What all odd things did you find missing when you moved into a new house.
The wierdest I ever saw was a sliding ladder for a bookcase that was built into the wall. I mean, what are the odds that the people who moved out happen to moving into someplace with a pole the exact height for the same ladder (and made of the same type of wood, etc.)
They also took the grills in the fireplace… :dubious:
When I was in high school, I worked for a U-Haul store. We had started offering services to pack up people’s homes and get them on their way to whever they were going.
One guy had us dismantle his custom kitchen - cabinets, countertops, trim along the ceiling, and other bits and pieces that you usually keep installed. He said that he paid a lot of money for it, and wanted to make sure he got full use of it. I have no idea if it even fit in his new house, or how the new owners reacted when they saw that the kitchen in their new house was effectively gone.
These things (cabinets, a.c.) are called “permanent fixtures” and unless it’s in the sales contract that they will be removed, it’s breach of contract or something to remove them.
That may be, but when I looked at my first house it had not just one, but two kitchen sinks, pretty much built-in, both of which were gone after the closing.
On the other hand there was an extra marble fireplace facade and mantel that didn’t go to anything in the house (that is to say, it didn’t fit the fireplace, and the fireplace already had a marble mantel). Go figure.
They took the cheap little brass coffee cuphooks from the kitchen wall. These things are less than a dollar a pack…way less than the time and effort it took to unscrew them. “Oh, wait, Honey, don’t forget the cuphooks!” Yikes.
I once knew a guy who came home from work and found that his wife had left. She took every single light bulb, the stoppers in the sinks, and even the cover plates from the light switches and electrical outlets.
Whatever their marital issues, that seemed a bit much.
Funny, I must have moved into a house that had been occupied by the same people. No light bulbs in the whole house except for two in the lounge room, one of which was blown. Also, they took all the plugs for all the sinks.
Slightly related–I work at a family planning clinic. In each of the counsel and exam rooms, we have a basket with a collection of stuff. Placebo (or not, sometimes they’re opened “demo” packs) packs of various birth control methods so that people can see what a Nuva Ring or an Ortho Evra patch looks like, a wooden penis model (vaguely shaped, not terribly detailed, for demonstrating how to put on a condom) with a little metal plate that says, I kid you not “for demonstration purposes only” apparently to keep people from amusing themselves with it while they’re waiting for the nurse . It’s actually chained to the basket to keep it from going home with someone. Other things you might expect, an IUD, stethoscopes, a box of bandaids and cotton balls, a laminated plastic calendar, so on and so forth.
I am constantly amazed at what people will swipe. Those stupid calendars, just a half-sheet of paper, laminated, with numbers as plain and uninteresting as can be disappear all the effing time. I’ll go digging through looking for the battered and slightly manky-looking patch and it’ll be gone… things like that.
We had a gold-colored metal spiderweb that fit in a corner where two walls met the ceiling, that we bought at an art gallery somewhere. My dad loved it, but when he rented out our house the new tenants insisted that he leave it for them to enjoy. Then they took it when they moved out. I wish I could find another one.
If anybody knows where to find one on the web, I’d be much obliged.
When we moved out of the wretched apartment from hell, I made sure to take EVERYTHING I had to replace: built in bookshelves, faucet, fuses, and even unwire the cable and phone hookups. I just left the stuff that had broken, and called it even.
When moving into my new house, I was amazed to find out the people had removed the drawers in the kitchen (cleverly replaced before my wife got into the house) and also the manuals to the fridge, furnace, HWH, and washer/dryer! Who in the hell takes those?
I moved into an apartment once where the previous tenant had taken every light bulb except one, which was a 20-watt yellow bulb. :dubious:
Another house I lived in which was rented from a friend, we had custom bookcases made to fit on the window wall in the dining room. They were odd sized – ceiling high on each side, with each side a different width, and then a lower center section under the window. The guy we were renting from died, and his cousins inherited and left the house sitting empty for a while. A few weeks later, a friend went by to see if any mail had been delivered there for me, and found that the greedy cousins had taken the custom bookcases. They only fit that room! Who would want them when they don’t fit anywhere else?
I think we looked at that house years ago when we were house hunting. We saw one house where the kitchen was stripped bare. No cabinets, no counters (so obviously no counter space), except one small bit next to the sink. But the doors had been removed from that cabinet and the one under the sink, too.
Very weird.
When my mom died, she had recently bought a small house, but hadn’t moved in yet. While we were waiting for it to be sold, somebody broke in, stealing the living room carpet and wall paneling. Not satisfied with that, they stripped out several wall sockets.
If the rod was color cooridinated to the rest of their decor, I can understand this. Especially if it was a tension rod and not screwed into the wall.
I would also take any specialty bulbs in the house, like those flame shaped ceiling fan bulbs. But I would replace them with the basic type.
I keep all my large appliance manuals in a kitchen drawer. If I move and leave those appliances, I will leave the manuals. But, I can see how they could get packed and moved.
The previous owner of our house took all the flowering bushes. She didn’t even fill in the holes.
. It’s actually chained to the basket to keep it from going home with someone. Other things you might expect, an IUD, stethoscopes, a box of bandaids and cotton balls, a laminated plastic calendar, so on and so forth.