As snarky as I can be in Gardenweb, I try to treat people even better than I expect to be treated.

Until this bit of news came out I was fully prepared to fill and touch up every nail hole in the entire apartment and leave everything spotless. I was also prepared to fix a few small thing that were either not commented on or not even noticed in the home inspection.

In the last property I sold, all the paint was touched up and a can labeled with the name and number of each paint in the property was left behind as well as a binder with all the pertinent information on the appliances, extra light bulbs needed, a brand-new shower curtain liner, and a few things like paper towels, paper plates and cleaning supplies. That Realtor and the buyer's father both said they had never seen a property quite so move in ready. I have also pushed people to do this when helping them get properties ready for sale.

In this case I feel like getting rid of all the extra paint even though that will be more work for me, not leaving behind any information on what the paint is, disposing of the appliance manuals, and taking even the OLD shower curtain liner and the rings so the buyer can't even take a quick shower after moving in. There was nothing left behind of any import in properties I have purchased, so what I would be leaving is typically par for the course around here, although it would actually make extra work for us.

I've only sold two houses, but we left behind the paint, appliance information, a trash container, a broom, the shower curtain liners, paper towel, soap, and TOILET PAPER.

I think that removing all of those items is not unreasonable--no one can demand or expect that the previous owner be that organized.

My son asked me once about how to leave a sublet where he'd been treated badly. I pointed out that he couldn't feel good about himself about being destructive, but he could feel good about giving items away rather than being generous and leaving items that would have been wanted.

I suppose the light bulbs are attached to the condo and therefore have to convey . . . .

pal, you're much too busy to do any extra work, regardless of the satisfaction it would give you to get your digs in at this sneaky agent. I say take a deep breath, let it go, and save your mental, physical, & emotional energies for making your new place wonderful, beautiful, & comfortable. Best wishes to you and your partner in your new home.

Aren't all the nice things you previously intended to do (before becoming upset at the agent) for the benefit of the new owners? I'm not sure how doing anything else would harm the agent? Wouldn't the new owners be the ones who would struggle to match the paint, fill the holes, replace the manuals, etc.?

I would advise that you don't lift a finger to help people like this. When we sold our house, the buyers were horrible to deal with. They were trying to sell their place in order to buy ours and we heard they were very close to a deal ... just a few thousand dollars apart. Because they couldn't close on our house until they sold theirs, we offered to drop our price by half of the difference IF they would close by a certain date. we figured we would help them close the gap and close their deal. Meanwhile, we HAD to move for my new job and were paying mortgages on the old house and the new one we were living in.

They decided to take the deal we offered, but then applied for a "creative" loan product instead of selling their home. That "creative" loan wound up closing 3 weeks after the agreed upon deadline. And they never said, "Sorry" or anything.

We left NO documentation abut the appliances and accidentally forgot to leave them the garage door openers. That really was an accident ... But I ignored their emails asking for us to send them those things. Our realtor was a total jerk about the closing as well (relo company, never trust them).

So yeah, replacement remotes probably cost them a whopping $75 ... But I'd be damned before I spent any money to ship those remotes back to that state.

In your case, I wouldn't patch a nail hole and when it comes to "broom clean" feel free to leave as much soap scum in the showers as you want (and do take the toilet paper). I know it sounds vindictive ... But dammit, buying a house is the LARGEST transaction most people will ever do, and some buyers treat car salesmen better than the people they buy a house from. I never understood it - the biggest transaction that happens between two people (as opposed to a person dealing with a huge corporation) and some buyers can't even remember that they are human, nevermind the person they are buying the house from.

The agent is having a grievance filed against her unless my attorney advises me not to.

Yes these petty digs would be against the new owner. However, the buyer's Realtor acts on the part of the new owner. I have said to a couple of people that I thought perhaps the buyer did not know the implications of what the Realtor did, and they have all said "Don't you believe it".

I will probably leave the property as I usually do, I am just playing out scenarios in my head.

Juliekcmo, you reminded me of that grizzly scene from that Urich made for TV movie many years ago, where the parents of the murdered wife, though they believed the husband innocent, stayed in the house where the murder had taken place. They went to bed, turned off the lights and the walls all glowed of smeared blood and hand prints and stuff from the luminal that had been sprayed earlier....yikes!

First of all, I don't think I have ever seen you snark (if that is a verb) on this forum. I think it is one thing that distinguishes you. You are unfailingly kind and polite, as well as enormously talented and helpful.

I would not go out of my way to help the agent or new owners (especially if you do believe that like works with like). If you feel mistreated, killing with kindness it a bit too much! But I would not go out of my way to damage them. either. I think bad deeds, done to us or by us, are equally corrosive to your ... I guess soul is the word although I am not a bit religious.

I would also file a grievance, unless your atty suggests not to. It would be a good deed - if this person is in fact misbehaving you may be able to prevent her from harming others.

Mtn thank you for saying so, but you must have missed some melt-downs I have had on the conversations side, as well as in kitchens and, I think, buying and selling a home. But I don't think I draw first blood in those cases.

ooh good, can you link to those? LOL

I admit to being amused by some of the skirmishes I've seen!

Someone mentioned you had to leave the lightbulbs - not true. Light fixtures have to stay (unless excluded in contract) but lightbulbs are not included in that. Just like curtain rods screwed into the walls should stay, but you can take your drapes that are just hanging on them.

Let them move in and find out the place is dark as the sun starts to set after moving all day!!! Yeah, I like to plot revenge too but in the end I wouldn't stoop to their level.

One could technically leave bulbs in all the fixtures. Just burnt out ones.

I'm reminded of the urban legend of the spurned wife and the curtain rods

And all the door knobs could be sticky to the touch.Or a just a tad loose. The screws for the curtain rods could need a bit of tightening too.
Just sayin'.

If you lived in Florida you could put a frog in the toilet bowl and no one could blame you!! They come in through the sewer pipes and can make a real mess!

Karma. That's all. Just leave the place and let karma take it's place. But if you sabotage it some way-you KNOWINGLY leave things badly, well...I'm just saying.

Leave these in the fridge?

Must get off Pinterest and GW and go to bed. Obviously getting punchy...

Now THAT is creepy, but their reaction to finding that in the fridge would be priceless! Of course, if you did something like that you would need to be moving far far away from your old neighborhood!

Take ALL the light bulbs or replace with 25 watt in EVERY fixture - including the fridge - if it conveys.

The sleaziest thing EVER done to us in selling a house was the day of closing - hours before closing, the real estate agent/buyer called to say that she decided it was too much money and was reducing her offer by $10,000.00 (it was an agent purchasing the property). I think she thought we'd already spent the money.......and NEEDED to sell. Needless to say we didn't sell it to her.

AND a lesson was learned - don't EVER consider it sold until the dotted line is signed and the money is in your hand.

Good luck to you!

Jeez, why would you want to move into a house with such bad karma hanging over your head. When we bought our house, the previous owners had lived her for over 60 years, raised their family here and it had been the hub for all extended family. Part of the reason they chose us as buyers (it was a seller's market), was that we were pregnant and planning to have this as our forever house. Members of the family still drop by to say hi to the old house and tell us how happy they are to know another family is carrying on the tradition. I can't imagine if we'd moved in with our family under a cloud of ill will instead of with blessings of joy. What a bummer for your buyers. I agree with pesky - karma will get them.

I'm with pesky. Karma is a b*tch, and I would like to keep mine in tact regardless of what I think someone else has done. File your grievance, but don't ask for anything negative to darken your door by doing things that really are intentionally detrimental.

I would stomp around and crab and moan for days and plan extravagant and intricate methods of ticking them off. Wiley Coyote would have nothing on me- I'd be devising booby traps and horrific odors, arranging deliveries of manure, rigging the house to fall apart- I would have a field day... in my head.

But when push comes to shove I am afraid of karma.
I have done a couple of intentionally mean things in my life and karma has always been right there to bite me in the butt as soon as the next day.

File the grievance and let the process play out on its own.
Although switching out all of the light bulbs to extremely dim ones would feel pretty good.

Ultimately I would not be able to do anything at all negative.

It would feel like I was doing something bad to my house, which somehow is an extension of me.

But I even have a hard time believing Karma is so direct: I know some very nice people who have had very bad things happen to them, and I have a really hard time believing that they are getting payback for something wrong that they have done. They would have to be evil to be deserving of the karmic punishment they are getting and I can't buy that.

Basically my thoughts are more along the lines of "life isn't fair".

So I will probably play out some fantasies in my head (which is sometimes dangerous enough) and go along spackling screw holes and touching up paint.

Pal, by reading your posts I know you are a responsible person, and would not act on those impulses, you know it would not be worth it in the long run. But if it were me I wouldn't do anything extra that I had not committed to previously.

I actually find a lot of carthesis in just playing with these ideas of revenge in my head, knowing I would never actually act on them....the old saran wrap the toilet seat....
;)

I can sympathize with you, but I'm not so sure that the underlying assumption, i.e. that the buyers are in cohorts with their agent, is necessarily the case. I'd go after the agent, who's supposedly the professional in that transaction.

Leave the paint, and let the new owner spend some time spackling. No negative karma there... and you haven't gone out of your way to do anything - beyond or bad.

This post was edited by allison0704 on Mon, Dec 10, 12 at 9:42

I'm normally a lurker here, but had to make an appearance to say you really are a good guy.

Anyone who is spackling and doing touch-up painting - inside a closet! - is a really, really good guy. :)

I'd fantasize about doing all kinds of creative paybacks too...but in the end, I bet you leave the place in pristine condition.

At this point, I'd take the high road with the buyers, but save some wrath for their realtor...after the sale is closed, of course.

You're a good man, Pal.

Our dealings with our own realtor almost made us file a grievance, but when we finally got the keys to this house and didn't have to deal with her (or the flaky sellers) anymore, we just took a deep breath, drank a glass of wine, and got busy on the house.

It was one of those transactions that by the time it was all over, we weren't sure what to expect when we walked in and it was ours. Because of their shenanigans, we had to wait a week between the time we signed the closing docs and when we got the keys.

And as much as we felt slightly scammed by all of them, when we moved in, we found all of the appliance manuals in the house, the place was relatively clean, leftover paint in the garage, and they had left behind some interesting hand made pottery that I'm still using.

I would do the absolute minimum that you can to walk out with a clear conscience, and not one tiny bit more. Fill the nail holes if you must, but I would not be leaving them with TP and paper towels.

I wouldn't do anything to cause them problems, but I wouldn't go out of my way to spackle and paint either, and I certainly wouldn't be leaving them a care package!

When we bought this house, we rented it back to the previous owners for a couple of months. They were supposed to be out on the 31st, and we would move in on the 1st. When we showed up with the moving van, they were still in the house. She was calmly making breakfast for her family! I wanted to scream "get out of my house", but since they were staying in the neighborhood, I had no choice to smile and tell her it wasn't a big deal, but since my movers were on the clock, they were going to have to move our stuff in even though they weren't out yet. She didn't worry about holes and paint touch ups; she left me a dirty kitchen with dried egg on the stove!

I have a friend who stipulates that the house she is buying must be completely empty - no paint, no hardware etc. She knows she's going to change everything and doesn't want to fool with disposing of it.

A glass of milk hidden behind the fridge:) ?

Oh boy are you all making putting my house up for sale even more dreaded than the already in place dread. This is the longest I have ever lived in one place and things have changed so much. The whole time my kids were growing up we bought, remodeled and sold the homes every two years. I sold the last couple myself with no agent and with buyers that were a real PITA. In my area of Florida it's still very much a buyers market, they want it all and they want it all for nothing. I know this is not going to be fun! We don't have to sell though, we would just like something smaller...might be here for a while...

Pal, we know you wouldn't do anything negative, as most of us here wouldn't ( I take the high road always, the low one can come back and bite you in the ass). But you do need something to entertain you while you fix up the house to those specs, right? It's just funt to think about.heh heh!

The glass of milk reminded me of years ago when Mom & Dad had a party. Mom was cleaning up the next day and kept smelling stale cigar. She emptied the ashtrays, vacuumed everything and still the smell. She finally had to call her friend Frank and ask him where he put it...he finally remembered he shoved the butt in a beer can which he then tucked behind the sofa leg against the wall!

Spackling? Dear lord. Just leave it broom clean. Which isn't that clean, by the way.

I doubt you'll go far with a grievance. The way that business works, the only people allowed to file grievances are other real estate agents, and they've all agreed not to file grievances on each other.

Pepto walls may seem tempting, but in reality the buyer and her pit bull would just throw a hissy at walkthrough, and they'd refuse to close unless you deducted thousands from the sale price to pay for a professional repainting. Yes, they'd legally be wrong but this is America and what matters is having the upper hand, not being in the right. It's very '50s to think otherwise.

I am primarily angry at the Buyer's Realtor, of course.

But the Buyer's Realtor approached me once about a client who wanted to buy in my complex and I am not sure exactly whether there was a real client or she was marketing herself. (This was a different apartment, not this one.)

My "not a good person" meter went on full alert in that meeting. I have not met the buyer so perhaps he is a complete innocent or does not have the pessimism, paranoia, misanthropy or whatever that I have. But my feeling is that her personality must not have bugged him, so maybe he is a bit like that himself.

But the thing that *really* annoys me, is that it made me upset at my own Realtor who I have known for 17 years and worked with on several transactions as well as looked at dozens of houses with. Because she has some liability in this for not picking up on the clause in the agreement and letting me sign it. She says she has not slept well since this happened and I believe her. I don't like that someone else had a negative impact on our relationship however fleeing the impact was.

Ah yes, those elusive clauses in the agreement....I was reading over the contract when we sold Mom's condo and the one that really floored me was I was supposed to guarantee that there'd been no death, murder, suicide, or serious crime ever in that condo....like how the heck was I supposed to know. I had them add, "to the best of seller's knowledge" on that one. Ridiculous.

Realtors! Sold my condo 4 years ago in San Diego,CA in a horrific market. It was on the market exactly 3 months, and buyer definitely wanted the closing before Christmas as well as myself. One day before the closing day was to take place she backed out , her realtor said she was ineffective in making decisions as she was 50+ and her dh had made all decisions during the marriage. I 'called her bluff' and told her realtor I had consulted an attorney and she would lose her down pmt of $100K~she decided she had 'made a mistake' and wanted the condo. One week before Christmas she moved in making both my realtor and hers happy since they're families could now have a Christmas, and both realtors thanked me profusely for being so patient and also allowing the buyer to come to the condo *9* times to 'take measurements'.

Now here's the kicker, did I get a thank you card, Christmas card, bottle of wine, or any sort of 'consolation prize' for 'being nice'~not a thing. I sent each an email on the one year anniversary of the sale because it had been knawing on me all that time. I never heard a thing back form my agent, but the buyers agent sent an email with what sounded like a sincere apology, and the excuse the buyer caused her to come close to having a nervous breakdown. She was a single Mother and thanked me for 'saving her Christmas'.

I will NEVER use KW again, no matter what state i'm in, since it left such a bad taste in my mouth. Neither agent really had to 'work' at selling the condo as it was in pristine condition and 'staged ready'.

Anyway, I can understand your wanting 'retaliation' against the agent. There's just a certain satisfaction when you feel you've bent over backwards yet it wasn't enough.

It would be tempting. Very tempting.

Our last house went to PITA buyers. I gritted my teeth and left behind the beautiful custom copper pot racks that were the finishing touches on the kitchen we had remodeled just over a year before (unexpected job relocation) even though they were not technically included in the contract. My realtor thanked me over and over for putting up with those buyers and not making a fuss and leaving the house clean and in very good shape.

As you have already concluded, much fun as it is to think of creative revenge, there is a great deal of satisfaction to be had in doing the right thing even when the other side is behaving very badly.

If I were you I would just HAVE to know if they buyers were aware of the issue. I would call and ask them. I could never blame someone without knowing for sure that they are "guilty". But once I know they are guilty, well...Hell hath no fury.

Still I would limit my actions to withholding any extras. I wouldn't take any affirmative negative action. See above comment on "Hell hath no fury", lol.

When we put our New Orleans home on the market, our real estate agent announced one day that she would represent both seller and buyer. Okaaay, we thought, we'll see how this goes... The buyer she was representing, though, was a former political big wig who was used to intimidating, manipulating, etc., and it was soon clear that our agent was jumping to his marching orders. The politician's wife loved our home & wanted it badly, and the politician practically caused our agent to have a nervous breakdown trying to get our house for his wife at his price.

We wouldn't budge on the price. We didn't have to. Another agent had let slip that our house was one of two in the price range in our very desirable area, and the other house wasn't a nice as ours. So we knew there was no competition. Plus DH is a commodity trader: Mr. Politician may have been a fine local power player, but DH's skills were keenly honed after years in the big leagues. Also the politician found out there wasn't anything else he could use against us: our company had left town, he had no influence over our corporate attorney, we had no local loans, no connections to manipulate.

After a week of hysterics from our agent (and calm responses from us), we sold the home at our list price to the politician. The wife was happy, but the politician was livid that he didn't get a deal on the house, especially since he couldn't manipulate two nobodies like us. He sold the house a month after he bought it because he couldn't live in a reminder of his "failure". The poor wife... Later, the agent said she had never felt intimidation like that from a customer. The man was a raging bully to her & she caved in on her buyer's commission to get him out of her hair.

And while we didn't have issues that time, we decided that dual agency is something to avoid in the future.

I did a dual agency with my Realtor once.

Her boss actually owned the property I was buying and there were competing offers both at asking price. (He would not accept anything below the price he had set that was clear from the get go)

Anyway being a condo, there had been assessments and option one had been to pay it all off at once, which I had done, and option two had been to string it along on a payment plan which he had done, being a slum, I mean landlord on this property.

I did not feel that I should have to pay the remaining assessment (some $300) out of my pocket since I had paid it.

He was completely ready to accept the other offer because they would pay the $300 without even knowing what it was for.

This despite the fact that he was dual agency on my sale, but not on the other offer. He would have made more commission on my total transactions, than the other buyers single transaction.

But he didn't like being told what to do.

My Realtor said she would completely understand if I walked away over the $300 on principle, but that it was a good time to buy this unit (it was).

I did buy it and ponied up the $300 which he probably spent on lunch (he had a 7-8 figure annual income). She left that firm after nearly twenty years but will not discuss in the vaguest of terms what caused her to leave.

So did you close yet??

We closed on our Philly house last month and our buyers were VILE.

Our realtor pulled me aside during the excrutiatingly awful closing to tell me that in 10 years of real estate she'd never disliked a buyer more.

We had planned on getting champagne and flowers for them, but they were so mean that we didn't bother. The only 'bad' thing I did was to take the toilet rolls with me on the way out.

The only amusing part was that we ended up with no power in our new house after Sandy and as the Philly house was staged, we moved in there for the week while we waited for power to come back. One of the things we really wanted to rescue was my frozen breast milk. You should have seen the buyers faces when they opened the freezer to see bagged breast milk. Apparently it was priceless.

The closing is scheduled in January.

I do not know whether it will take place as planned because the closing on my Buyer's property is scheduled the day before.

So HE has a signed offer, but they are waiting on mortgage commitment because the buyers of THEIR property needs to get a mortgage and that property is a Co-op, and very few companies even do mortgages for Co-ops.

So it is all proceeding, but all out of my control. We will also be living virtually downstairs from the new owner for a few months (in a rented unit) so I have to be nice.

On the flip side, which is a year and a half ago, the Sellers of the property I bought were apparently problematic, not for ME, but I think they tortured their Realtor. I believe there were internal arguments regarding how the proceeds of the sale were to be dispersed within the family so ALL of the paperwork changed at one point.

Then there was the bathroom that was put in between the time I saw the house and the time my offer was accepted on the house. It's appallingly done, and my offer and the competing offer both wanted that bathroom remodeling to STOP, but it would have affected the appraisals at that point. It got to the point that there was no paint left from the original staging and the Realtor told me he was going to try and figure out the color and paint it himself, That is how it ended up between him and the sellers.

The seller's Realtor, I get the impression, may have walked away with near zero commission on that sale. I don't know whether the half bath to full bath reno was his idea or what but I have a feeling he ended up paying for it out of his commission. It worked out for me because I was able to rent it as a 2 bath house. But he really had a depressed look on his face when I said that bathroom was hitting the dumpster as soon as a new plan was drawn up. It seems so wasteful but it is Completely unsalvageable.

We had a neighbor back in Georgia who remodeled several houses in an older area, he did a nice job and was the cause of lots of young families moving back into the neighborhood.

As part of a renovation, he wanted to add on to a smaller house and was told he could not because other homes in the area were on the historic registry -

I don't know all the details but here is how he painted the house right before he put it on the market. Needless to say, it did not sell but sat there for months and months...

{{!gwi}}

Did you ever say (elsewhere) what the clause is? I'm terribly curious, but am not sure why no one else is. :)

I'm sorry for whatever it is, though. I have a feeling you will take the high road.

lolauren I am curious of course. I just figured there was some reasons the specifics weren't offered, so no sense asking, lol.

Laura, in the suburbs here, a CVS (drugstore chain) bought a property on which sat an 18th c. building. Across the street sat another 18th c. building, originally a coach stop. It is so close to the road that trucks routinely scrape the stucco off the upper corner of the building in the vicinity of the women's lavatory.

First CVS wanted to tear down the first 18th c. building but then they agreed to move it. The CVS made a mild attempt to blend in.

The inn has been painted just like that house since the controversy started.