9 Housewarming Gifts Nutmeggers Wish Guests Would Stop Bringing

You want your housewarming gift to say, “Congratulations on the new place.”

But sometimes the receiver sees it and thinks, “Here’s one more thing to deal with.”

These are the housewarming gifts Nutmeggers wish guests would stop bringing.

1. Brand-New Knife Sets

A brand-new knife set is one of the more common housewarming gifts guests bring, usually still sealed in the box.

Old folklore says a gifted blade cuts the friendship between giver and receiver, a superstition with roots across Britain, Ireland and much of Europe.

Immigrants carried the belief to America generations ago, long before anyone could trace it back to one single country.

The fix is simple.

Believers hand back a single coin, turning the gift into a purchase instead of a gift, so the friendship stays intact.

Many hosts would rather skip the ritual and open something they don’t have to pay for twice.

2. Wine or Liquor

A housewarming bottle of wine never makes it onto a Connecticut grocery store shelf.

State law keeps it inside licensed package stores only.

That turns a housewarming bottle into a special stop, not a grab on the way over.

Not every host drinks.

Lizzie Post, co-president of the Emily Post Institute, warns against gifting alcohol anyway, since a giver rarely knows where a host stands with drinking or which flavors they’d pick.

A plate of cookies causes nobody any trouble, and store-bought works just as well as homemade.

3. Houseplants

A houseplant gift is only as good as the light it gets, and the light changes more than many gift-givers realize.

The state sits far enough north that the sun sits noticeably lower in the sky by December than it does in July.

A window that gets full sun in summer won’t necessarily get the same light in winter.

A room that looks dim in October can turn brighter by January, once the deciduous trees outside drop their leaves and stop blocking the window.

That’s the trap.

A brand-new homeowner hasn’t learned any of that yet, and a houseplant becomes one more living thing to keep alive while moving boxes still block half the house.

A low-light succulent skips the guesswork if a plant still feels like the right call.

4. Store-Bought Wall Art

Older homes turn a wall-art gift into a guessing game, with deep windowsills, chimney bumps and the occasional slanted ceiling nook nobody quite knows what to do with.

A framed print rarely helps.

Artwork is one of the harder gifts to get right sight unseen.

Size, framing and color all depend on a wall the giver has usually never stood in front of.

A picture frame lands better, especially with a printed photo of the two of you tucked inside.

An empty frame works fine too, and so does a small serving platter or a set of coasters.

5. Strongly Scented Candles

Winters keep windows shut for months, so a heavily fragranced candle has nowhere to go once it’s burning inside a closed-up house.

Nobody complains about a gift.

Fragrance sensitivity is a documented trigger for headaches, congestion and other reactions.

A study of university students in Saudi Arabia found that roughly one in four scented-candle users reported symptoms like headaches or shortness of breath.

Complaints like these aren’t unique to one country.

A host who reacts to a scent usually just lets the candle sit in a closet, unlit and unmentioned.

An unscented candle skips the whole problem and still looks nice on a mantel.

6. Loose Cut Flowers

Connecticut’s housing market moves fast right now, with homes selling in a median 39 days and more than half going for above the asking price.

Nobody has time to unpack, let alone hunt down a vase.

Flowers without one hand a host a chore: Finding a container, trimming stems, refilling water while half the boxes sit taped shut.

The vase never surfaces.

A bouquet that already comes inside a container skips the whole problem.

7. Chemical Drain Cleaner

Gift baskets built for new homeowners often tuck a bottle of drain cleaner inside the cleaning kit.

It’s the wrong bottle.

Roughly 40% of Connecticut residents run household wastewater through a septic system, according to the state’s Green Bank.

Chemical drain cleaners are hard on the bacteria a septic tank depends on.

The Environmental Protection Agency recommends boiling water or a drain snake instead on a home with septic.

A cleaning basket without it still counts as thoughtful.

8. Single-Purpose Kitchen Gadgets

A single-purpose kitchen gadget is a common housewarming gift.

It piles up fast in a lot of kitchens that were never built with them in mind.

The Connecticut Mirror’s review of Census estimates found that just one in ten Connecticut homes have gone up since 2000, among the lowest shares of any state in the country.

Many kitchens here were laid out long before an air fryer or panini press was ever invented.

Storage rarely stretches that far.

Organizing expert Shira Gill points to single-use gadgets like avocado slicers, garlic presses and egg separators as the biggest source of kitchen clutter.

Many sit unused for months at a time, she says.

A cutting board earns its counter space instead.

9. Surprise Pets

A surprise pet is the housewarming gift likeliest to backfire on a host.

It happens fast.

It can walk a new homeowner or renter straight into a lease or homeowners association violation before the boxes are even unpacked.

Etiquette guidance on this one doesn't hedge: A pet is a responsibility, a living being that deserves thought before it moves into someone else's home.