Test burn for the fire department?
One of the first inspections I ever did was about 10 years ago. A woman in a very small town south of my home called to tell me the village wanted to condemn her home she was trying to sell. It was vacant but she had a potential buyer, and he would be there to walk around during the inspection with me. She wanted to prove to the village the home should not be condemned.
The first thing I noticed when I pulled up to the house was there were no steps to the front door, but there was obvious signs of a what used to be a full size front porch. When I asked her about it, she stated that the porch was so badly eaten by termites that it fell off the house and crashed into the front yard.
She paid me, left, and the buyer and I went about the inspection as planned. In no particular order, here are some of the "issues" that were noted in my report.
Stairway eaten by termites and crashed through the first floor into the crawl space.
2nd story windows all covered with chicken wire to keep racoons out of the house.
Raccons leaving 2 giant dung heaps in 2 different bedrooms upstairs, as revenge I assumed.
500+ wasp nests inside the attic space.
Sloping kitchen floor approximately 10 degree angle, likely due to one side of the house sinking, because the house was recently in a flood.
Electric wiring and copper plumbing all ripped out of the walls.
Cabinets, vanities, sinks, toilets all removed.
The list could go on, but the report ended up over 85 pages long, and that was being kind. To this day, still my largest report ever.
So after I finished, the potential buyer asked me if he should buy the house. I told him I am not allowed to answer that question, but I did ask him if he paid attention to all the things we saw during the inspection? He said he did, but asked me again, stating that he was "pretty handy and had a nice set of tools." After I asked him again if he "SAW WHAT I SAW", he got the message and said, "that is quite a bit of stuff to do, isn't it?" Yes, I agreed with him, that is quite a bit of stuff to do. Not sure if he bought it or not.
This guy had his way with this house and basically made it worthless.
My first call would be to the fire department and see if they would pay to practice putting out a house fire. Pretty sure the village did not see my report.
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