Why?!

[bohman]

Why did the previous owners of my house insist on doing half-ass repairs? If you replaced an outlet, would you attach it to the box in the wall by putting the screws provided with the outlet into the usual holes in the box, or would you move the outlet all the way to the side of the box and insert big ass dry wall screws?

I'm replacing some old outlets tonight with new ones, only to find that on one of them, the latter choice is exactly what they did. Wish I'd seen that when I replaced the sheetrock on that wall, I'd have fixed it then. Now, the hole I cut in the sheetrock matches the half-ass outlet location, not where it should be, a half-inch to the left.

Anybody else want to share stories of horrible things that your home's P.O. did to it? This is certainly not the first one that I've found here.

This has been my daily rant. Thank you.

 

[Pete]

My neighbors house is a pile of crap because of that. Everytime I try to help them with someothing easy it turns into a giant nightmare.

My house is not bad, the only thing is that the PO was digging a hole to set a post for the deck and nicked the water line. He wrapped it with duct tape and covered it back up. It lasted a year before bursting and making a mud hole.

 

[Mousebaby]

We have a patio down next to our bedroom with sliding glass doors. In that patio there is a drain. PO's replaced the drained pipe with the wrong kind and everytime it rained it would back up and flood the patio. Well, we hadn't had a chance to remedy the situation yet and one day it poured like piss pouring out of a boot! I called my husband crying because the water from the patio was coming in the sliding glass doors and soaking my carpet! My husband dropped everything came running home, 5 mins from home at work, and started bailing water as fast as he could. After that storm, he replaced the drain pipe and saw that they had used the wrong kind. It had drain holes in it but they were too small and tree roots had gotten in and blocked the holes. He put in pipe with bigger holes and we've had no problems since. :knockingonwood:

We ended up ripping out the carpet in the room too, not two weeks after that the water heater went tits up and burst and we had water flooding into our bedroom again, only this time it was HOT!!!

 

[bohman]

My neighbors house is a pile of crap because of that. Everytime I try to help them with someothing easy it turns into a giant nightmare.

Welcome to my life. Simple projects turn into epic adventures. I think most of us know how outlet replacement should proceed:

1. Turn off power.
2. Unscrew cover plate and old outlet.
3. Screw in new outlet and cover plate.
4. Turn on power.

Should take 15 minutes. I've wasted my entire evening on this crap, shaving away excess drywall and hoping the cover plate will still cover the now-larger hole. Plus, it appears they stripped one of the screw holes by using the improper screw, so that should be fun, too.

Not long after we moved in, I had to re-drywall that wall, because they failed to properly caulk the shower on the other side. When we ripped down the ugly panelling, we found a rotten mess. Again, I sure wish I'd noticed the funky outlet at that time.

And I wish I'd gotten a forwarding address from the P.O.s, so I could hunt them down and throttle them.

 

[itchycoo]

Our P.O.'s last name was DeStefano and we've begun referring to him as DeStupido as we discover things he had done around our house. He--

--Let a door with lead paint on it chip and rot away for god knows how long (it may have been an original door from the 1949 house). We had it replaced when we bought the house.

--Installed gutters that are impossible to clean. Last year my husband fashioned a cleaning utensil out of a wire hanger because that was the largest object we could fit in the gutter to knock debris loose.

--Started to tear down wallpaper in the bathroom, got bored, and just painted over it.

--Dumped paint in the utility sink and clogged it. Took several weeks before we could confidently run the washer without risking a flood.

He also left a huge mountain of empties in the recycling bin, leading us to believe he did a number of 'home improvements' while drunk.

 

[vraiblonde]

My PO is the bomb The only thing I could complain about is the hall bathroom door, but that's pretty minor (right, Vince? ) And she didn't even live here - she rented it out for like the previous two years.

So, Joyce, if you're reading this, I appreciate you taking such good care of my home

 

[Booboo3604]

--Started to tear down wallpaper in the bathroom, got bored, and just painted over it.

Ours didn't bother with paint, but instead put more wallpaper over it. Well when we bought the house we noticed that the steam from the shower had made the border and wallpaper start peeling. We decided that we would rather just paint it so we rented the steamer from home depot to get all the wallpaper off. Tell me why there were SIX layers of wallpaper on that darn wall! That was like the most miserable 24 hours of my life.

 

[Aerogal]

No PO for us. The house has a history though. Owner/realtor owned the property, original design -who knows what it was supposed to be; original buyer backed out; original builder took off with the money; realtor (rich but cheap) finished the house. Nice big house in prime location for less than market.
Here's what we found from the original build (inspected and passed by St Mary's County):
back door (second egress) 29" wide (what happened to the 36" requirement?)
Live, UNCAPPED 110 volt line coiled up under our upstairs master bath - which i presume was to be a whirlpool tub but we have a slightly bigger fiberglass tub/shower there.
One (count it -one) nail holding in back door. Made it easy to remove tho
Poor seal in back door- water and black mold damage in subfloor
very slow leak in kitchen cold water supply - more black mold
Holes (3") that were cut in floor studs and not filled in (non bearing thankgoodness - but made a great mouse causeway).
Header holding up back corner of second floor not all the way across the required span (there's a 2 foot overhang from the footprint).
Overloaded circuits
Lack of GFI outlets in approriate locations
Anyone buying the house from us will be getting a very well built and safe home - now.

 

[bohman]

Anyone buying the house from us will be getting a very well built and safe home - now.

This is my modest goal - I'm trying to leave the home much better than when we moved in. I'm not a great handyman, but I'm at least fixing the worst of the mistakes.

A lot of the problems mentioned above sound very familiar! Our washer drain was clogged when we got there, and there is a very suspicious hole cut into the garage wall right next to it: We're pretty sure they were just draining into the back yard, as opposed to snaking out the clog.

Outlets and switches all over the house in bad shape. The one I replaced last night literally fell to pieces as I removed it. Kind of interesting to examine the innards, but very disturbing to know that P.O.S. had 120AC running to it for the last 5 years.

Don't get me started on the dirt all over the house. Hadn't been cleaned in years. A big part of the problem was that the house was a rental. Everything had been done just barely good enough: Maintenance done just enough to keep renters from complaining, and cleaning done just well enough to keep owners from holding the deposit.

 

[dems4me]

Don't know if this counts or not as its not my house but I do live there. :shrug: The house I'm living in is an old farm house and needed to be gutted, stripped and rewired. Also, when they originally installed the duct work -- instead of moving the duct work over 6 inches, they cut the main support beam for the house. Over the years, the house started slanting to an angle (leaning to the right) and stayed that way. The house had to be lifted and the beam replaced back where it was around the time I was moving in. Some of the rooms though I still have to hang pictures half-crocked to make them appear straight because of the ceiling slants. Also when I moved in chairs with wheels would roll to the other side of the house on their own. You'd move it back and try to turn the wheel so it wouldn't roll. Though it was fun watching a cat jump in the chair and go for a ride cross the room Things are alot better now.

 

[Vince]

Had my house built so whatever was wrong with it is fixed by now. I'm very picky about everything.