Last week was a spectacularly crappy week for me. It started off with one of my dogs dying on Tuesday morning. Then, on Saturday, I found out that the house I am trying to sell has water in the crawlspace and I can't get a letter certifying that I don't have termites unless I let the inspector treat the house as if it did have termites. The inspector (from Terminex) couldn't find any termite activity, but since the letter he would have ordinarily signed is a guarantee that there are no termites and the water in the crawlspace might attract the termites in the near future, he feels that he might be opening Terminex up to some kind of liability. Therefore he wants to treat the house for me at the low low cost of $900.
Of course, this doesn't take care of the water in the crawlspace. According to the termite inspector, it looks like it's just seeping through the cement blocks along the entire length of the back of the house. I called a waterproofing and cement company to get a quote on what it would cost to fix that problem. That's a reasonably priced $1400.
Did I mention that while he was under the house, the termite inspector also noticed that my kitchen sink was leaking and getting two of the floor joists wet? When we looked under the kitchen sink there was a huge pool of water filling the cabinet (which, luckily, was lined with linoleum so most of the water was contained). I've had to call a plumber to the house before and the minimum charge for 5 minutes of work was about $200
Yup - This weekend's home inspection is going to end up costing me $2500!!
Now, I looked at the plumbing problem in the kitchen (after I used a wetvac to suck out all the water) and I think I fixed that myself. So that saves me about $200 (unless I didn't fix it permanently). My next plan is to fix the water problem in the crawlspace. I am still waiting on some other companies to give me quotes, but I'm not expecting anything much less than the one I got (the guy seemed very reasonable and knowledgable). Once the water problem is fixed, I'll likely call a different termite company to inspect the house again and see if they'll write the letter without my having to spend $900 to treat the house for termites it doesn't have.
-- Matt Ranlett