Apologies if this has been discussed before but I'd be interested to hear people's moving-in experiences, both good and bad.

I've only moved into a house once, that was in Nov 2000 and it was a day that I will never forget... It was all okay at first - my mother came around to help me clean the place and we got quite a lot done. After a while though we were getting a bit cold, so as the gas was switched off we went outside to find the gas meter. Found that, turned on the gas, did a bit of tidying up in the garden for a few minutes and returned to find the house filled with gas. Well, I had a panic (big one!) and we did the usual switch off the gas, run round madly and open the windows thing. We then looked for the cause of the problem and discovered that when the previous owner had removed his gas cooker, he had disconnected it from the gas pipe and had not bothered to seal the pipe afterwards. As soon as we turned the gas on it had started to pour into the kitchen from the open pipe. We were lucky that nothing bad happened to us, but even now when I think of it I feel furious. I can't comprehend that someone could leave a house as a potential deathtrap for their buyer. Still, even if we had been able to keep the gas on it wouldn't have mattered because I later found that the boiler didn't work and it took me several days to get British Gas to come out. This was not much fun in the middle of winter!

After that scare all was fine for a while, but about 5pm I left my mother alone at the house while I went to B&Q for supplies. While I was there she called me to say that the electric had gone off and the house alarm had gone off, and she couldn't stop it. It was so loud that I could hardly hear her on the phone. Agggh! I rushed back as quickly as I could, thinking stressed thoughts about how the new neighbours would be hating me - only there a few hours and already I was causing mayhem. We later discovered that the electric was on a card meter, and the kindly vendor had used up all of the money on it and almost all of the emergency supply before leaving. As soon as the lights went on and a few kettles were boiled, the electric was used up and this caused the alarm (which had a battery backup) to start off. All I knew at the time though was that it was pitch dark and somehow I had to find the piece of paper with the alarm combination on it which I'd left somewhere earlier, and turn the darn thing off. There was no light at all, not even a street light, so in the end I had to drive my car onto the front lawn and up the garden path in order to project its headlights into the house. We finally got the alarm turned off then, by which time I wished I'd never bought the house! Basically therefore, it was not a good day. Next time, I am looking for a smooth and hassle free moving experience. Is this too much to hope for?!