Got a call the other day - somebody knew that they had meth contamination in their home so I took off my home inspector hat and put on my meth man mantra.
The home was in the neighborhood just north of Thanksgiving point. After weaving my way in, I met with the guy and asked him what he knew of the inspector and the way he did his meth testing. I know the guy - he's one of the better inspectors. He said that the guy had come highly recommended.
Now THAT offends me
From my perspective, I have two titles: the first is "Drainage Nazi", the second is "The guy who comes highly recommended." I was offended. I object to others calling themselves my name - or my official title(s) . It's like they were stealing my social security number or making my dog work nights when I thought he was sleeping.
So I put my offendedness in my hip pocket and moved forward. As we walked though the house to gage the contamination and assess where best to take the meth samples, I asked where the inspector had tested. The response offended me: the walls? My blog readers are better trained than that! This inspector is somewhat lacking in his "highly recommended" training!
It would be a Highly Recommended day
So we check out the basement. Seems that a bedroom window well needed desperately to be dug out and the entire area around it drained into the well. Did the previous dude notice all that? Nay.
Bathing in Urine
We went out to the garage - quite often the smoking occurs out there. There was a heavy smell all right, but not associated with smoking. The place reeked of pet urine. I asked if the previous inspector had identified it as urine or had described what to do about it. The guy was impressed I knew so much on the subject, and his "highly recommended" friend's stock was dropping.
Furnace Fibers Fray my Face
Then I look at the furnace, because any good CEI blog reader knows that's where to test. The filter was OK, but the furnace blower was covered in a good half inch of dust. I asked if the previous inspector noticed that? You can guess the answer.
The Revenge of the Highly Recommended
So I got him a couple of correctly selected samples, based on his thoughts and based on the home's layout. Handed them to him and prepared to leave. I was proud of myself because this guy was now well served. He got the meth samples he wanted, he got much more meth information than he knew he could get, and he got a bonus mini-inspection that slams down the stamp on my title - with emphasis. Gotta love that. The title is mine once more.
So as we were leaving, he walks to his car, but confused. He asks me for the fee for what I'd done. No charge. He's taking it to the lab so I never intended to charge him.
Now that's highly recommended. I think he'll mention that to his realtor.
