A woman’s excitement over walking into her “move-in-ready” new house quickly turned to shock and disgust after she was hit with a bad smell and discovered the home was anything but clean.
The new homeowner shared the unbelievable first walk-through in a viral TikTok video, detailing the unexpected level of mess left behind. Since her video was posted, it has received over 957,000 views and hundreds of comments from users commiserating with her struggle.
Her caption summed up the grim reality: “Walking into my ‘move-in ready’ house…the instant bad smell says otherwise. Dirt and grime, filthy carpets, scuffed walls…a loft full of rubbish, which just keeps going.”
A Hidden Mess
The home, which was supposed to be prepared for immediate occupancy, required a major overhaul. The worst discovery, however, was in the attic. “I will never get over the amount of rubbish in the loft,” the homeowner, @hanbam_1, wrote.
In the comments, the woman explained the situation, noting that the property had been vacated due to problems with the previous occupants. “The previous tenants had left owing a few months’ rent, so I don’t think it was forgetfulness that caused it,” she clarified.
The experience resonated with other homeowners who received similar unpleasant surprises. One commenter understood, writing: “This is the same as us! We got the keys last week to our home that was ‘ready to move into.’ The smell hit us, now all the furniture is out—it shows just how grubby everywhere is and they have left a shed full of stuff. Nightmare.”
Another user suspected the problem was worse than just dirt. “Pretty certain that dirt and grime is actually mold,” they wrote.
The Smell and the Standards
Many commenters focused on the potent smells that can be hidden until furniture is moved out. One person recalled a particularly offensive odor: “Our house was the same. The carpets were absolutely stinking of wet cheesy dog. They hid that smell incredibly well when we viewed it twice.”
In contrast to the poor state of the new home, many users shared their own high standards for leaving a property.
One person felt immense guilt over a tiny oversight: “I spent the week before we moved out deep cleaning our house so it was clean and tidy for our buyer—and felt immense guilt when we moved out and realized we’d left all of our last few days’ worth of good kitchen stuff in the cupboard.”
Another user questioned the sheer lack of consideration, asking, “Am I unhinged? Because when I sold mine, I hired a cleaner to do a deep clean once we had emptied all the furniture and had my husband going round touching up marks before we left…could never have the buyer thinking we are scruffy.”
Despite the initial shock and huge clean-up job ahead, the homeowner acknowledged that “it could have been so much worse,” but the volume of garbage left behind remains unforgettable.
Newsweek reached out to @hanbam_1 for comment via TikTok.
