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Be A Preposition On A Home Inspection

By
Home Inspector with Jay Markanich Real Estate Inspections, LLC 3380-000723

What is a preposition?  My 8th grade English teacher, Miss Braun, taught me that a preposition was anything you can do to a house. 

What?  I mean, you can go inside, or be outside, over or under, beside or behind or in between, before or after, up and down.  All those kinds of words are prepositions.  They describe relation to a noun and govern it.

So, things you can do to describe your relation to a house would be a preposition.  How prescient since that is what I do today!

So, when I pull up to a house and see a front porch stoop like this, I know I have to be a preposition, here and throughout the house.

Oh, the house immediately across the street has the same kind of porch stoop, so this guy went through the neighborhood!

But I knew it wasn't done with a permit because the hose was almost blocked, the mortar was so sandy I could remove it with my finger, some top-layer bricks at the edges were loose (a couple had come off) and the porch comes up over the rim joist and lowest three courses of aluminum siding, burying it all.

THAT is a termite invitation!

But there was something else.

I could not find the plumbing clean out in the front yard.

You know what that it.  It's a large, white PVC tube sticking up out of the yard.  It has a removable cap on it that can be twisted off so a plumber can put a snake down there to clean out the drain line should it become clogged.

ACCESS TO THAT CLEAN OUT IS IMPORTANT!

Remember, you have to be a preposition.

So I began looking up, down and all around, especially beside!

And guess what I found?

Peek a boo!

They notched off the edge of the paver on top of it, but the cap cannot be removed.  And they bricked around it during the construction.  Then, after the fact, they chipped off the edge with a saw!

No snake could go down there!

I assure you, had there been a permit, the County would have demanded that the stoop NOT be wide enough to cover that clean out.  Hence, no permit was pulled.

My recommendation:  be a preposition!  Have a look all around things.  ESPECIALLY NEW THINGS!  See if you can determine if it looks right.  And if not, ask a home inspector.  You may be right!



 

Posted by

Jay Markanich Real Estate Inspections, LLC  

Based in Bristow, serving all of Northern Virginia.

Office (703) 330-6388   Cell (703) 585-7560

www.jaymarinspect.com


Comments (25)

Kevin Nash
Shorewest Realtors, Metro Milwaukee - Germantown, WI
ABR,SRES,CRS,CSRS

Good blog,

Interestingly enough in the state of Wisconsin, our preposition is very simular in that it is presumed that we know a thing or two about homes and potential adverse facts. So when I role up to a home like this to list, it makes it very difficult to market the home because you don't believe in it. Many times, I've recommended that  a home be pre inspected on the prepostion that I believed the home would not sell  in it's present state.

Feb 10, 2012 12:43 AM
Jay Markanich
Jay Markanich Real Estate Inspections, LLC - Bristow, VA
Home Inspector - servicing all Northern Virginia

Kevin - that is probably a good policy!  I have tried for years to market pre-listing inspections around here with absolutely no success.

Feb 10, 2012 01:20 AM
Harrison K. Long
HomeSmart, Evergreen Realty - Irvine, CA
REALTOR , GRI, Broker associate, Attorney

Jay ... I like that home inspection metaphor for a preposition -  "you can go inside, or be outside, over or under, beside or behind or in between, before or after, up and down.   All those kinds of words are prepositions. They describe relation to a noun and govern it."

Feb 10, 2012 03:27 AM
Jay Markanich
Jay Markanich Real Estate Inspections, LLC - Bristow, VA
Home Inspector - servicing all Northern Virginia

Thank you Harrison.  They are indeed!  That is pretty much what we need to do on a home inspection!

Feb 10, 2012 03:57 AM
Steven Cook
No Longer Processing Mortgages. - Tacoma, WA

Jay -- I don't know if your "8th grade English teacher, Miss Braun," was prescient, or just subconsiously giving a young man an idea of how he could relate to houses, that showed him a way into his profession.

Feb 10, 2012 07:57 AM
Chris Smith
Re/Max Chay Realty Inc., Brokerage - New Tecumseth, ON
South Simcoe, Caledon, King, Orangeville Real Esta

Jay, you managed to fit in a grammar lesson with your tips today... You are a jack of all trades, and expert at many =)

Feb 10, 2012 08:39 AM
Charles Buell
Charles Buell Inspections Inc. - Seattle, WA
Seattle Home Inspector

Jay, by the 8th grade I was all confused between "prepositions" and "propositions" and have never entirely figured it out.

Feb 10, 2012 10:05 AM
Jay Markanich
Jay Markanich Real Estate Inspections, LLC - Bristow, VA
Home Inspector - servicing all Northern Virginia

Steven - I ASSURE you that Miss Braun (pronounced brown) would be incredibly impressed that I remember anything at all from that year!

Chris - a little fun to make the point that I had to look carefully at all side of that front porch monster!

Charlie - it's easy.  The one is for preppies and the other for the pros.  You are a pro in my book, but I would still worry about the prepositions on home inspections if I was you.  I'm sure you do!

Feb 10, 2012 11:22 AM
Ed Silva, 203-206-0754
Mapleridge Realty, CT 203-206-0754 - Waterbury, CT
Central CT Real Estate Broker Serving all equally

Who would have thought a lesson in what not to do and an grammar catch-up as well. ActiveRain is certainly a learning environment. And here the sellers, learned, the buyers learned and the termite guy learned as well.

Feb 11, 2012 01:18 AM
Jay Markanich
Jay Markanich Real Estate Inspections, LLC - Bristow, VA
Home Inspector - servicing all Northern Virginia

So Ed, are you saying they learned from a proposition from a preposition?

Feb 11, 2012 08:47 AM
James Quarello
JRV Home Inspection Services, LLC - Wallingford, CT
Connecticut Home Inspector

Funny thing is I hated English class in 8th grade and beyond. Now I write reports and blog posts. Irony, is that a preposition?

How's the the pitch on the porch? Did it slope away or was it level or worse back towards the house. 

Feb 12, 2012 12:14 AM
Jay Markanich
Jay Markanich Real Estate Inspections, LLC - Bristow, VA
Home Inspector - servicing all Northern Virginia

Good point!  Miss Braun (pronounced brown) would be GREATLY impressed to know that I can write something beyond 3 words!  I bet your 8th grade teacher would be too Jim!

The porch was very level, but if you look at the photo you can see that it slopes gently downwards on the front and sides.

Feb 12, 2012 08:08 AM
Reuben Saltzman
Structure Tech Home Inspections - Minneapolis, MN
Delivering the Unbiased Truth.

I'm sure you're right about the permits, but I gotta share a story that a heating contractor shared with me last week. 

He was called out to service a furnace his company had installed six years ago, because the furnace kept shutting off.  He couldn't find any problems with the furnace, but then found a tankless 200,000 btu water heater sharing the same 4" vent connector as the furnace.  Duh!  Every time the water heater fired up, the high limit switch shut the furnace down.

He exclaimed that there was absolutely no way that the water heater could have been installed by a licensed contractor, and no way in hell that it was inspected by the city.  As it turned out, he was wrong on both counts.  The city inspector was just horrible at his job.

After hearing his story last week, I decided that I'm not going to make assumptions about permits any more.  I might raise the question, but that's all.

Feb 12, 2012 01:29 PM
Jay Markanich
Jay Markanich Real Estate Inspections, LLC - Bristow, VA
Home Inspector - servicing all Northern Virginia

That gets to the old cliche about you know what happens when we ASSume Reubs.  As to this place, there were so many things (like the dryer vent on the other post, same house) and so many "remodels," that if there were permits and County inspections we are all screwed.

Feb 12, 2012 06:59 PM
Reuben Saltzman
Structure Tech Home Inspections - Minneapolis, MN
Delivering the Unbiased Truth.

Yeah, I assumed that was the case.

(See what I did there?)

Feb 12, 2012 09:38 PM
Jay Markanich
Jay Markanich Real Estate Inspections, LLC - Bristow, VA
Home Inspector - servicing all Northern Virginia

Yes, Bub, but it was U and not ME.

Feb 12, 2012 10:57 PM
Eric Middleton
Closer Look Property Inspections Inc. - Uniondale, NY
Professional Property Inspector

Jay- that porch is a wreck, an accident just waiting to happen.

Feb 14, 2012 12:02 PM
Jay Markanich
Jay Markanich Real Estate Inspections, LLC - Bristow, VA
Home Inspector - servicing all Northern Virginia

I thought I heard termites saying yum, Eric.  The buyers backed off.

Feb 14, 2012 09:49 PM
Jeff Pearl
RE/MAX Distinctive / LIC in VA - Lovettsville, VA
Full Service Full Time Realtor

This looks like an awful job of masonry work. I would have to tear the whole porch out and start from scratch.

Jun 20, 2013 09:01 PM
Jay Markanich
Jay Markanich Real Estate Inspections, LLC - Bristow, VA
Home Inspector - servicing all Northern Virginia

It was a mess Jeff, and just like two others right across the street!  Same guy no doubt!

Jun 20, 2013 09:46 PM