I "recently" purchased a house (last September) that I am unable to
live in yet due to all sorts of fun defects that weren't found by the
inspector that came highly recommended by our buyer's agent. The
defects that WERE found by said inspector were ALSO found by me prior
to the inspection.

Included in these previously unnoticed defects:

an addition built entirely on top of a deck instead of a foundation.
No break in the deck boards - ie. the same board outside the house on
the still-existing outdoor portion also extends under the walls of the
addition with no break for flashing.

Partially buried extension cord supplying power to a submersible
pump... inside the septic tank... discharging to a nearby stream.
Luckily, we also noticed that the septic tank was not draining at all
so it got replaced on the seller's dime.

Defective HVAC - cracked heat exchanger, corroded and dripping A/C
coil, insufficient return air ducting (one 3x6 return grill remained
for the entire 1600 sf house).

No HVAC ducting whatsoever in the addition to the house.

No insulation in the crawl space under the addition/deck

Exposed plumbing under the crawl space

Plumbing leaks in basement (hidden by pipe insulation and an extremely
LOW water pressure setting at the regulator)

Asbestos wrapped around heating ducts, which had corrosion damage and
holes in the ductwork

electrical connections made entirely of twisted wires and hockey
(friction) tape - no wire nuts, terminals, j-box, anything... just
stuffed into a hole in the wall behind the stove.

Rotten floor joists under part of the kitchen (crawl space), also found
7 layers of various types of flooring
(tile/vinyl/linoleum/wood/engineered wood/3 layers of subfloor...)


Yes, this inspector found some items, like slow plumbing in the
upstairs bathroom (supply AND drain), mentioned that the furnace needed
cleaning, one or two of the deck boards needed replacement, no handrail
on the steps up to the porch (WHY is the "no handrail" comment so
popular with inspectors? Is it because it's an easy, nit-picky item
that fills up space on the report?). The septic did fail the dye test,
but I knew ahead of time that it would so I guess the inspector was an
official "rubber stamp" on an item that I already knew about there.


I say, if inspectors are so good, why is there a small print item on
the report that says something like "not liable for not finding hidden
defects"? If that's the case, what's the point of having an inspector?
I'm sure there ARE honest ones out there, and perhaps you are one of
them. Next time I buy a house, I don't think I plan on hiring one
though because how do I know who's honest and who isn't? I'll share
the blame, because I did buy the house knowing that there were some
problems with it. However, had I known about the scope of the problems
I would have argued a lower sell price or walked away from it.
Overall, the house will be a nice place to live when I'm finally done
fixing it, but it's been a long, expensive, and tiring five months of
evenings and weekends so far and we're only just now contemplating
moving in. Argue all you want for the inspectors, but I've purchased
two houses in two different states and found the first one to have done
a mediocre job at best and the second one to have done a very poor job.