What is the most bizarre thing you have seen during a home inspection?
Shana Acquisto, broker of a real estate here with Leigh Warren talking all about inspections today. Lee is with Prospect Inspector, and he has been around for a long time, is great with our industry as a whole.
He gives back to our industry in so many ways. And you know, I want to talk about right now, I know I’ve seen a lot of crazy things over the years in showing homes, but I bet you have as well.
And I invite you guys to all give Lee a follow on social media, especially Facebook, because he puts these photos out there. If things that he comes across sometimes and it’s so funny and it just kind of lightens up, you know, this daunting inspection process.
So it’s really it’s really fun to see. So I know it’s hard to come up with like one thing. So let’s come up with a couple of things that you the craziest things that you’ve seen during an inspection.
Well, and on my Facebook , where I put most of the stuff and I do it in such a way that I’m not there to say, use me, use me, use my services or whatnot.
I’ve never been that guy. I try to look at as more of an educational opportunity so that if people want to share it with their friends or clients or whatnot that they can, it doesn’t feel like they’re, you know. And you know, how’s your car or your car’s extended warranty doing?
I don’t want it to feel like that, so I try to keep it education. But sometimes it’s it can be funny. Yeah, I’ve been doing this for for quite some time. You do see some, some goofy stuff. Some things I can’t do aren’t really appropriate for for this setting.
I want one to own a car. I’m going to see if we can share it. The last one that I sent you, if not, we can go through a couple of these that are kind of kind of funny.
Yeah, let’s look at this one first. Well, first off, guys, we should all know that when you are going to have a home inspection on your listing, you need to talk to your seller and say.
Hey, the inspectors got to be able to get in there and check the attic space or any mechanicals that could be in the garage or electrical panel sprinkler system, whatever that may be.
I mean, come on. Yeah, because we’re not allowed to move anything. So an inspector comes in, you know, if there’s something in front of an electrical panel, we’re not allowed to move that because it’s a huge liability for us.
And I know that sounds like a silly thing, but I’ve actually run across where people will put intentionally put a broken table in front of an electrical panel.
You pick up that table move and one of the legs falls off, and it’s no longer a $30 Walmart cable. It’s a priceless family heirloom that I’m now responsible to replace.
People do that. They’ve set inspectors up all the time. So as a result, it’s not that the inspector is being lazy, just we’re not allowed to move any of their personal items. That’s there.
So there’s a listing is you’ve got to make sure that you’re prepared for that. I actually have a PDF that has a list of things for listing agents to give to their sellers to prepare them for inspection dates.
That’s kind of a breakdown. So if you remind me, I will email that to you if you want, but you can just put that in your listing packet so they can be ready for inspection, day and whatnot.
But yeah, you got to. Everything’s got to be accessible and people don’t always think about, you know, the garage. That’s a big the attic of the two.
That was funny because I mean, I don’t know if you’re going to sell your home and this is what it looks like. So, all right, let’s go to the next one on car of the vent. This one kind of cracked me up. It’s like a wall decor.
Or what is this?
Yeah, it’s what is that behind the vent?
You know, I think it was there was a clean out and they just kind of cover it up, but use a vent register to kind of cover it up.
And this was actually there was a I think this is in a room that had no other AC vent. It was like a sunroom that they built off of the outside. Nobody will notice this. But yeah, it’s something we can count it as square footage.
It’s air conditioning. Absolutely.
So funny. All right. And then Omkar, I’m not sure if you can share the last one that I emailed you. I don’t know if it’s really appropriate,
But we’ll give them a second, if not, it’s OK. But I do see all sorts of stuff. At least you can go to Lee’s Facebook page.
Yeah, it’s it’s hilarious, but a lot of what I post on there is new construction things that I find in new construction. I can post all sorts of stuff on pre- owned stuff.
But new construction tends to be more comical to me because the builders will sit and tell buyers, you don’t need an inspection, they’ll do everything they can’t talk about.
Yeah, we have our own inspectors. We hire third party inspectors. Plus there’s a city inspector that you’re absolutely wasting your money to have an inspection done.
And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone into a house. I turn on the shower upstairs and the water comes through the light fixture in the kitchen.
You turn on the faucet on the outside and no water comes out of the faucet, but it shoots through the air through the break. I’ve had air conditioning systems that weren’t even connected, so the water is dripping onto the attic ceiling.
A lot of times in your shower pans, they will actually, when they’re washing the grout and everything when they do, the tile shower happens. It goes into the trap, which is in the concrete, in the foundation itself, goes in the trap and up and out.
Well, they don’t run enough water through and then that trap the concrete solidifies and it completely clogs that thing up and inside about three months.
You get a little bit of hair or whatnot, and your drain is completely clogged. Oh my gosh. And the only way to fix it is to drill into the slab and redo that feature.
That’s crazy. So if you have a client that is going to build a proper a home, yes, you can get a third party inspector to come out and don’t be deterred by them saying, you know, don’t let them do that to you and kind of bully you into not getting that because you have the right to do that.
Some. I don’t remember who the builders were exactly, but there were a couple that said you could not
Do that, but there and there are others. There are a couple that say you cannot have an inspection or something, say you can only inspect once throughout the entire process.
And then there are others that say, No, no, we welcome third party inspectors absolutely love to have them. And then the day that you want to have the inspection, then they say your inspectors needs to sign this form.
And it doesn’t seem like much to a buyer, but the form states that you have to have $2 million of insurance, which is ridiculous. The state requires $100000.
There’s what? There’s nothing invasive that we’re doing that’s going to cause two million dollars worth of damage, but they’re doing it to they’re basically putting all these restrictions on to try and prevent inspections from happening without saying we’re preventing inspections from happening.
But no one says you can only inspect between seven and three minutes by Friday. The builder rep has to be there the entire time.
You can’t communicate to your client without copying the builder on anything to do with the house. You cannot go on the roof, you can’t pull a cover on an electrical panel.
And oh, by the way, if you get hurt, injured or killed, even through the gross negligence of the builder, you waive all your rights to hold the builder accountable. Ok, wow.
So they do try to try to sway you against doing that. But you know, this is your this is a huge purchase. You know, and I think you have the right to do what you feel comfortable with doing.
So just know when you go to a builder with a client, and that’s important that you ask them how that process works in the beginning before you sign a contract. So, OK, well, thank you. We’re going to wrap everything up. My pleasure.
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