My mom melted our lunchboxes the same way when I was growing up. We weren't showing the house, just didn't have enough storage. I hope you got to it before it damaged the oven.

that is one reason why you should tell the agent to give you more notice. not jsut for little accidents like this, but for the last minute cleanign eveyr one does right before a showing.

Storing things in the oven is one of my pet peeves (not even empty pans allowed in ours). NOTHING goes in our oven except food to be cooked. I could have burned my MIL's house down. I turned on the oven to pre-heat it. Silly me, I didn't remove the 15 COOKBOOKS in there. Storing a broiler pan in oven? Ok, I can see that. But cookbooks?!

Glad you got the smell out!

I'm w/ sue36.

I won't even store a BROILER pan in the oven. I'll store it in the broiler drawer itself, but not in the oven.

OK, *maybe* I'd store it on the very bottom if I was sure I wouldn't need to take it out while baking cookies. But since the tater-tot baking pan has a home, the broiler can go there too.

Never hide your purse in the oven. (Don't ask.)

I'd never hide stuff in the oven because house shoppers if they are serious about the house will open the oven to look and see what condition it is assuming these days that it will stay.
Having stuff in there says you don't have enough storage in the kitchen to a possible buyer.

We were in a hurry when we went out that evening and I saw the basket as I started down the steps...just a stupid thing to do.

I don't know why they gave so little notice, but in this slow market, I'm not going to turn them down. The house is mostly spotless, it's just those little like eating, taking a bath, washing clothes, etc. and burning a basket in the oven that make it less than what it should be.

My agent is supposed to call the other agent and get feedback, I'm anxious to see if the house "stunk"

My husband still laughs about the fact that when our house was on the market I stashed all the cookie sheets, etc. in the trunk of our car. The kitchen had no good place to store them.

These were funny. I never thought about storing stuff in the oven.

When I was a kid my mom put a wet pair of my just washed sneakers in a still slightly warm oven to help them dry. A few days later she preheated the oven, yep she forgot the sneakers were still there. The smell of burning rubber was quite bad!

I cooked my mother-in-law's begonias. She had put the little peat pots in the oven to sprout! A frozen pizza for my brand new husband did them in. It was lucky she liked me.

Margaret

I look in the oven (staying or not).
If it is cruddy it is one more indicator of the overall maintenance the house received.

Dirty furnace filters are another giveaway for poor maintenance.

My grandma had to store loaves of bread, etc in the oven to keep their irish setter from tearing into it. It was the only place, aside from the refrigerator, that he couldnt open! I remember when I found out she did this, because I conveniently melted the plastic bag on the loaf of bread when heating the oven up for cookies. oops!

I ruined a pair of DH's work boots this way.

He'd put some kind of cream on them, and I don't know why on earth but he wanted/needed to "warm" it at about 200*. We both forgot about it until the next day when I preheated the oven. The soles completely cracked apart from the uppers! Oops!

Good thing is that they were his old pair. Bad thing is that they were more comfy than his new pair!

Like Brickeye, I have been known to look for what I consider indicators of how well a house has been taken care of - the stove/oven is one of those.

I have grabbed stuff off the dresser and shoved it into a drawer, in the hurry to deal w/ an upcoming showing.

It's not the oven, but it messes me up anyway; I ended up unable to find paperwork, stuff like that.

I tried so hard to be organized so this didn't happen, but it was totally not easy.

cpowers hese were funny. I never thought about storing stuff in the oven.

Something tells me you're not going to start now!! lol

I'm another who'll look in the oven as a general indicator of the level of upkeep... until this post, I've never thought or heard of storing things in the oven.

When we were selling, I often took a laundry basket of miscellaneous things to work with me in the trunk of the car. Some mornings, it was easier to tote stuff around than to put it away.

So I guess I can understand the stash-it-in-the-oven, but it never would've occurred to me.

This has nothing to do with selling houses, but when I was young my busy mom used to like to iron her cotton blouses right out of the washer when they were damp. (Good tip, by the way, because the shirts stay pressed better when ironed damp.) Anyway, when she didn't have time to iron right away, she would stash wet blouses in a plastic bag in the fridge!

Sometimes she'd forget they were there. Oops.