Thread: Home inspectors failed to find marijauna growing operations clues

CBC News - Consumer Life - Home inspectors not finding grow-op clues: Marketplace

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Several homeowners have been shocked to discover their newly purchased homes hosted grow-ops, despite the fact they paid for a pre-sale inspection, a Marketplace investigation has learned.

Marketplace met with homeowners in Toronto and in Kamloops, B.C., who recently learned their homes had once been used to grow marijuana.

In both cases, the homeowners had paid for a pre-sale home inspection and had no idea they were about to buy a former grow-op. In both cases, they were left with huge bills after problems began turning up.

. . .

Marketplace wanted to find out if other inspectors would see the grow-op clues and hired four inspectors to come through the house. They all had a look, checked out the basement, climbed into the attic, but not one detected that the house had been a grow-op.

This is nothing more than gotcha journalism. Must have been a slow news day.

This is why my in$pection agreement has an exclusion for drug residue. I guess I should also add 'evidence of illegal drug activity'.

Take time to read the comments following the article.
It is an eye opener to realize what the public thinks about home inspectors.

We need to be raising our standards as an industry and not hiding behind disclaimers.
I know we must limit our liability but gaining more knowledge and becoming more valuable to the customer is important.

Mike Holmes appears to be a Canuck crackpot who rose to "stardom" through family connections and his inordinate ability to bull$hit for dollars. I wish I had been the inspector in this article and publicly dare Mr. Holmes to conduct such an interview with me at some point in the future. He will soon see that that particular door swings both ways.

If we, as home inspectors, are to be responsible for reporting the historic uses of any given residence as regards the occupants' unusual proclivities, then would we not also need to inform our clients in these and similar situations?:

The previous owners:

(1) Were HIV positive.
(2) Were Republicans.
(3) Were spouse abusers.
(4) Were child abusers.
(5) Raised pet cockroaches.
(6) Were collectors of child pornography.
(7) Had terroristic tendencies.
(8) Were religious fundamentalists.
(9) Were involved in bestiality.
(10) Were cannibals.
(11) Operated a brothel.
(12) Watched Mike Holmes DVDs daily.

The list is nearly endless as regards the myriad of ways in which homeowners could do disgusting things in their homes. Growing marijuana may, after all, not be in the top ten.

A while back I recall seeing something on one of the HI chatboards about a HI getting sued by a home owner, a landlord, for disclosing a home was a drug home.
I'm not sure where I saw it, it may of been on the National Enquire Home Inspector chat board, not sure if it was legit or not.

This storey airs tonight at 8:30 on CBC.

Will be interesting to see the video.

I do not is he going to say it, have any disclaimers in my report. I hide behind what I write in the report. If they can get past that then they can have at it. When I say disclaimers I mean in a contract.

I have clients on a constant basis ask me where the 2, 3, 4, 5 page contract is to tell them I am not liable for anything that has anything to do with a home inspection and how much they are not getting even if the home fall down the side of the mountain out back and I never wrote up inadequate foundation support even though it was hanging half off the cliff already.

I have never hid behind any of that in my life. When I built or remodeled I told them what palns and specs I was building from and the only thing included was what was on the spec sheet for the build out.

People thing home inspectors are over rated and over paid for what they do.

Raising the standards..... To those that already have such an opinion there is not much of anything that is going to change that other than putting serious restrictions on new start ups. Even in Texas there is 480 hours required to be a home inspector and a very large portion of the required schooling is home study. It is not all class or field work. There is now a new home inspector school in DFW. They use to just teach reuired continuing ed classes and now dump out more home inspectors into a very seriously over crowded field. If I am not mistaken we have more home inspectors per capita than anywhere in the US and the schools just keep taking their money and dumping them on the street.

We are now a dime a dozen. If they don't like our price they have countless to choose from. There are not enough homes sold in the good times to cover all the home inspectors and expect them to eat. Cheaper and cheaper pricing and more and more services given away and with the added services the 200 dollar inspectors are running to as many homes per week that they can get doing the inspections in shorter and shorter times. I constantly have Realtors say the the buyers were not inspecting the inspection and walk thru to last 3 to 4 hours. That never use to happen. They are telling your clients and the selling agents are telling their sellers that we should be in and out in a couple of hours. They want a 3500 square foot house with home and termite inspection along with a report in a few hours. Now that is 2 people from 2 companies doing 2 inspections and 2 reports and the walk thru in 2 to 3 hours. Now you are telling them mid 4s for the home and termite and they are trying to figure out why it is 450.00 for a half hour for one guy and 2 hours for another.

I wonder why they have a low opinion of home inspectors. As far as they are looking at it we are the, or one of the, highest paid professions out there. They think we are doing 2 to 3 inspections a day 5 to 6 days a week. They think we are pulling off at least 4 grand a week 50 to 52 weeks a year. Next time you get price shoppers don't wonder why.

The mold in the attic should have been reported I would think. I don't care for his comment that he found all kinds of problems when he ripped the carpet out. Unless you are doing an inspection for the owner himself, I don't think a HI will get permission to yank carpets. He also said that unless an inspection is about $2000 you are not getting a good inspection.
That brings me to my question; do any of you ever do inspections that are more than a standard home inspection? More invasive/destructive?
Thanks.

Originally Posted by A.D. Miller

I wish I had been the inspector in this article and publicly dare Mr. Holmes to conduct such an interview with me....

Now that is an interview I would pay to see.

(2) Were Republicans.

I would have expected to see this much higher on the list .

There is mold in every attic, every house, every garage, every bathroom, every air duct, every... - you get the idea.

It might be better to report the absence of marijuana evidence as a defect!

Now that is an interview I would pay to see.

CM: Should Mr. Holmes ever grow a set and meet with me in public I am sure you will be able to attend via Ticketmaster. The admission won't be much, because the performance will be short-lived, though lively.

I would have expected to see this much higher on the list

CM: I did not want to appear too prejudiced . . .

Originally Posted by Jim Luttrall

Take time to read the comments following the article.
It is an eye opener to realize what the public thinks about home inspectors.

We need to be raising our standards as an industry and not hiding behind disclaimers.
I know we must limit our liability but gaining more knowledge and becoming more valuable to the customer is important.

Thanks, Jim. Too bad the good news stories don't make headlines.

There are thousands if not millions of happy campers out there. We only hear the neg side.

Mike Holmes is our professions Bob Vila!

Originally Posted by Scott Patterson

Mike Holmes is our professions Bob Vila!

SP: Well said.

Originally Posted by John Kogel

Thanks, Jim. Too bad the good news stories don't make headlines.

There are thousands if not millions of happy campers out there. We only hear the neg side.

If the media reported on a man who walked shore to shore across the country they would only report the time he stumbled. That is their nature.

Grow Operation Indicators

While Holmes can seem a bit phony - everything is black and white, most comments are over-the-top, wrapped up in celebrity - the combination of clues should have got an experienced inspector at least curious enough to ask him/herself what was going on with this house.

The President of OAHI didn't help our cause. He should have asked for a chance to review the materials before responding. Only one of the inspectors was an RHI; poor result but not a meaningful sample. And in response to the question about what the Association might do about it, he didn't mention any of the workshops presented through OAHI or its Chapters where grow ops were discussed. Better than, "Oh, I guess I could send out an email" or "I never thought of that before because you never asked before".

I don't know if you read the article, but as far as I'm concerned the inspector blew it!

Let's stop making excuses for poor workmanship and un-professional performance. An inspector doesn't need to surmise what the house was used for but he/she should have reported on the presence of mold, foundation breaches, electrical wiring problems and ventilation abnormalities. THERE is NO EXCUSE FOR THAT.

Why do you think the people do not think highly of home inspecetors?? You think it is because some contractor or realtor bad mouthed them??

That would not be the reason that I come up with.

I would suggest that we can better our image and profession if we concentrate on:

1. Making licensing and internship a requirement for all Home Inspectors in all states.
2. Making it illegal to market to realtors or allow realtors to refer home inspectors.
3. Develop a national organizaton That writes rules with "TEETH" that #1 protect's the buyer, and #2 provides creditability to and requires responsibility of the inspector.
4. Have this national organization manage the "rulebooks", with states adopting these rules and welcoming there professional input. - (Similar to the NFPA 70 or ASTM).

Last night my wife called for me to come and look at this guy on HGTV (Yep it was Mike Holmes). He was tearing out a bathroom, the owner had been taken to the cleaners by contractor and Mike was helping her. My wife said that she lost count of the number of times that they showed him in a muscle shirt glistening in sweat! I just had to laugh...... I must admit the guy does have some "guns" on those arms.

Yeah, I saw part of that episode last night. I can only take that guy in small doses. The constant 'the contractor should have X' and 'we'll do it right this time' get a little overbearing.
I thought it was pretty funny that Mr. Perfect had his crew applying thinset to plywood to adhere the schluter pad. As those of us who have actually worked in the field know, applying thinset to plywood WILL fail. It isn't a question of if but when, regardless of what the packaging says. Also interesting that I did not see them apply the special primer to the plywood that is recommended with the thinsets 'that will adhere to plywood'.

Originally Posted by fritzkelly

Wow, settle down Scott! Come to think about it, he is a self-professed expert on illegal drugs!
I think of him as the Mark McGwire of home inspection.

Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco were known as the Bash Brothers. Mike Holmes could be a Bash Brother because almost all he does is bash contractors and bash home inspectors.