West Georgia Home Inspection, LLC

In this section I wanted to relate to you some of the strange, but true, things I have found on my inspections over the years.  Remember that the folks buying these homes, my clients, had already been through these homes, often many times, and had not seen these issues.  This is why it always amazes me when people say "I don't need a home inspection".  Really?  I will update this section from time to time as I find more things that I want to share with you.

1. Baby pool and buckets in the attic.  I wish I had taken a photo of this one.  I went up into the attic of the home I was inspecting.  The seller was there at the time.  I found a small blue baby pool in the attic, like the kind you get at Walmart.  The pool was obviously placed there to catch a water leak.  I see this a lot.  It is usually a pan or a bucket.  I asked the seller of the home why there was a baby pool in his attic, when he had nothing else stored there.  He said that is where he keeps the baby pool when he is not using it.  Really?  So you fold this thing up and stuff it up the set of pull down steps just to store it in the attic?  He said "yep".  I then asked him why there was some water in the pool.  He said there must have been some water left in it from the last time he used it.  Really?  The buyers had seen the pool, but did not realize what it meant.  The house needed a new roof that cost $8000.  The clients would have bought this house and then had to sink $8000 into it when they could have gotten the seller to pay for it.  Good thing they had a home inspection.  I did take some photos later of buckets and pots I see in attics.

2.  Car jack in the crawl space.  This is another one that I have seen several times.  In older homes, the wood that was used to build them was not pressure treated, so it is open to termite damage, and often has it.  This caused the foundation and floor support beam to "sag".  The owner decided to "jack up" the sagging beams with a car jack rather than fix it properly.  The photo below is from a home in Newnan Georgia that was built in 1925.  Most buyers don't want to go into the crawl space of a home, so they would have never seen this.

                              Car jack holding the floor up.

3. Sink hole under the home.  I inspected this home in Carrollton Georgia in an area that was a lake many years ago and filled in to make a sub division.  The owner was an elderly lady who was selling her long time residence to go into an assisted living home.  When I went under the home I noticed that I could see daylight coming in from under the foundation around the edges of the home.  There was a large sink hole in the center of the lot under the home.  No mention of this was made in the disclosure statement (none of the issues I am describing here were ever in the disclosure statement).  I asked the elderly lady about the sink hole and she said "oh yea, I have had that filled in several times, but it keeps coming back".  I asked her why she did not put this in the disclosure statement for her house.  She said " well no one would buy my house if I did that!".  Yea, right.

4. Large foundation crack.  This is another crawl space story.  I was inspecting this $320,000 home in Villa Rica Georgia.  The home was very clean and recently redone, with granite counter tops, high end appliances, etc.  This home had a small crawl space that was difficult to enter.  I always check crawl spaces.  I found a huge crack in the block foundation of this home.  You could stick your arm through it because it was so big.  The foundation has settled because of water entering in the outside front of the home where run off from the driveway was accumulating.  The buyers did not see this because they were taken up with all the pretty stuff in the home.  I asked the seller why this was not in his disclosure statement.  He said he had a structure engineer look at it years ago and told him it was ok the way it was.  He had no documentation to prove that.  Estimated cost to repair the foundation and divert the water was $40,000.

5. Rat in the trap.  It is not uncommon for people to have squirrels in their attic, but you would think you would at least check the trap and empty it when you have your house for sale, let alone on the day that you know the home inspector is coming.  Not so in this case.  This unlucky critter (I think it was a squirrel anyway) took the bait and made it in to my true stories page all in a matter of seconds.  I have seen plenty of other strange things in peoples homes too, but I don't want to discuss that here.

                                                               Rat in the trap.

6. Heating and cooling the crawl space.  Nobody likes crawl spaces, but that is where some of the most interesting things I see are found.  The seller of this house reported that their utility bills were really high, but didn't know why.  A quick look in the crawl space revealed the problem.  The duct work was not properly supported and had come apart, thus heating and cooling the crawl space.  The fix for this is pretty simple, but the buyer would not have known anything about it without a home inspection.  I have also found duct work in attics and crawl spaces that are not connected to vents, un insulated duct work (like below), and crushed duct work.  All of these things lead to high utility bills.  The home inspection during the due diligence period is the only chance you will have to ask the seller to fix any of these issues.  After you close, they become your problems.

7. Termites.  I am not licensed to provide a termite clearance letter, but I do inspect for them.  Only a termite company can provide a clearance letter.  I have seen many homes with termite tunnels over the years.  Sometime the seller already knows about them, sometimes not.  Below is a photo of a home I inspected that was eaten up with termites.  When I told the buyers this, they were puzzled because the seller had already provided a termite clearance letter to them.  Really?  Termite letters are only good for 30 days, so it does not make sense that the seller already had one before he even had a buyer.  I ask to see the letter.  It was from a termite inspection company I have never heard of, and was not on the State required form.  This company could not have even come out and looked at this house before they wrote the letter.  This seller knew he had termites and was hoping his buyer either would not get a home inspection or that the inspector would not know how to inspect for termites.  The seller was conveniently not there during the inspection of course, but these buyers would have bought this home, given the clearance letter to the bank who would probably have accepted it, and they would have been stuck with this mess.

8. Fire damage. This is another situation I see all too often, particularly in older homes. This home had a fire at one point. There was nothing in the disclosure statement about this. Instead of repairing all of the fire damage, only parts of it were replaced and the rest was left as is. Georgia Law requires a seller to disclose all known issues with the home they are selling, whether they will repair them or not. If this had been discovered after closing, and the buyer could show that the seller was aware of the problem and failed to disclose it, the buyer would have a good legal case against the seller. One more reason to get a home inspection. This fire damage was in an attic that was very difficult to access. Most likely a buyer would never have seen this.

9. No insulation Hard to believe that in this age there are still houses out there that have no insulation in them. I only see this in older homes, but you would think that by now someone would have put some insulation in the attic. The energy costs over time would be many times what the cost of adding insulation would have been, so it makes no sense to not have done that already, yet here it is. I see this a couple times a year in old houses.