Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Brought to you from Ohio based home inspection company of Habitation Investigation. Information helpful to agents and buyers. Conversations with professionals and entrepreneurs regarding their stories and what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain competitive advantages. Listen to stories from Ohio real estate agents and related businesses to help you know how to improve and who to consider using for yourself or friends. Created by the owners of a highly rated home inspection company in Ohio and the Winners of Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest https://homeinspectionsinohio.com/
Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
The Danger of Ignoring Your Home Inspection Report
What happens when you trust someone else to read your home inspection report? One homeowner's devastating story reveals the dangers of delegating this critical responsibility.
Meet an older woman who moved to Ohio to support her daughter through chemotherapy treatments. She did the responsible thing by hiring Habitation Investigation for a home inspection, but then made a critical mistake: she never read the report herself. Instead, she trusted her real estate agent to tell her if anything was important.
Fast forward, and she discovers serious mold issues throughout the home—a potentially life-threatening situation for her immunocompromised daughter. Every problem she found was clearly documented in the report she never reviewed. To make matters worse, an improper "remediation" had been attempted, consisting of nothing more than scrubbing visible mold and painting over it, with no professional verification or proper containment procedures.
The podcast hosts, certified home inspectors with extensive mold assessment credentials, explain why this approach is dangerous, especially for someone undergoing chemotherapy. They detail how mold releases mycotoxins when disturbed without proper containment, and how these toxins can severely impact those with weakened immune systems.
This eye-opening episode serves as a powerful reminder that home inspections don't have a "pass/fail" outcome—they provide information for buyers to make informed decisions based on their unique circumstances. The hosts emphasize that buyers should never surrender their right to decide what gets inspected or to interpret the significance of inspection findings.
Whether you're a first-time homebuyer, a real estate professional, or just curious about the home inspection process, this episode delivers crucial insights that could save you from devastating health and financial consequences. Subscribe now to hear more real-world stories and expert advice from Ohio's most trusted home inspection team.
To learn more about Habitation Investigation, the Three-time Winner of the Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest Plus the Winner of Consumer Choice Award for Columbus Ohio visit Home Inspection Columbus Ohio - Habitation Investigation (homeinspectionsinohio.com)
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Habitation investigation is the way to go for a home inspection in Ohio. Trusted licensed home inspectors for your needs. From radon to mold to warranties For a great home inspection, you really can't go wrong. Visit homeinspectionsInOhiocom.
Speaker 2:All right, laurel, we have a story yes, we have stories Of a lovely lady, yes, who bought a house, did the right thing by having a home inspection company take a look at it, but then, fortunately, it was our company, which is good, am I right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we did this one. Yeah, we did the inspection for her, and we called out a lot of things in it in regards to potential organic growth.
Speaker 2:Yes, because we saw some stuff. Technically, you really can't call it mold unless you positively do a test to it. You know, though, if, if you know, if it's fuzzy it looks like it it's in a moldy area, there's a good chance that it is, but you should still get tested.
Speaker 3:Quacks like a duck? It's probably a duck, but you should test it to make sure that it is a duck or mold here's the unfortunate thing for her.
Speaker 2:She called us, had some issues, concerns, concerns. So she talked to our company here and everything she complained about or said she didn't know about was in the report yep everything come to find out. She never read her report and she instead looks like she relied on her real estate agent to tell her if there's anything important in there sounds like it so she, uh, abdicated her her power to look at that and make decisions for herself. So what? So? What's going on? That story now?
Speaker 3:so the sad thing about it is it's an older woman, not from ohio, she's from another state. Her daughter is going through chemo, so they cannot have any mold in this house like they just can't because their daughter can't take it All right.
Speaker 2:How old is the daughter? Is it a kid or an adult? I did not ask.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm assuming it's an older adult, because she's older.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's good.
Speaker 3:That makes sense yeah.
Speaker 2:Most people don't have kids when they're in their 60s.
Speaker 3:Right, and I think she's older than that so I'm assuming it's an adult child.
Speaker 2:So this lady is out of state, moved up here where her daughter lives, I'm going to assume or at least where her daughter's doing chemo.
Speaker 3:Yes, and so they bought a house to be up here and spend time and help take care of her nice of them, so yeah, very nice of. So now you come to the point where apparently there was supposed to be some type of mold remediation and the remediation was just scrubbing it and kilsing.
Speaker 2:That remediation? Was that before we did the inspection or is this like after we did the inspection?
Speaker 3:I think it was after the inspection, but don't quote me on that. Okay, I think that was maybe part of the report that the agent had requested.
Speaker 2:Don't, don't okay, so the agent didn't like totally neglect she.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well now here comes the interesting part they didn't get anything from a company saying that it had been remediated. Apparently, all they, literally all they did was they scrubbed it and painted over it, which didn't actually, um uh, make a difference and do anything, because it's not coming through the paint, so they didn't dry anything out. They didn't actually fix the issue, they didn't do any remediation or actually killed the mold prior to this.
Speaker 2:Okay, so somebody did remediation, but we don't know if it was the seller, some homeless dude that he just pulled off the street to come do it, because there's no receipt for any legit company, or any receipt at all.
Speaker 3:So somehow company B gets involved with this and who's company b I don't know. Company b wanted to come in and dig out the mold okay, so that's another remediation company.
Speaker 3:It's another remediation company. They wanted to dig out the mold and then that was pretty much. It Just throw out the, the, the, the stuff that had the mold on it. No containment, no killing the mold prior, nothing like absolutely nothing. And he was pushing her hard to come in and do the remediation Like he just wanted it done, he, like he actually wanted it done tonight.
Speaker 2:I never heard of digging it done.
Speaker 3:He like he actually wanted it done. Tonight I never heard of digging it out.
Speaker 2:I mean. I've heard of cutting out, removing a second, but just digging it. It sounds like you're just scraping it, which you are a certified mold assessor through Normie. You, you know that's not the proper way to do it.
Speaker 3:No, yeah. And if you're going to just go and you're going to start digging at the mold without killing it, you're going to release mycotoxins because the mold's going to protect itself.
Speaker 2:And you can't have that if somebody's going through chemo, Because if you go through chemo your immune system is weakened.
Speaker 3:Your immune system's shot. They kill your immune system on purpose. Same thing if you go through organ transplant.
Speaker 2:That yeah, you gotta take medication, transplant, chemo, which means you're gonna be more susceptible to issues with molds and mycotoxins and it sounds like man.
Speaker 3:Well, the molds came back right, so it wasn't the first time, so which means it wasn't killed.
Speaker 2:They just scraped it off, which tells me there's probably going to be mycotoxins there.
Speaker 3:Potentially yeah.
Speaker 2:So now you? You talked to the lady, so since you're a certified mold assessor, you're going to help her get things set up.
Speaker 3:I've actually already contacted a remediation company that I work with and they, to my knowledge, were going out tonight to see her because she needs to get back to see her daughter. No-transcript, I got a good remediation company in there that I know will do a good job for them and at this point that's what they need.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this is well for anybody who's in a position to recommend a home inspection company. You really need to trust your agent. If you're going to abdicate, you're you're reading the report because you and I, laura, we had, we know, have several stories over the years where the person, the buyer, did not look the report.
Speaker 3:Let the agent tell them if there's anything important on there let the agent make up the request to remedy, if there even was one yeah, well, and we, and we've had people come back. Hey, I didn't hey I'm having problems with this.
Speaker 2:The one I'm thinking about right now is like, hey, their carbon monoxide was entered in the house because the exhaust vent for the water heater was rusted out. I'm like, well, yes, right here in the report.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm like, did you?
Speaker 2:Well, she gave us a bad review and I'm like did you even read the report? Because everything was right there. That she had asked about and I was like if you relied on somebody else to tell you everything is good. You need to go after that person for not telling you being negative, for not telling you what's on there, because if you're the home buyer, this is your house. You get to make the decision.
Speaker 3:Your financial responsibility. You're the one that has to fix and repair any issues or have any remediation or anything along those lines. I mean she could have had a professional remediation company come in. We could have come in after that and double checked and done mold testing to make sure that it was all cleaned up. And she's lost that chance because I'm sure that first time they already screwed it up. Yeah, at this point, and it's probably all through the house at this point.
Speaker 2:It potentially could be yep. So this is one of the benefits if you use a company like Habitation Investigation or any home inspection company that's been around for a long time. But Habitation Investigation, we got a lot of. We have a lot of. We have a lot of training, a lot of experience, a lot of different areas. We just don't learn the whole inspection and that's that's it we keep doing more and more things and keep learning things.
Speaker 1:So if you have an issue we're.
Speaker 2:We're a great resource yeah for agents, buyers and sellers to ask us. Now we're not going to really help the seller too much on some things. We've had sellers lie and go. No, they said this doesn't need fixed Bullshit. We did not say it doesn't need fixed. We say it's not a we're giving you suggestions. If I'm talking to the seller if I ever do, which almost always is going to be in writing email it will be like hey, this is where that area was and that's about it. I'm never going to tell them it's not a big deal, because that's that's not our choice. Who determines it's a big deal is the buyer.
Speaker 3:They decide if it's a big deal well, and this little lady asked us how it even passed inspection. And I'm like there is no pass or fail. You look at the report and decide can you live with this or, in this case, can your daughter live with this?
Speaker 2:And makes me wonder if the agent go. Yeah, it passed.
Speaker 3:Right, because there is no pass fail with home inspections. So for somebody to sit here and ask that, that tells me that their agent did not give them enough information. And the sad thing is this woman was like oh, our agent was such a sweetheart, I absolutely love her, she was such a dear. Well, do you know how many times I've heard that? And and like, the next time I talked to them they're like oh yeah, I got stabbed in the back. Once I really figured out what happened.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Well, I used to work at Mel Hillfield. Oh okay, okay. And one of the persons I used to work with was this nurse who'd be interested in meeting again. I had to see her sometimes to see what kind of crazy stuff she's been involved in. She's been doing. Yeah, she was nice but she used to work. She worked at a mental hospital where Billy Milligan was.
Speaker 2:So for those that don't know who was Billy Milligan, he was a serial rapist here in Columbus, ohio who had multiple personalities. So there's like the Minds of Billy Milligan. I think that's a movie or a book.
Speaker 3:Wasn't he the first person that they used the insanity defense on?
Speaker 2:Oh, he may have been.
Speaker 3:I think he was the first person.
Speaker 2:That or multiple personality? I'm not certain.
Speaker 3:That would still be insanity. I think that was how they called it.
Speaker 2:It was the first insanity plea, yeah, he was, but she said he was a very charming man. But she said he was a very charming man. And, like I always said, when we interview people, anybody can. Or if you're single out there, if you're dating somebody, anybody can act sane and normal for a little while repeatedly, but when you see them over time, no.
Speaker 2:That's when it starts to break down. Yeah, yeah they, they get relaxed. They think I made, I got past this hurdle and then they let their true color show. They can always act normal for so long, but I'm, I don't, I don't know this agent, but I'm.
Speaker 2:Hopefully she just made a mistake or there's miscommunication between her and the lady, I don't know. But if you're the home buyer, do not give up your right to decide what you get inspected and by that I'm talking about your radon, your water test, mold testing. You decide what you want, looked at.
Speaker 3:Not your agent.
Speaker 2:Sewer scopes, chimney scopes. You decide that stuff, so you decide what you get looked at. But you also never give up your right to read the report for yourself, because what you think is a big deal, your agent might be like nope, I don't think that's a big deal.
Speaker 3:That should not kill the deal.
Speaker 2:That should not kill the deal, so I'm not going to say anything. There's nothing major in here.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe major to you.
Speaker 3:And then, if you are looking at your report and you're confused or you're not sure which is more important or which has more financial implications, ask your home inspector. I mean, we're not going to tell you whether to buy it or not, but we can answer questions like that and let you make your own choices. Yep, and that's what's important. Yep, that, and let you make your own choices.
Speaker 2:Yep, and that's what's important. Yep, you can also take the report, send it off to a contractor that you know and go hey, what would you prioritize in this and what do you think would cost to fix? Hey, what are the top five things here you think, and then how much would it cost to fix those things? You can always do that. Then you can pick and choose from that number. So, all right, I think that's about it on this one. Thank you everybody. Night Bye-bye.
Speaker 4:You've been listening to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast. Be sure to subscribe on Spotify or Google Podcasts to get new, fresh episodes. For more, please follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook, or visit the website of the best Ohio home inspection company at homeinspectionsinohiocom or jimtroffcom. That's J-I-M-T-R-O-T-H and click on podcast. Until next time. Learn and go do stuff.
