved to an extended stay hotel first. We remodelled the house based on our needs and taste, so we did not wanted most of what they had anyways. In our old house in another state, we left all of our furniture behind. My brother sold our house after we left. Our furniture, furnishing, cleaning supplies, vacuum, vacuum bags etc conveyed. The house was professionally painted and cleaned after we left and before showing the house. We left behind the shower curtains, all fixtures, toilet roll, toilet brush and cleaning supplies and a basket of hotel toiletries in each bathroom. My brother paid to keep our patio plants watered and lawn mowed. We left behind our hose and planters etc. Finally, we had left 4 plates, cups, bowls and spoons, knife etc in the kitchen along with 1-2 pots and pans. My brother also left $20- $30 worth of grocery in the fridge and pantry - juice, milk, eggs, butter, bread, fruit, cooking oil, salt, sugar, tea, instant coffee etc. We sold to a family with young children and the mom and dad both called to thank us. My family still lives close by to our old house. It's a small town and we were taught to be gracious. Is the boorishness a part of being in a big town and the anonymity that make people think that they can get away with things?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:another for the light bulbs. Sneaky bastard came the day before we were to move in and took them all. Got him back though. We kept his tools he left in the garage storage room. Dumb shit forgot and never came back for them.

Ha ha! Good for you, he deserved it! What a cheapskate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The drapes! OMG we were exposed to the world!

The seller took the machine that hooked into the ceiling speakers all over the house so you could play music. He should NOT have taken that. It's been years, but I still think about how petty that was. And now the technology is old so I don't even know how to replace it.

That was petty, but you can buy an amp from Sonos that will connect wired speakers into a Sonos wireless system. We have a combo -- the old wired speakers and new wireless speakers, and it works great.

This monoprice kit is also really nice. https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=10761

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We bought a house here but moved to an extended stay hotel first. We remodelled the house based on our needs and taste, so we did not wanted most of what they had anyways. In our old house in another state, we left all of our furniture behind. My brother sold our house after we left. Our furniture, furnishing, cleaning supplies, vacuum, vacuum bags etc conveyed. The house was professionally painted and cleaned after we left and before showing the house. We left behind the shower curtains, all fixtures, toilet roll, toilet brush and cleaning supplies and a basket of hotel toiletries in each bathroom. My brother paid to keep our patio plants watered and lawn mowed. We left behind our hose and planters etc. Finally, we had left 4 plates, cups, bowls and spoons, knife etc in the kitchen along with 1-2 pots and pans. My brother also left $20- $30 worth of grocery in the fridge and pantry - juice, milk, eggs, butter, bread, fruit, cooking oil, salt, sugar, tea, instant coffee etc. We sold to a family with young children and the mom and dad both called to thank us. My family still lives close by to our old house. It's a small town and we were taught to be gracious. Is the boorishness a part of being in a big town and the anonymity that make people think that they can get away with things?

This is an outlier no matter where one lives

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It its a fixture attached to a wall (closet fixtures, wall sconces, towel bars, curtain rods) it goes with the house unless you exempted it in the contract. That's real estate law. If you take stuff like this you risk negating the sale.

DC law? Or NOVA law?

Drapes are not attached to the walls. The rods are but drapes are not.

NP. With rods--they often are bought to match the owner's taste. Posters here all seem to assume rods and blinds are plain and generic (and cheap enough to just leave behind without caring). Do people really want some previous owner's rod with fancy glass finials or "wrought iron" designs on the ends or whatever if you're only going to replace those quickly? Our living room rods are wooden and inexpensive but match other pieces of our furniture and yeah, I'd want them. They're not some bare-bones generic metal rod. If we sold the house I guess I'd have to stipulate that curtain rods don't convey. Blinds can stay if you mean basic white mini-blinds. But do you really want my specific, colored, pricey honeycomb blinds that match the paint in the bedroom that you'll probably change? I would stipulate that those won't convey either because guess what, they can be altered to fit my new windows. If you said you need blinds in the contract, I'd tell you I will install the plain ones (and they'll be the most basic Home Depot blinds) for you so you have something in the windows, but my pricier color blinds will come with me if I plan to use similar colors in my new house.

[Anonymous]

After reading through this thread yesterday, I started getting ecobee thermostat ads in my Facebook feed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My seller took his old garbage cans with him even though he knew I was moving from out of state. What he needed it for who knows. Am I supposed to move my old garage can house to house (which I did not)

YUK!

[Anonymous]

When we move we intend to take the washer dryer ( they are new and I love them ), The refrigerator ( same deal as a washer dryer, and I don’t want somebody’s old junk), Our deep freeze, The dining room chandelier ( before showing the house we will replace it with what was left for us when we moved in ), The garage shelving, the basement shelving ( they are both high end steel shelving units from my parents old business ) and the freestanding elfa shelves hanging in my daughters room. We will take all these things unless the new house we move into has nicer items. We will leave all of the draperies and all of the closet maid shelving units that were measured for our closets from Home Depot. However, we will make it very clear in our contract what conveys and what does not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My seller took his old garbage cans with him even though he knew I was moving from out of state. What he needed it for who knows. Am I supposed to move my old garage can house to house (which I did not)

People who move locally or nearby will take their garbage cans. It happens.

What are you supposed to do? Go to Home Depot or Lowe's and buy a new one. When you move into a house, you'll typically spend a lot of small trips or at least one big trip to home improvement store for all sorts of odds and ends that you'll need.

Most places I've lived, the garbage cans are provided by the City (the kind that is picked up by the trucks). If it gets stolen, and you need another one, they make you pay for it. Who wants to move nasty garbage cans, anyway?