Not a Bozo Bucket For Sure
About 6-7 years ago, I had an inspection scheulded for a client that was buying his very first flip house. He owned a carpet cleaning business and this property was only $30,000. I remember thinking how many carpets he must have cleaned to save up $30K. Nothing was really out of the ordinary on the roof and exterior. The interior was a different story however. As I was in the basement looking at a section of about five 2x8 floor joists, I saw there were termite tunnels and what looked like squishy wood. There were entire sections I could actually squeeze and compress with my hands. There were also a short couple of pieces of 2x6 boards that the seller had attempted to nail in to the termite infested joists to help support the floor above. By attempted I mean the nails were all bent over and barely holding the 2x6 in place. Essentially the 2x6 were useless. The buyer was with me and asked what it was I was taking pictures of. I explained that these joists were all eaten almost all the way through by termites and they had tried to do a sort of repair with these 2x6 boards.
He ran upstairs and came back a minute later with his folder with the seller's disclosure in his hands. He showed me the section regarding termites. Big check in the NO EVIDENCE OF TERMITES box. "They're lying to me." As the inspection moved along, it was evident that the termites had taken over the entire house and when I went into the attic through a small access hatch in the bedroom closet, I even found termite tunnels in the ceiling joists and roof rafters. The house was totally infested. He ended up walking away from the deal and the agent was not happy with me when I saw her later that week. "What did you say to him? You must have said something, you're always talking." I was just a little annoyed that she would think of the deal instead of her client so I smart alecky commented back to her, "I didn't say anything, the termites did all the talking."
Fast forward ahead 5 years and I get another order to inspect the same house. I remembered what the house looked like 5 years before so I was a little curious as to how well they did any of the repairs. I noticed right away that they had done the old Lipstick on a Pig remodeling system. There was new paint, a new countertop and a new $4000 SubZero refrigerator. Huh?? But of course I really wanted to see just what the termite situation was. They did not disappoint. Everything was exactly as I saw it 5 years earlier. Not one single board had been replaced in the basement or the first floor walls. Did they complete the cycle and do nothing in the attic? I set my ladder up in the closet and climbed through the small hatch into the attic. I saw the section of damaged ceiling joists and roof rafters, same as before. But then I saw the newest addition to the craziness of this house.
There was a very large mattress on the attic floor, with an open box of Little Debbie snack cakes, a couple 2 liter bottles of Coke and a paper plate of chicken wings with ants crawling all over it. Then came the big surprise. There were 2 buckets at each end of the attic floor. I was looking up at the roof deck to see where there might be leaks in the roof. The roof deck and rafters were dry. Hmmmmm, and as I wandered closer to bucket number 2, I realized what a dope I was when I looked in the bucket. It really was bucket NUMBER 2. The amazing thing to me was the sheer strength it must have taken to get that giant mattress into that very small hatch opening. I asked the buyer to take a look through the hatch at what I was seeing. I think that was the last straw for him.
I called the listing agent right away and advised him to get a locksmith over to the house and a cleaning crew to stop the insanity. No big Grand Prize game winner that day. One house, 2 great stories.
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