Home Inspection

Our home inspection was a huge day for us. I was really excited about it because we picked out an independent inspector who seemed like he would be really thorough. At the beginning of the inspection, our inspector (Paul) was very eager to talk to us about anything we could think of to ask. We followed him around the outside of the house as he worked. He talked us through what he was doing and seeing, like it was a home inspection class. Once we were quite familiar with the outside of the house, Paul decided it was time to check out the attic. The only access was from the outside of the house in the backyard. It was a hot day. Paul was gone for awhile.

When Inspector Paul returned, he was covered in sweat, and he had a few small pieces of insulation stuck to his face. He looked pretty tired. He reported some electrical issues and disintegrating asbestos. Paul took a break to have some water and dried fruit. Afterward, he seemed mostly perked up. We continued on, inspecting the garage. After the garage, Paul exclaimed, "Now for the easy part!" It was time to inspect the inside of the house. Little did Paul know, but those words would come back to bite him in the ass.

It was nice to be inside, out of the heat. Once again we followed Paul around for a bit, listening to his observations about the bedrooms. When Paul moved on to the smaller bathroom, we decided to take a break and give him some space. Around this time our pest inspector arrived and began his inspection. The pest inspector was the first one to venture into the house's crawlspace. He immediately noticed how wet it was under there. His coveralls started to get soaked right away.

When the pest inspector finished with the crawlspace, he changed and talked to us about his report. There's a significant, unknown water leak under the house. There was about 4 - 6 inches of standing water forming a ring around the perimeter of the crawlspace and under the bathrooms. The source of the leak could not be confirmed, but the washing machine was suspected, due to the condition of the water. Our pest guy said that he didn't think the water had been there for too long, because there wasn't fungus growing up the beams that support the house. He said if that were the case, you'd expect to see large veins of mold in the wood. He did, however, see plenty of dead spiders. "They were hanging, all dead and covered in fungus. It was like a bunch of little white snowflakes." The water issue was a big concern for us, but our pest inspector didn't seem too worried about it. "Fix the leak, and ventilate the crawlspace, and you should be good. The house is older, but those beams down there still look good and strong. The good news is that you don't have any termites. Termites hate really wet conditions."

Some time after the pest inspector left, Paul emerged from the crawlspace. He looked tired and somewhat annoyed. We talked more about the water issue, and about the house in general. Then he took off. We felt pretty overwhelmed by the massive amounts of information we had obtained about the house that day. I didn't know what to think. Were the reports okay? Were they horrible? Should we run while we can? Should we hold firm and fix the problems? I feel a lot better now, but there's still a lot to think about.

I'm a big guy and I got my fat ass down here!

The title was what the pest inspector said when the tenant explained that some other inspector was a really big guy and couldn't get down into the house's crawlspace.

Yesterday was Inspection Day, which, if you didn't know, could easily be called Why Your Dream Home Might be a Nightmare Home, but luckily we didn't have problems that needed fixing immediately. We just had some that it'd be really good to fix as soon as we could. But, you know, people are living with them now, so it's okay, right? Right. I mean, mostly.

I didn't take pictures because it slipped my mind. In retrospect, it'd have been weird to take pictures because the tenant's stuff is all over the place. It's weird photographing someone else's stuff.

The home inspector's report will probably be treated (by us) as a to-do list, so I'm glad he's putting together something that's pretty thorough. As much as I'd rather have a healthier house, what do you expect on a 50+ year old house that attracts the poorest of homebuyers?

Hurry up and wait

This part of the home-getting process is not that much fun. We've read some documents and are waiting for others to be rewritten and approved. Everyone who's working with us is rushing us, except for the inspector people, since we just have to make appointments with them. The rest is all rush-rush-rush. I understand that there's a target end date, but the rest of my life doesn't disappear just because I receive a PDF that needs reviewing. My job still exists, my cats still exist, and so does my need for sleep.

Out to dinner

Veggie burrito bowl!

A New Record!

Instead of doing the whole first blog post meta-commentary thing I'm going to write what actually happened today.

Today Ike sent me a text that began with "HOLY SHIT AGAIN!" and that phrase still triggers an EMERGENCY PANIC ALERT response, so I thought something had exploded at his lab. But no, actually it was good news! Our offer on That House was approved by the seller's lender. We'd been kinda nail-biting about it ever since the seller approved our offer (short sales FTW), but I think in the backs of our minds, we figured it'd go through. And we are so glad it did.

Then, of course, today was a whirlwind of questions and conversations and planning that I really didn't have time to do, but I squeezed in phone calls where I could, and so did Ike. We're moving things along, except dinner. Dinner hasn't happened yet. I'm wondering if we'll still bake fish or if we'll ditch our plans and go out to celebrate. Hm...