Being an inspector is like being a technician, a psychologist, and a teacher all in one,” says Chad Borah, an inspector with Pillar to Post. “We’re dealing with clients at a pivotal moment in their life, and within the transaction itself. They’ve experienced the high of getting a contract on a home, and now there’s the anxiety: What is this inspector going to tell me?”
But inspectors have their own anxiety: What the hell am I going to find next?
Borah says his worst experience started when “a property manager—and I use that term lightly—wanted to know if I had any Vicks VapoRub.” Borah soon found out why, and says “the end result was me being sick on the sidewalk.” The nausea was only partly because of the stench, he adds. “It was more an emotional, angry response: How do people let other people live that way?”
Luckily, most of what Borah sees is more amusing than disgusting. And he’ll take any chance to teach “what fewer and fewer people understand: how to take care of the systems that support their homes.” The do-it-yourself nightmares are usually plumbing-related, he says. “For some reason, everybody thinks they can do plumbing. There are times it’s hard to understand why there are so few pipes, or so many.”
Paul MacNeil, owner of Apple Inspections, once did his usual extreme test: Turn on all faucets for 10 minutes, run the dishwasher, and flush the toilets, to simulate a full house with lots of company. He was in the basement discussing the test with the potential buyer when he noticed a small stain forming on the drywall ceiling, followed by a drip. Thirty seconds later, most of the ceiling—followed by about 20 gallons of water—crashed down on their heads. “Needless to say,” he adds, “repairs and remediation were needed.”
In another inspection, MacNeil noticed a wavy ceiling above the shower in the master bathroom and urged his client to investigate. When the ceiling was opened up, the cause was revealed: a plumbing drain line connection that was dripping into a rusted metal pie pan. The proper fix would have been as easy as pie, he says. “It is impossible to understand why people do some of the things they do.”
A good inspector is a natural skeptic, Borah says. He keeps an eye out for “the overly ambitious seller” who’s trying to disguise what previously happened in the house. “When we smell fresh paint, we recognize that a house certainly shows better that way, but we are looking very carefully at what’s been painted,” he says. In case there’s a leak that hasn’t bled through the Kilz yet, he uses an infrared camera to detect any moisture that might be there.
MacNeil pulled out his infrared camera when his client wanted to track a strong odor with no obvious source. “An anomaly was detected on the interior wall surface,” he reports. A contractor cut a small hole and found a bird’s nest and several birds. “It appears the seller had replaced some siding and trapped the suspects.”
Not every problem is invisible to the naked eye. In one unfinished basement, MacNeil found a pool table. About 3 feet away, on the wall behind the table, was the main electrical panel—uncovered, with all the wires and breakers exposed. “You had to be real careful taking a shot,” he says, “because it was pretty easy to put your hand and the end of the pool cue into live electrical wires. One mistake, and the other guy wins.”
