Archive for the ‘Home Inspection’ Category

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Mold, Mold… Mold Mold Mold!


2010
02.18

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Day 52 - 39 to go.

 

This seems to be our largest issue. Oh, could you guess? Our mold test came back… and it’s not pretty. The laudry list of molds in the house is a bona fide smorgasbord of spores and not the psychedelic kind: Cladosporium, Penicillium (this is a bad one!), Alternaria, Aureobasidium, Arthrinium, Curvularia, Stachybotrys (black mold), Chaetomium, Pithomyces, Epicoccum, smuts, Periconia, Trichocladium. I can’t even pronounce these things let alone believe they’re in my HOUSE! I asked myself, if I was buying this place and I knew this mold exists would I bring my two kids into this situation? No. So really there is no question… We have to take care of it ASAP! Repeat after me… REMEDIATION! Time to bring on the mold guys!

 

Our real estate agent recommended a few companies and we got on the horn. Our guy is here now with my husband in the basement going over our “options”. I really like this guy! He’s big on personality, seems to be quite knowledgeable, likes what he does and is originally from London (love the accent!) Who better to exterminate mold than a Brit?

 

Curious myself, I went down to check up on them. Wow, hire the professionals to do what the professionals do. This guy found even more areas than the home inspector did. This is what he recommends… The Fog! (yep, bring on John Carpenter and Adrienne Barbeau!) Team of guys in scary white outfits and a fog machine. Well, it sounds easier than it is. They spray the fog into and onto the affected area(s), the fog will then travel through our air system and annihilate those mean ol’ spores! Hey, I think I’ll leave my sons hockey equipment in front of the air duct and perhaps kill the mildew that I’m sure is growing in there. Maybe it will also get rid of the “hockey” smell too! ooo… this is getting interesting, what else do I want to bomb?

 

The process he says will take two days and they will also dispose of the extra junk that has accumulated over the years in the crawl spaces (extra insulation, wood, paneling, old wiring, etc.) some of it with visible mold. Now that’s worth paying for! I’m not crawling in there touching that crap and dragging it out. It’s spooky, disgusting and way too claustrophobic for me. So then after the fogging they put on their dehumidifier and hepa filter and that’s pretty much it. We asked if our computers and electronic equipment needed to be covered and the answer was no. The fog is so fine it does not affect these things. Wonderful! We also don’t need to fret with ourselves. He recommends us leave during the actual fogging, which we will do, but the fog is not even harmful to our pets! Great! After all that… we test again, and hopefully we win the war!

 

So, how much is this all going to cost me?… I was estimating upwards of $3,000 but it seems more like $1,200 – $1,500. Which, don’t get me wrong, is still a lot. Wonder where that money is coming from.

 

My friends, in the end, I highly recommend getting a mold test done. Whether you are buying a house or not. It can’t hurt, it can only help. Better to be safe than sorry sharing airspace with a pestilent fungalfarm.

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Still Waiting


2010
02.17

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Posted in Home Inspection, The Offer | 1 Comment »

Day 51 - 40 to go.

 

Still Waiting… double entendre intended! I feel like this house, the process, the weather, my physicality is just plain lifeless. I’m stuck in a blah blob milieu.

 

The Home Inspection process is turning out to be a long one. The inside of our house has been thoroughly inspected, however, we are still waiting for a “mold test” sample to come back… What exactly will that report state? I’m wondering… Our radon test was fine, we passed. The pest inspection, also fine. But we are being held up because of the snow. AARRGGHH the damn snow! The inspector can’t inspect the exterior of the house with 4 feet of snow on the ground and the roof. The buyers had us sign an addendum to the contract so that they can have an ‘inspection extension’. This is what is said…”Buyer requests an extension of the time frame to inspect roof and exterior components of the property due to weather conditions. Said inspection will be done within seven (7) days of notification by Sellers agent to Buyers agent of the roof being clear of snow.” Well, the way the weather is going that may be well into June. So we’re… Waiting Again!

 

The offer on our foreclosure house is still out there in the foreclosure abyss. No word yet. – Waiting Again!

 

Every day I’m checking out the new listings on-line. Maybe one here, another there, but nothing really worth looking at. I guess everyone is waiting for the snow to melt to list their house. – Waiting Again!

 

This waiting game is making me fat! There is nothing to do but eat and watch the Olympics. Oh well…Go team USA!.. pass the brownies.

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Old Home (Inspection) Week


2010
02.10

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Day 44

 

Our home inspection was yesterday. As a bevy of people flooded into my home I began to lose count of them. Let’s see… One buyer’s agent, one buyer, inspector number one, inspector number two, one seller’s agent, one 7 yr. old home from school, one dog, one husband leaving, WAIT… where’s my son, oh that’s right he spent the night out. And a partridge in a pear tree.

 

I took a double take at this cast of characters and some of them looked a tad familiar. Hmmm. The buyer’s agent, not Mr. Bowtie, but a stand-in I know I’ve seen before. Home inspector number one looked familiar to me too. What was going on, was I delving into some sort of past-life experience?

 

My husband had stepped out and wasn’t there for most of the inspection. It wasn’t until he returned a few hours later that we put it all together. Get this…The home inspector was the same guy who flooded my “Cute Little House’s” basement at that Home Inspection and cost me upwards of $5,000.00. See “The Nightmare of the Last House We Sold” Whoa! What a coincidence. Once we pointed this out to him, he turned bright red. Oh-ho-ho, he remembered us alright. “That insane cat lady with the litter down your toilet, right? Oh, man, what a mess!”… Yep, that’s us. It was quite funny to make this oh-so-strange connection. The story then unfolded and was retold to everyone in the room, including our potential buyer. Although, I don’t really think she heard any of it, she was busy redecorating in her mind.

 

Her stand-in agent actually turned out to be a guy who showed us a house in Timonium 3 years ago when we were shopping for this one and before we actually hired another agent. Ooops… Awkward. We ended up buying this house without him after he showed us the Timonium house… twice.

 

The whole situation was quite a hoot which lightened the mold situation a bit! That’s right you heard me MOLD! But not as bad as you may think, but still… it’s MOLD! And I didn’t even know it was there! How long have we been breathing it in? It is located under the stairs to our finished basement. Not on the floor, but on the actual stairs. AARRGHH! Not good. Probably every time we go up and down those stairs we dislodge a few particles. This I’m sure will be some sort of sticking point with the buyers, although, I’m hoping the mental renovating trumps a few tiny spores.

 

Apparently, there is also some sludge on our basement wall by the oil tank. YES, I know it’s there. It was there when we bought the house. It’s there because some underpaid oil delivery man could care less about actually getting every drop of oil in the tank. It’s just something we live with. It’s behind a door. You can’t see it unless you open it. So, hey… Don’t open it!

 

From what I can tell, those are the only real things they could find wrong with my house. I knew it was a good house! Nice, expensive, good house. Yes, I guess you get what you pay for. But I could still be wrong… Home inspector number one might hold his basement flooding embarrassment against us… you never know.

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The Appraiser’s Coming Today?


2010
02.08

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Posted in Appraisal, Headaches of Selling Your Home, Home Inspection | No Comments »

Day 42 – 49 to go.

 

“The Appraiser is Coming Today?” Are you kidding me!?! This is the message I received while biding my time with 30 other people in the waiting room of my pediatricians office. I knew the Home Inspection was tomorrow, and knew there would be an appointment with the Appraiser sometime in the future, but now?.. Today!?! In 3 hrs!?! The house is a complete disaster! We have been snowed in, the kids are home from school, my daughters bedroom has become her pull-everything-out-and-play-with-it-on-the-floor amusementzone, the dishes are piled high in the sink, mud and dirt from shoveling the driveway is sprawled across my kitchen floor along with every mitten, snowsuit, boot and hat we own. AARRGGHH! I’ve got to get home and clean! NOW!

 

2.5 hrs. later… Phew! I made it. The house is not the cleanest I’ve seen it, but at least it’s presentable. Hopefully we can maintain it thru tomorrow when the Home Inspector invades my home. Of course, wouldn’t you know it, we are expecting yet another foot of snow, so I’ll be spending all my time in line at the grocery store, because… I’m out of milk.

 

Well, here I go again, following my kids around with a dust pan. Just for one more day. I think after tomorrow I’ll finally be in the clear. And we can proceed with our normal messy lives.

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Bring on the Inspections


2010
02.05

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Posted in Home Inspection, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Day 39 – 52 to go.

 

When you sell your home the buyers expect various inspections to take place. The other day we had the Pest Inspection. This didn’t take too long at all. The guy was here maybe 40 minutes to an hour and the results are in… They are recommending that some repair be done to some wood due to previous termite damage. This is the same report we got when we purchased this house only we decided not to fix the ‘previous termite damage’. And if I’m not mistaken, the house is still standing. Our agent is sure that the home inspector will also bring it up when he is here on Tuesday. It might be something that the buyers will recommend a contractor fix. Hmmm, wonder how much that will cost. But the bottom line… NO PESTS, unless you count my dog, who proceeded to jump all over the inspector.

 

The well inspection was today. This took much longer. The inspector ran a hose outside for what he said could take 3-6 hrs. (ice rink anyone?) and we shouldn’t use the water during that time. Not use the water!? Was he kidding!?! Our kids are home from school (snow day) and no water for 6 hrs? Is he crazy? Well… we survived (and cheated a few times), in the end it only took about 3 hrs, not 6. We did find out our gallons per minute which is over 10! Not too shabby! He took some water back to the lab to be tested. Still waiting to see if we have been slowly poisoning ourselves to death.

 

Home inspection takes place this Tuesday. Think I’ll try for a mark of 10 on the cleanliness scale. Wait, what?.. That’s not part of the Home Inspection? Well, don’t tell my kids that… I’m making them clean their rooms.

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SOLD ?


2010
01.29

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Posted in Home Inspection, The Offer, sold | 1 Comment »

Day 32 – Are we done?

 

The buyers have verbally accepted our counter offer, so I guess, that… is that? We are still waiting for the final papers so I’m not quite sure. Is it strange our agent hasn’t received them yet? Is this normal? Should I be nervous? Oh, I think I’m probably just reading too much into it. Relax, have a martini.

 

Next step: Bring on the inspections! Let’s hope all goes well with them and nothing breaks between now and then.

 

OK… I think it’s time to SHOP! Once we sign those illusive papers, we will be scheduled to close in late March. Yep, we need to find ourselves a place to live… and we haven’t got much time.

 

tick tock my friends… tick tock

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The Nightmare of the Last House We Sold


2010
01.14

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Day 18 – New open house set for Valentines Day. Hopefully not as big of an event in Baltimore as a Raven’s Game. Agent preview went well, the potential “out of towners” will be by on Saturday for a looksy. Cross your fingers!

 

The last time we had a house on the market it was a NIGHTMARE! The following is what happened in a nut shell:

 

Our cute little house sat on the market for quite some time. Stupidly, we bought our current house before selling the last one (oops, won’t do that again). We dropped the sale price of our cute little house many times with no avail — we got desperate. So, we rented it… to a cat lady… WHO TRASHED IT!… It was so awful! I have never seen or smelled anything so fowl. We had to pull it off of the market.

 

After many headaches, much cleaning and disinfecting… did I mention cats? We finally got an offer. Way lower than I was initially hoping for, but with three mortgages and the house in it’s new state… did I mention cats? We needed to take what we could get. So we signed on the dotted line.

 

Oh, but wait, it’s not over… There was the now infamous Home Inspection. Yes, my friends, major plumbing fiasco! Who says the inspector has to run all the water in the house and flush the toilet in the basement all at the same time? Our basement flooded. We’re talking a foot of water down there! My cute little house was swimming in sewage. Arrgghh! So it looked like we might never sell the house and toss the cat lady to the curb. But thank God, our buyers were determined. So, one plumbing crew, one bobcat, one trashed and dug up front lawn, one brand new sewer pipe to the street and $5,000 later, we were ready to close.

 

Closing day was finally here! We did our final walk through of the house amongst cleaning crews and Animal Control… oh, did I mention cats? Finally many, many, many months later, the selling of our Cute Little House was OVER! …I was drunk by noon.

 

Was it the ending of the nightmare? We had hoped so. Let’s just say… “Your Honor, that cat lady must have nine lives.”

 

meow