Real estate contracts around the country usually say that sellers need to leave a house in "broom clean" condition. But they leave it at that. There are no definitions and the condition a house is left in is pretty much a guarantee hot button topic if you talk to someone who has just bought a house. We took an informal poll throughout our real estate network and asked them what they had seen in their years of selling houses that pushed the boundaries of 'broom clean'. Click through for the list, including someone finding a Ziploc bag in the kitchen of something that was definitely not oregano.
· The very small yard behind our rowhouse was overflowing with cigarette butts.
· The sellers took every single bulb with them—including the one in the fridge light.
· The sellers had mentioned the gutters needed replacing, but neglected to tell us the hole under the gutters was a main thoroughfare for racoons to use to get in and out of the attic.
· They left a pile of crap in the garage, including an unloaded rifle. We didn't know what to do with it and since we didn't have a license for it we couldn't keep it, so we had to call the cops and they took it away.
· The basement fridge had mold lining the walls. The owners unplugged it, probably while they were broom cleaning behind it, and forgot to plug it back in.
· Leaving forty-one different nail holes for pictures in the walls (it was a small two-bedroom house).
· The house was in good condition, but we found a Ziploc bag of weed in the cabinet under the fridge. It wasn't too hard for us to unload it, though, so we're not complaining.
· A thick layer of pet hair in hard to reach places, like behind the toilets.
· The basement was obviously the man cave and they must have had a few parties before moving out because it smelled like a cigar bar for months after we moved in.
· We opened the drawer under the oven to put our pans in and behind it there was a mouse trap with a dead mouse on it.