Maybe a Seinfeld Episode?
Many years ago when I first started doing inspections, I had the pleasure of inspecting a condo for my daughter and her soon to be husband. The marriage didn't last for a few good reasons but that's not what this story is about. They were buying unit one of a 4 unit condo. The complex was horseshoe shaped with a detached row of garages in the middle of the horseshoe. The seller was home. As I walked around the back by the gas meters, I could smell a strong natural gas smell at the meters. I used my gas leak detector and located the leak on meter number one. I told the seller he should call the gas company, NICOR, and ask them to send a repair man. I kept doing the inspection and eventually made my way to the detached garage and as I wrapped it up and walked back to the condo, I saw the gas company man walking from the back of the condo. "Oh good, you find the leak?" I asked. "Nope, no leak, show me where it is." We walked to the meters and I pointed to the leak on meter one. He said, "The call was for unit one, repair a gas leak. The meter for unit one is meter 2. Unit 2 is meter one." The meters were flipped. He said he couldn't fix it right away because he didn't have time and would just shut down unit 2 gas meter. It's March, he won't have any heat. Not my problem he said but then said to me "Who told you to look at our equipment? We find our own leaks and nobody touched our stuff." To emphasize the last comment, he poked me in the chest with each word. Nobody-poke touches-poke our-poke stuff-poke. I was sure he wasn't kidding? Total jerk.
Fast forward many months later to another inspection in the summer at an old home in Kankakee, IL. I'm at the inspection and the agent or buyer are not there. Just the seller, and she was sticking around until I was done. I eventually head to the basement and there is a very strong gas smell in the basement and it's coming from the laundry room. I open the basement door to air it out. I go upstairs and remind the seller not to turn on any appliances or light switches just to be extra safe. Before she calls NICOR, I have a flashback to Mr. Pokey. I tell the seller that when she calls NICOR, do not mention home inspection to them. Just say that your husband smelled gas and I will act like I'm your husband just hanging out upstairs, all the while I'm just doing my normal inspection. I removed my decal from my car so there would be no chance he saw that too. I'm upstairs a little later doing my thing when the doorbell rings and I look out an upstairs window and see the truck and hear them talking in the front foyer. Shortly after I hear the sounds of pipes and wrenches and know the gas leak is getting fixed.
A little later I hear them talking again in the foyer, the front door closes and I hear the truck start up. Figuring it's safe to come downstairs, I head down so I can finish the basement portion of the inspection. When I reach the bottom of the stairs, the front door ropens back up and the gas man walks back in. He looks at me and says "Hi Scott." I see that it's not the Mr. Pokey guy, but a guy I went to high school with that knows my wife and knows I'm not married to the woman standing there in the foyer. "Hey Randy, how's it going?" He looks at the lady, then at me, and I know what he's thinking. I said, there was a really jerky guy that gave me a lot of grief at another inspection so we came up with this scheme so he wouldn't be mad about home inspectors touching his stuff. Randy cracks up and says he knows exactly who I'm talking about and all the guys on their crew hate Mr. Pokey because he makes their lives miserable. He gave me his card and said if I ever need service again, just call him and he'll take care of it.
Randy did make a point of coming over to my table at our next high school class reunion and asked my wife if I ever mentioned a "gas leak situation" to her about a woman in Kankakee? He couldn't stop laughing about what a crazy plot we concocted that epically backfired. Hey Jerry Seinfeld, is this dumb enough for an episode?
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