Opinions needed: House previous owner situation

[Norelco]

My wife and I bought a house from an older couple a few months ago. A stipulation of the contract was that we would let them rent the house back from us for 2 months while they finished building a new house. A standard lease agreement was drawn up and they put a $750 deposit into escrow in case of damages incurred while living there.

A few days ago we got the keys and went through the place. To make a long story short, the place had a lot of stuff left in there. I know this is a common thing to expect when buying a house as I've done my fair share of helping friends move into their homes, but the amount of stuff this guy left I felt was exceptional in my opinion.

I've compiled a list of things to present to my attorney:

1. Drawers full of crap like combs, brushes, makeup, dental floss, and nail clippers.
2. Panes of glass to who knows what left in the garage
3. Bath mats and throw rugs all throughout the house
4. Random junk in the garage: hatchets, rusted tools, a bucket of rusted chains, some sort of grilling device for ears of corn, hockey sticks, a basketball, dirty mops and brooms
5. A computer chair, quite crappy
6. A large fake tree
7. 2 pairs of crutches
8. Glasses and bottles
9. Dirty washcloths in the tub and in sinks
10. Shampoo bottles
11. A giant table mounted metal saw (I have no use for this)
12. A few plastic kids toys
13. Dead hanging plant
14. A box containing a belt, shoes, and a throw pillow
15. Lots of hangers in the closets
16. Snow brush
17. Random cans of grease and wax in the garage
18. Lots of scrap wood
19. Lots of metal and plastic pipes
20. Various wires
21. A giant mirror in the basement
22. Another mirror/medicine cabinet in the garage
23. And last but not least, a fucking rotted and moldy kaiser roll in a kitchen drawer

There's more random shit that I don't know what it is as well.

You get the point. My wife and I feel we spent an unnecessary amount of time hauling this guy's fucking garbage to the dump so we can start work on our house.

I consider the amount of stuff this guy left to be equal to damages, and therefore I want some of that $750 deposit. He can't get that money until my wife and I sign off on a release form.

So what do you think? Am I blowing this out of proportion? If not, how much of this deposit do you think I should be entitled to?

[izembo]

however much it costs you to remove all of it.

[Tyche]

Blowing it out of proportion, we looked at a million houses when we bought, and almost all the empty ones had a ton of shit leftover. Personally, I would have kept the (miter?) saw, it'll come in more handy than you may think. The PVC pipe will be nice to keep handy, pipes pop a lot. Mirrors aren't cheap, etc. But I guess it all depends on the purchase agreement. It's a weird situation since you owned the house and they were the homeowners. You had all the rights to tell them that they'd have to clean the house completely before they left, whereas most home buyers don't have that luxury. Did they say they'd clean the house before they left? Usually you straiten all this shit out in the offer agreement.

[Norelco]

Blowing it out of proportion, we looked at a million houses when we bought, and almost all the empty ones had a ton of shit leftover. Personally, I would have kept the (miter?) saw, it'll come in more handy than you may think. The PVC pipe will be nice to keep handy, pipes pop a lot. Mirrors aren't cheap, etc. But I guess it all depends on the purchase agreement. It's a weird situation since you owned the house and they were the homeowners. You had all the rights to tell them that they'd have to clean the house completely before they left, whereas most home buyers don't have that luxury. Did they say they'd clean the house before they left? Usually you straiten all this shit out in the offer agreement.

You're probably right. As for all of the mats and rugs they left, we've been using them as drop cloths for painting stuff. Their pantry was disgusting. It was all stained yellow for some reason, and had spill stains all down the back of it, so we washed down the walls and slapped on two coats of white paint, and repainted the shelving and really, it looks damn nice now.

[Remyo]

how much for the wash cloths and the roll?

[Tyche]

When we bought our house, we walked through it about 10 times, spent a couple of hours in it, had it inspected...moved in, and within a week we've already started dumping thousands of dollars into a house we thought we were buying finished and done. I had a friend who said "I want to buy a house I can move in to, and do nothing to it". Yeah, good luck with that I told him. Hauling that junk off will be the easiest of the work you'll do that you weren't planning on doing. I'd still check with the attorney, and possibly the real estate agent and see if they had issues like this in the past and see how they'd handle it.

[Norelco]

When we bought our house, we walked through it about 10 times, spent a couple of hours in it, had it inspected...moved in, and within a week we've already started dumping thousands of dollars into a house we thought we were buying finished and done. I had a friend who said "I want to buy a house I can move in to, and do nothing to it". Yeah, good luck with that I told him. Hauling that junk off will be the easiest of the work you'll do that you weren't planning on doing. I'd still check with the attorney, and possibly the real estate agent and see if they had issues like this in the past and see how they'd handle it.

I talked it over with my wife, and at this point we don't want to have anything to do with this guy ever again. Twice now when we've been in the house with him there he had words with us that we didn't appreciate. Apparently he was pissed about the things our home inspector found and we asked him to fix. He cornered me and yelled at me saying "I didn't have to sell you this house. I don't need the money. I could have given it to my son instead." And I go to him, then why didn't you?

When my wife went over by herself the other day to get the keys from him he did the same shit to her. If I knew this was going to happen I would have been there, and I would have broken his mouth for talking to my wife like that.

Anyway...you're right about the money spending. We've made like 5 trips to Lowes already to buy supplies and other shit. It's adding up quickly. The first thing I did was change all of the locks in the house just in case that psycho still has copies of the keys, and I changed the frequency on the garage door because he suspiciously only gave us 1 garage door opener saying he must have lost the other one.

[Remyo]

When my wife went over by herself the other day to get the keys from him he did the same shit to her. If I knew this was going to happen I would have been there, and I would have broken his mouth for talking to my wife like that.

[Norelco]

When my wife went over by herself the other day to get the keys from him he did the same shit to her. If I knew this was going to happen I would have been there, and I would have broken his mouth for talking to my wife like that.

You must not be married.

[Remyo]

When my wife went over by herself the other day to get the keys from him he did the same shit to her. If I knew this was going to happen I would have been there, and I would have broken his mouth for talking to my wife like that.

You must not be married.

just think it's kinda dumb you tapping away at the keyboard about this.

[fantasticdan]

When my wife went over by herself the other day to get the keys from him he did the same shit to her. If I knew this was going to happen I would have been there, and I would have broken his mouth for talking to my wife like that.

You must not be married.

You must not think very highly of your wife if you think you need to physically defend her from an old mans ranting.

[Zigma]

When my wife went over by herself the other day to get the keys from him he did the same shit to her. If I knew this was going to happen I would have been there, and I would have broken his mouth for talking to my wife like that.

You must not be married.

You must not think very highly of your wife if you think you need to physically defend her from an old mans ranting.

I agree with Norelco. I would do the same if some fucktard came and screamed at my wife. Substitute the wife with your mom. Would you let some fucktard scream and insult your mother?

[Shuemue]

stuff

At the risk of offending them, they're probably both 19 and single.

On topic: I'd keep whatever proportion of the deposit it costs to have the place professionally cleaned. You bought a house not a fucking scrapyard.

[Remyo]

[quote=Shuemue]

stuff

At the risk of offending them, they're probably both 19 and single.

On topic: I'd keep whatever proportion of the deposit it costs to have the place professionally cleaned. You bought a house not a fucking scrapyard.[/quote:2n9ofhj5]
sorry thanks for playing

[Shuemue]

I know you're in college, therefore you're unlikely to be older than 21, therefore you have approximately zero life experience. Any relationship you've had during your formative years really doesn't count.

[Remyo]

I know you're in college, therefore you're unlikely to be older than 21, therefore you have approximately zero life experience. Any relationship you've had during your formative years really doesn't count.

probably, but i know i don't always have to protect my gf.

[Shuemue]

So you've read between the lines and you know exactly how the guy behaved towards Norelco's wife and how upset she was?

Didn't think so.

[Chips]

So you've read between the lines and you know exactly how the guy behaved towards Norelco's wife and how upset she was?

Didn't think so.

Are you married?

[Shuemue]

So you've read between the lines and you know exactly how the guy behaved towards Norelco's wife and how upset she was?

Didn't think so.

Are you married?

Technically no, but I might as well be. I've been with my partner for nearly six years, living together for nearly four years and we're currently expecting our first child, so I can absolutely understand the protective mentality.

[Darus Grey]

I don't see anything normal about that?

If my wife came to me screaming her head off about how some "mean man" treated her. I think I'd be more likely to smack her than him.

(and yes I've been married, and I left her thx >.>)