Could Grandma Really be THAT twisted?

Gotta love home inspections. Every time you think you've seen everything, something else comes along.


It's no secret to many of my old time clients that I have a 70's phobia. That was my decade. I remember thinking in high school that we were so "normal", and nobody could make fun of us like we did the 50's. How wrong was I? Let's just say me and Nevill Chamberlain (British dude who thought he could make peace with Hitler) are buddies. Galactically, astronomically wrong. Wrong like my dog who runs off when I call him and wants a treat for it. Wrong like a guy who's driving with his wife in the car. That kind of wrong. 


People Did Stuff in the 70's.


Sometimes I'll mention my phobia of the 70's to buyers, and they'll raise an eyebrow or two and ask why: Weird stuff just happened back then. We were all apparently high on grass. Not the drug; just grass - the stuff that comes flying out of the lawn mower.

Swag up that shower, Grandma

We invented lead and asbestos in the 70's. We invented shag carpet. We invented psychedelic colors and bare foot footprints walking up walls in our home. We invented aluminum wiring and a toilet paper shortage. Yep. I remember it all because I was a gangly non-stoner. It was brutal.


Grandma! Wrong! 


But to add to the psychotic remnants of the 70's, we have swag lighting. I took this shot at a recently completed home inspection, and thank goodness for modern photography! I'm not sure that 1000 words would be enough to describe all that is wrong in this picture. 


Asbestos puncturing, electrical shock issues, rust and most of all, tortured aesthetic rules are being shattered like a big psychedelic bus blasting through a glass building! Perhaps grandpa had something to swag about. I don't know, but I'm proposing a new bureau: the aesthetics police.This kind of atrocity must never happen in civilization again. 

Meth Education You Don't Get In School

This One's Beautiful


So I was called out to a known meth contamination home today. This one's in Sandy. The home was in a middle class neighborhood - it was about 2000 sq feet and I'd say it was built in the mid 90's. As I walked in, I realized that some of the signs I look for were not in this home. Others were.


I noticed that the carpet and drapes had all been ripped out. Apparently someone before me had tried to do a cleanup and failed. I'm certain that's because they did the wrong set of things, but that's a blog for another day. 


This Ain't Book Larnin' Bessie


As I looked around, I noticed the "messy" factor was there, despite the gutting the home had received. Check. That's a meth flag. Then I noticed something that I'd seen in other meth homes. 


 Are You Ready for a Secret? 


Door frames. The books tell you to look for messiness, for stains, for poor maintenance. Then experience teaches you to to look double careful in the low end homes and the foreclosures. More meth there. But now? Door frames. At this home and at some of the other meth homes I've cleaned up, we've had door frame damage. This fits very nicely with the profile. 


I know a guy who used to be a tweaker. The stories he tells about what he did to people while high will curl your hair - that is if your hair started straight. If your hair is already curly, let's go with Afro. 


In any case, let's just say that meth users get emotional. Angry. Livid. Raging psychopathic conflagrations of, well, you get the idea. 


Looking at a House? 


So next time you're looking at a home and you see that a door frame has been pounded, show everyone how intelligent and street smart you are. Think Meth. Then, test it or call me and have me test it. Your husband / wife / clients will think you're amazing and love you forever. 

Nothing Cool Rhymes With Carbon Monoxide

When attempting to come up with something that's readable, it helps to rhyme, or have some pithy phrase. BTW, who invented the word "pithy" anyway? It's an awkward word. 

Flue isn't even above the water heater exhaust

Carbon Monoxide: Not Good 


I've run into a few good Carbon Monoxide (CO) stories lately. Some schmuck lawyer landlord thinks that because his property's CO reading wasn't zero, it must be OK. The dude may sue me for having a problem with a continuous inflow of poison gas into his apartment - who knows. In any case, pretty sure here that Carbon Monoxide ain't cool. I'll trade threats of lawsuit for those girl's lives. The girls win, lawyer man. 


Interesting Words

See how the flue attachments show an air gap at the wall?

But I've run into a plethora (now that's a good word) of other pithy CO issues recently. A home just a couple of days ago had a water heater that failed to have the flue covering the exhaust. What does that mean? It means that the CO-poisoned air now goes into the living space - not up the exhaust. 


And in Other Developments


Then there's this picture. In this shot (at right) we have a very poor seal between furnace/water heater flue and the chimney flue. Guess where that poison gas gonna go? You betcha. Right into your toddler's lungs. 

Exhaust out the flue, then back into the home via swamp cooler. Artistic.

And That's Not All


I have plenty of stories about raccoons nesting in chimneys. That's a story for another day, but this one's new: How about the chimney being blocked by pigeons? Yep! 


A realtor told me about how he popped his head up a chimney only to discover a few pigeons. Some of these pithy pigeons were live, some dead. Add the obligatory pigeon poop and eggs, and we have a pigeon omelete in the chimney. After you're done with that thought, here's the next: if the CO can't leave the living space, it stays.



The Inevitable Pithy Moral


I've been learning recently that some of the most obvious statements can be the most meaningful if you look under the hood. That said, here's an obvious statement: don't mix CO and your family. I've may have saved some folks' lives recently, and sure am grateful that they opted into choosing an inspection. For the rest of you that are not selling your home? Do me a favor and go take a look at your water heater/ furnace connections. I'll sleep better if you do. 

Drainage Nazi, The Remake

Anyone who has ever hung around me on an inspection knows I'm a drainage freak. I have adopted the term "Drainage Nazi".  I hold to this term like a baby monkey holds onto monkey mama; Now lest there be any mistake among us Gringos, Baby Monkeys hold tight - here's why: let go, and you're snake food. The same applies as relates to drainage. 

Here's Why - Again

Clay and water make a train through the kitchen 

So I was at a home in Spanish Fork yesterday. A Realtor friend had called me out to take a long hard look at things in her basement. The drainage pattern in the back yard wasn't what it should have been, and then - a rainstorm. That's all it took. The clay soil washed into the window well, then flowed into the basement kitchen, giving the floor the kind of polish it's never had.

$10 Fix or $10,000 Fix? Pick One
I talk a lot about how home inspection issues can result in a 10 dollar fix, or a ten thousand dollar fix, depending on what you know. This is yet another example of that. A little bit of grading may have done wonders. Instead, now it's time to do mold remediation. The cost of that? Priceless. Somebody's getting a big payday.

But She Can Just Call the Insurance, Right? 

So in this home is a mom, living in the basement of her daughter's place. The daughter lives in an other state. She's "taking care of it'. But this is  no problem, right? Can't she can just call the insurance?

Nope. 

The insurance company told her they think it's not an overland flood, hence, she's between a rock and a hard place. Either she gets to eat this cost which she certainly can't afford, or pass it on to her daughter.

The train continues under the bookcase and rug

Yeah. The daughter who is letting her live there out of kindness. That daughter. Dumping that on your own family would be absolutely inhumane.

The Inevitable Moral of the Story

Drainage can be brutal. If you haven't read my Home Maintenance Guide yet, please do so asap. It can be found at www.homeguidez.com/ebook.htm.  It outlines all the ways you can get hammered by drainage issues, and lets you know how to deal with them. In this case, a simple berm, or swale, could have performed miracles. Don't let this happen to you. 

About Greatness and Its Recognition

So this is a web site about home inspection issues, atrocities and otherwise. Perhaps I can put this one in the wisdom area. It really has nothing to do with home inspections, but much to do with atrocity and wisdom.

I was at a Utah Home Makeover after-party last night - they had great food and a great musician. Dude's name was Stephen Nelson I think. I saw him talking to his girlfriend from behind a keyboard. I am a Jim Brickman fan, so I asked him to play something. He just knew it. Not only could he play Brickman, but he could do it impromptu, never having seen the notes on a sheet.

That was the warmup

As he began to play for the crowd toward the end of the evening, I found that his artistic skills were boundless. He could not only play Brickman, but he did a great Billy Joel and his other stuff had endless heart. He played with the heart that he wrote his stuff with. I was awed by this kid, and his skill in his craft. The dude is already amazing and he's 20-something.

What got me is that only myself and 2 or 3 others really noticed the guy. Of a crowd of 20-30, nearly all just kept yacking - loudly. Kids were flying around the room while this picasso of the piano practiced his masterpieces.

Greatness isn't always noticed

This was my second lesson in greatness recently. The other lesson was very similar, but from both I have learned one clear lesson. Greatness is not always recognized. In fact, it's usually not recognized. Picasso, Lincoln, Moses, any of them could show up as a fat guy in a t-shirt and be largely ignored today - at least by the masses.

Moral of this story

I'm not sure what to take of this. I've been searching for greatness in my own life. Perhaps I learn that greatness in myself or in others is great in itself, and does not need to be validated.

It's definitely more fun to be noticed though.

Fall-through is different than follow-through

So I was working on the Heart2Home project today, and pretty much tired of doing my official duties as volunteer coordinator. While parking my hiney on a chair is something I often do exceptionally well, today I was in the mood for something else.

What? Me Work? 

The projects going on at the time were an addition for Presley's new room (more info about this room at www.heart2homefoundation.org), relocating the power to the home, and stripping off the tar & gravel roof. So I got up on the ladder and went after it. We peeled the roof off like an orange.

Now, I've never been a big fan of tar and gravel because it's one of the most uninspectable roofing types that there is. The whole thing can look great, but if a small area is not covered by the gravel, or somehow becomes exposed, you get cracking. Then you get leaking.

It Happened

The whole roof deck was a mine field of places you couldn't step. Soft deck here, very soft there. Scrambled eggs over there. Stripping off the tar was more than an adventure, because you had to pay lots of attention to where your feet where, and where you put them next. Finally a buddy of mine did it. He went through. No injuries gratefully - except a sizeable assault to his pride.

The Moral of the Story

But here's what I'm getting to. Tar and Gravel? Not Good. This roof had rotted for many years because water was getting in from everywhere. As I do inspections in the future, I plan to relate this story often. The surface may look OK, but there may be minute cracks. Even if they have been covered, there may have been minute cracks, and leaks, and rot, in the past.

Save Yourself from This Terror

If you can avoid tar and gravel on your sloped roof, by all means - do so. It would save me from having to deliver bad news to whoever wants to buy your home.

How to Not Have Your House Burn Down

So this isn't wisdom learned directly from a home I inspected, but I learned it at an inspection, so I guess it counts. This story is a bit of a doozy, so read on:

If the smoke alarms are going off, there might be a fire

You know Jeff Foxworthy and his gig about "If (fill in the blank), you might be a redneck"? Well here's one I learned recently. "If the smoke alarms go off and you don't think there's a fire, you might be a, well, an idiot". 

One of my home inspection clients recently told me about some folks they knew who had their home burn down around their knees. It seems the home had been hit by lightning, and all the smoke alarms went off. These guys figured the lightning caused the alarms to go off, so they ignored them.

Not an Excellent Move

So it turns out the lightning lit the shingles and attic on fire, which set off the smoke alarms. They did their job, but the homeowners went about their way of watching South Park. Or perhaps it was Gilligan's Island. I always loved that show too.

The Moral of the Story

So the moral of this one ain't hard. There's a pause button on the remote. Learn where it is and how to use it. It's really a useful tool, and then you can get your meal without hurrying. Wonderful thing, them pause buttons - technology's wonderful ain't it?