Mistakes Sellers Make: Don't Forget To Flush and Put The Lid Down

It is amazing what can happen when preparing to sell your home. As a seller you agreed to not be present, clean up the dished from the night before and take care of the pets. Everything seems to be in place. However, just like a good real estate agent does before leaving an open house you check for a few things. 

Preparation

For example, in preparation to show I would suggest turning on the lights, putting everything of value in a safe place, removing any new clutter, emptying the trash if necessary and please check the toilets and close the lids. Yes this is not the most pleasant of subjects but this is a reality. It is worth your time to flush each toilet before you leave or else....

The Showing

The agent arrived with his sellers. They toured the house and were very pleased. This house was clean. If anything it had too much removed and almost bordered on being a little sterile. The upstairs had this great game room with three good sized bedrooms. The downstairs was refinished with hardwood floors. As the agent and his clients were discussing the benefits of the house, they were standing right by the half bath downstairs. Since the last home they were interested in had some plumbing issues they said well let's just do a little test. 

They go into the bathroom and it was very clean. They were impressed. They decide to run the water and flush the toilet. They open the lid and look (no there was nothing leftover in the toilet. Get your mind right.) All was clean and tidy. So they start the water running and flush. All of a sudden the toilet starts to overflow. The agent sees that the laundry room is right across from the bathroom and grabs a towel. The flow of the water subsides and the agent is kind enough to clean up the water as he felt responsible for causing the water issue. Luckily this was all clean water. 

Well it turns out that someone had stuffed a bunch of toilet paper in the toilet. Nobody knows who did it but this could have been easily avoided by simply flushing the toilet and making sure it worked before leaving the home to have it shown. This could have happened to anyone. In this case nobody owned up to it. Also this did not cause the loss of the sale. The rest of the house had the buyers sold and when the reason was discovered it did not deter them from putting in a reasonable offer that the seller accepted.