Okey, internet! In today’s Adventures In House Buying, today is HOME INSPECTION DAY.
Place your bets on what’s actually wrong with this (apparently) spectacular house!
Place your bets on what’s actually wrong with this (apparently) spectacular house!
Comments
Maybe just rodent skeletons, though.
Horrors beyond comprehension.
The seller check when we asked, their septic had been installed back in the 40s.
But it had never. been. serviced.
ME: I hear there are pronghorn antelope?
SEWER GUY: Yes? I mean, they’ll be in your yard here, most likely? This is their range.
That New Mexico dust gets EVERYWHERE.
It cost about $10k to fix. It’s also why we refer to the tenth anniversary as the sewer anniversary.
It’s also the event which made me realize I was a grownup. Our credit union loaned me the money. Its willingness to do so meant I could no longer claim to be a punk. I was…respectable.
If it's metal? 80% at best.
There's actually nothing in that efficiency gap because it's the heat of phase change being extracted 🥰 thermodynamics is fun.
My boiler in NJ was converted from coal to oil sometime after 1931, and had asbestos-insulated pipes.
It actually made the closing a bit slower because the paperwork monkey was waiting for a required well report that was not possible.
gotta follow them and watch like a hawk and ask questions
ironically, he said the roof was fine. (it was not.)
The contractor later removed it to be used on another site.
Seller hired a bad contractor to renovate and flip the house and got taken for a ride.
(There was a list of structural and electrical issues, too.)
I guess. Still. The mind boggles all by itself.
If you can get away with it.
Poor insulation in the attic.
Roof needs work.
Once you actually work it the kitchen, you realize it was designed by a vengeful spirit who hates cooking, and feeds off conflict.
2) Howling purple vortex of evil behind linen closet
3) Ventriloquist dummy possessed by serial kill bricked up in coal cellar.
4) Old man living in garret you are obligated to house until he dies. OTOH he can cook.
I did eventually find a lovely little duplex with a postage stamp of a yard that I adore 💜
NM is a beautiful place!!
I found a house, lovely and proper
No more just a real estate shopper
But now hope has been changed
The whole place rearranged
All due to the high price of copper
or
A water heater with a warranty that expired in '92 and a tank that is more calcium lump than water capacity due to hard water deposits.
I don't think so.
So unless there's a hand sticking out of the flowerbeds...
Don't go digging that up for a few more years.
Unfortunately, rather than eldritch strings and pipes, its repertoire seems to be all hold music. Whether this is intended to be atmospheric or the occupants are actually on hold (and if so, with whom) remains to be seen.
Construction buddy quipped I should burn it down and just get it over with.
Not quite as expensive as where they’d nailed solar panels directly onto slates (cue whole new roof), mind.
My mid-70s NorCal condo at least had copper wiring - except for the 220v dryer socket, as we were surprised to discover one day when it sparked.
Green garden hose used for gas lines to furnaces and other abominations.
"This house has been worked on by many pairs of hands.
...some of them skilled."
Oh, sure, you can ask for one, but you'll be bumped in favor of a bidder who'll buy sight-unseen.
Holy shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPKrampwNbM
b) The original is shockingly good, thanks!
I tip my hat to you.
or shower scorpions, which is an issue @abigailnicole.bsky.social actually has in ABQ
Hopefully not a problem with the house.
I assumed it was just a sun thing.😳
have fun good luck
Easy fix (cut a new access hatch), but what was odd was that the wall appeared to be older than the hot water tank.
Maybe there's an entrance to the Groundhog People Republic behind the furnace?
which the home inspector called the “timeout room”
“how old is the HVAC and why didn’t the previous owner believe in maintenance?”
Also, does it have a deck? The deck is always effed in some mysterious way.
Sounds like an interesting time to have a full home remodel.
Huh. TIL!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliche
The first tree I tried to plant in the yard took two days with a pickaxe to excavate a hole the size of a bathtub.
Previous owner thought they knew how to do home improvement stuff. Didn't. Rewired the house with cheaper aluminum. Fire hazard; all has to be torn out and replaced with copper again.
𝘕𝘰𝘵 "pet sematary." That's the one where you bury your pets and they come back wrong.
𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 is a cemetery that demands care, attention, constant feeding (corpses, of course), and frequent scooping or litter box cleaning. A pet cemetery.
Also it will sit on your face if you sleep in.
I really hope your new place works out and look forward to seeing updates!
Check that foundation!
Civil Engineer: Do you happen to have tennis shoes?
Me: Yes, why do you ask?
CE: Because you should put them on and run away from this deal as fast as you can. One good rainstorm and this house is going to be down in that valley.
Speaking of nails, there’ll be one in the firebox instead of an actual fuse.
(There are also some near-45° and near-60° intentionally non-right-angle corners.)
Whatever *eats* houses in your bit of the world, I will keep my fingers crossed for you that the inspectors *don't* find it!
What, exactly, was used to make the adobe?
Or: haunted swamp cooler.
Now, next July is another matter.
[Thing] Doesn't exist.
The offer on the house then drops to reflect the (revised) square footage.
(That sort of thing is a nightmare waiting to wake up)
Right, @orodentia.bsky.social ?
;)
I was going here the whole time.
- Sewer line funtimes
- Degraded copper pipes from the local water
- Long-mummified squirrels in the laundry room
- Severely degraded roof
- Catastrophically degraded chimney flue
- Holes in soffit / eaves
Why *yes* those are all from experience, why do you ask?
...Just slap some more paint on it, for support?
It was thicker cardboard, not as hard as masonite but definitely with cereal box in its lineage, and had the same skim coat of knockdown texture as the rest of the house, so it wasn’t obvious until it was time to change a lighting fixture.
Like having a 240v breaker in the basement someone installed themselves and which we never figured out the motivation behind.
I recommend it.
bad news: you’d end up with the biggest toughest scorpion
Upside: always pay their rent on time
Downside: rent paid in mice
We just put up with them like those who came before us. Plenty of other non incidents cropped up promptly.