ScyLarc

Last week we were supopsed to move to a new apartment here in sunny Delaware. I turned up the night before to get the keys only to be greeted by looks of terror and no-one in the office wanted to talk to me. In the end they sat me down and told me that they had screwed up and the previous occupant had only just been "helped" out of his apartment. Alarms bells started to ring at this point, they then asked if i could possibly not move in the next day as a little "cleaning" was needed. As our furniture was already on it's way and i had had a bad day i got stroppy and demanded to see the place.

All i can say was OH MY GOD - people are disgusting. I always thought the participants on those cleaning shows were making it worse than it really was. I had visions of them dumping rubbish around the place to make it look really bad for the cameras, but now i am convinced some people are just filthy buggers.

The guy in our place had peed up the walls, smeared crap in the baths, the showers, the kitchen cabinets! and there was months worth of this stuff dried all over the place. The odd thing was this is not a cheap rental, our company gets a corporate discount otherwise we could not afford to live there. Needless to say i refused to move in, a day later they fumigated, bleached, steamed the carpets, repainted everything, replaced the kitchen cabinets and gave us a discount

Anyone else ever seen anything like this?

USBound

while I never got to see my place before I moved in.. I do know that the woman who was in there before me left SOO much crap and did sooo much damage that they retained her entire deposit and spent a month cleaning it out. This involved an entirely new bathroom & kitchen, new carpets throughout, new closet doors throughout and... to be honest they SHOULD have replaced the second bathroom too as the bottom of the bath has obviously been used as a longtime ashtray.

Our apartment is currently no "Mrs Bucket" special.. but we try to stay on the safer side of "lived in" if you know what I mean.

This phenomenon of extreme dirtiness is not limited to US places BTW - my parents neighbours were the most disgusting people I'd ever seen. The mother and grandmother lived there with 2 kids (15+ at the time)... they didn't even own a hoover nevermind use one, had upwards of 20 cats and about 10 dogs running around doing there mess wherever they wished. Food was simply pushed off the plates where they sat and the dogs/cats would eat it off the floor... anything left was trodden into the carpet... they once offered me a cup of tea where the cup inside was 10% smaller than it should have been due to caked on GUNK... eesh its hard to pretend to drink aint it.

in short.. yeah I agree.. some people are disgustingly dirty... I'm a cleanfreak and tend to get "in the mood" about twice a week so our place gets its fair share of hooverage

HappyHammer

Actually had two bad experiences. First we picked up the keys at the office, and found the apartment stunk of cat wee, and fungas growing in the kitchen sink and bathroom. Sadly we had "rather nievely" signed the contract and I was in s**t creak literally. However my company at the time backed me up, and didn't want me upset in case I decided to leave them, thus upsetting their own client where I was due to start a new project, so they steamed into the landlord with all their might. I don't know what happened but my company booked me into a Holiday Inn for a week whilst the apartment was fixed up. When I moved in everything was brand spanking new. Fortunatly my wife was spared all this and joined me a few weeks later.

The other situation was where were moving in from out of State, had picked an apartment, but not yet signed the contract. At the office they wanted me to sign the contract before seeing the apartment. No way. The showed us the model, but not "our" actual apartment. Then they said O.K they will meet me at the apartment in an hour. Needless to say she never showed, and then we realized why they were so pushy to sign the contract, we peeked around , and it looked like drug dealers paradise. This time we had no "pissed off" company to back me up, so we had to stay in Best Stay America until we got sorted out. At that time we had 3 year old and a baby it we were really desperate. Forunatly we fell on our feet, and ended up in another apartment which was very nice. Seems every cloud does have a silver lining.

ladylisa

I cant stand all thses TV shows where they clean peoples disgusting houses, I mean why is it interesting for one. Could you imagine 5 years ago someone telling you you would be seeing housework done on the TV as a show!!! No one would have believed it plus its just disgusting cheap TV at its worst..

Lottie

Euughhh.......

I was appaualed when we moved into our apartment last August and the carpets smelt really badly of dog...especially when it got humid! Considering your post I think we didn't have it too bad. I just can't believe people can live that way. I have to admit by the time it's Thursday the house is looking a bit worse for wear, but it wil get cleaned at the weekend!

robskatie

YUCK!!!! It always amazes me that people can live in their own s**t, my daughter loves watching animal rescue, they had a lady on there living in an apartement with at least 50 cats, it was, as you can imagine the most disgusting thing I have ever seen :scared:

rincewind

Geez. Nothing as bad as that.

It amazes me how and why people do that sort of thing. It's very neanderthal.

Maz

Well there's a difference between messy and clean. My hubby and I aren't good at picking up after ourselves, but the house is clean. Next week it will be cleaner, too, as we get a housecleaner again, yay!!! We had to stop her coming last June when hubby got laid off, and he's had two other jobs since before he settled down into his new job, so now we get to spoil ourselves again. It's great knowing there's a set day when someone will come in and clean, that's a great motivator to tidy up after ourselves.

ironporer

I would have noticed urine and feces on the wall when I first looked at the place...or were you so foolish to lease it sight unseen?

BritishInOhio

Hey do you mind sharing who you use and now much you pay? My wife and I live in Glen Ellyn and are looking to get a cleaner as we both work really hard and really can't be arsed doing the cleaning on our days off. Thanks.

ScyLarc

Yes that was our fault, we looked at an exact replica as we were told the existing tenant didn't have to let us in to look at the apartment - won't make that mistake again!

Dan725

That is bloody scary!

Since I've been in the states, all I've known is the total opposite - the fanatical "Stepford Wife" cleaning style almost to showpiece standards - my missus and all her friends seem to be far more house proud than people in the UK in general, which is quite nice but on some occasions irritating, well, more amusing really! If you (god forbid) pop round to anyones place unannounced like in the UK (for a cuppa - bit of an alien concept here, seems to be), you are sure to be met with loads of excuses "oh excuse the mess" etc - when the place is completely spotless!!!

NC Penguin

On the subject of renting in the US, I urge you to take dated pictures of the property on the day you move in as well as note marks/stains/damage on the move in report.

I say this from experience when my landlord tried to screw me over when I vacated my apartment last year.




NC Penguin

Suffolk Bumpkin

MMMMmmmm... fungus.........slurp!

Suffolk Bumpkin

SHIT! That is terrible - hope you got a BIG discount for that. Either that or the manager presented you with his gonads as a peace offerring.

Sounds like the last tenant had a bitch gripe with the agents.(?) If he fouled things up....?
Maybe he would be more comfortable ina zoo or something?

BO!