If you buy an older home, think of all of the interesting things the previous owners might leave behind.
When we first visited the house that we eventually bought and are now living in, we saw it decorated with lots of great antiques. The real estate agent told us that the furniture was all negotiable, and that really excited us. We put our requests in during our offer, and they were all removed in their counter offer. We were disappointed but still wanted to close the deal.
They did offer to leave us some furniture and practical items in the attic, and I had dreams of appearing on antique road show. “Yes, these are the actual brass buttons off of the coat George Washington wore as he cruised down the Potomac!” Smiles, smiles, all around. In reality, what we were left with was more along the lines of “Yes, these are the actual set of the original owner’s teeth.”
We completed our walk-through and accepted the house and it’s required contents (in this state, anything that is thought to be a fixture or semi-permanently mounted is required to be included in the house sale).
This included the two ceramic animal heads that were attached to the kitchen cabinets just over the window. On the left side was a large cow head, and on the right was a chicken head. We planned on removing them almost as soon as we got the keys. It turned out, though that one of the buyers must have removed it and hidden it somewhere in the time it took to us to go from the walkthrough to the closing. While that was fine with us, I had to laugh at the idea of someone trying to hide that large chicken head their coat or behind their backs!
I wonder if there is a special place in purgatory for a porcelain chicken-head snatcher.
Among the things they did leave us include:
- A cow mailbox that had to be bun-gee corded to the post
- Stained rugs that instantly exploded into dust when we attempted to picked them up
- A cordless drill that was covered in some mysterious sticky substance and enough oomph to insert a screw into warm butter
- An old fashioned diaper pail that hadn’t been cleaned since the last user (their youngest child was in her fifties). I followed the smell if this little gem up to the attic.
- A decaying front door wreath that came complete with a rotted nest and lots of bird poop
- A rusty wheel barrel with a hole in it
- A wicker basket shaped in the form of a retching frog
- A collection of sunflower seed shells hidden under the living room rug, and empty soda cans hidden in the drop ceiling in the basement
- A moldy old blanket.
As we clean and explore, we are constantly turning up new interesting items.
Have you ever come across anything the old homeowners left behind? I’d love to hear your stories.
Mary Ann Romans writes about her family’s money saving secrets in the Frugal Living Blog here at Families.com
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