Worst DIY of previous owners

T

Thrifty

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Just saw a thread on some posters who's taken off his wall paper to find foil lined walls and got to thinking of the horrors i discovered when i bought my secondhand property and inherited the previous owners DIY disasters. I wouldn't blame him for the crooked walls (old house) but i do for the sink that had both hot and cold taps connected to the cold pipe. the shower connected to the mains that was only usable very early in the morning when nobody else on the street was running water. the toilet waste outlet that met up with a downpipe from the gutter and all went into the sewage etc. i actually had a survey done on the property but none of these were noticed. My cousins new build actually had a toilet that flushed hot water because connected to the wrong pipe. All has had to be fixed but interested to know am i the only naive person who's suffered at the hands of someone elses bodge-it-jobs? Whats the worst?
 
We had central heating pipes running outside the house, heating the garden! We only noticed when we saw steam coming from the earth.
(It wasn't meant to be a geothermal system! )
 
We get an electric shock from the shower in our en-suite. My BIL who is an electrician check it out and re-earthed the house and it's still happening. It wakes you up in the morning!!!
(seriously we don't use it anymore)
 
depressing that my house has inspired this thread!

however, must share this!
I have an uncle who was a killer diy enthusiast. He dug his patio and dumped an old piano in to save on cement. When the wind blew during storms the piano would kind of hum and chime, which perplexd the next owner no end. She was scared s#**less by the weird noise and eventually dug up the patio after a builder friend came in had a hunch about the source.
 
very very good.
had a good laugh at this one.
 
garage conversion: Walls and ceiling slabbed with plasterboard, no membrane or plastic or insulation, slabs then stippled, yes they stippled the walls and got creative, putting on a stipple dado with swirls below it and lines above it. The room actually kept heat out in the mornings.
 
Good to hear i'm not the only one. I think the piano story's great - didn't he break it up before burying it? Forgot to mention i also had something like a telephone/alarm wire coming out of one wall and disappearing into another. Didn't seem to go anywhere or come from anywhere. Got it removed but i still wonder what strange thoughts were going through the previous owners mind when he was working on the house.
 
I removed a single strip of wood that was used to hang curtains. It would've been about 4ft long by 1inch wide. There were 21 nails in it. I think I've pulled out at least 500 nails from this property already.
 
kerr said:
I removed a single strip of wood that was used to hang curtains. It would've been about 4ft long by 1inch wide. There were 21 nails in it. I think I've pulled out at least 500 nails from this property already.
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Jees...i think you must have lived in our house...we have taken out so many nails that it looks like the moles had a go at the walls!
 
We have paint on wallpaper on wallpaper on badly plastered walls. All radiators painted to match the wall paint. A mantlepiece which was mahogany painted to match the wall paint and then sprayed with Christmas snow to look like limestone (at least that's what I think them aim was!). Indoor lights outside, the shed light plugged in in the master bedroom .................I could go on!
 
I rented a house one time where the landlord plumbed in a new washing machine, the old one used to be in an adjoining garage. Things were going great until I noticed that there was never any hot water for a shower in the morning. The owner or his plumber had plumbed the machine off the hot feed to the kitchen sink and every time the drain cycle ran it flushed a few gallons of our (expensively heated) hot water down the drain. The solution was simple: we always put the machine on after we had finished showering. The hot water to the jacks is a common one. I've also seen plugs wired incorrectly- live and neutral switched. I heard of someone who discovered an old car buried beneath the patio- like the piano story
 
I am sitting in bed reading these with tears streaming down my face...best laugh I've had all week!

When we moved into our first house it had one of those grey fake stone walls in the kitchen made of plasterboard. It was hideous! I was amazed at friends of mine who liked it and couldn't imagine anyone thinking it was nice. We removed it almost immediately.
 
We couldn't turn on the landing light from downstairs. When we were going to bed, we'd have to run upstairs in the dark in order to turn it on. Bit pointless turning it on then!
 
liteweight said:
We couldn't turn on the landing light from downstairs. When we were going to bed, we'd have to run upstairs in the dark in order to turn it on. Bit pointless turning it on then!
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lol
 
Years ago a friend of mine was renting a room in a house (which was for sale) and one of the other renters had done a deal with the landlord to paint some of the inside of the house in lieu of rent. So I'm in the living room talking to my mate and we can hear yer man running up and down the stairs for about 15 minutes, eventually we go out to see that he has decided to start painting the top landing but has left his paint tray downstairs and is running up and down the stairs with the roller dripping paint all over the nice hardwood stairs! We suggested he clean up the mess before the paint dried (and the landlord saw it) and went back to our conversation only to hear what sounded like a waterfall about 10 minutes later.Back out into the hall to see the 'painter' had dragged the garden hose in through an upstairs window and was now 'cleaning' the stairs by hosing it down!
 

He obvously attended the Basil Fawlty school of D.I.Y.
 
I rented a place once and the landlord decided to paint the hallway. Only thing was he didn't specify exactly when. So one day he came in (of his own accord.. not the done thing I know) and painted. We all came home to a newly painted white hallway with... wait for it.... I had a newly painted bike!; we all had newly painted coats!; and a perfect white handprint on the phone;
 
I can't believe some of these people - sounds like they've got a Homer Simpson like brain.
 
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