Wow….another close call today! We inspected one of our clients home just last Saturday and all was well. A painter had to come on Monday to do some touch up work on the interior doors, so we met them at the clients home to let him in. Imagine our surprise to find there was no power! Protocol dictates we turn off all the circuit breakers and then turn them back on. If they don’t switch all the way on, there is usually a problem with the electrical panel. If they turn all the way on and still no power, there is a way bigger problem. Here in Florida, we have Florida Power and Light (FPL). Since the breakers stayed all the way on, we called FPL. To make a long story short, there was a problem in the underground wiring from the electric pole.
This is a client whose home we inspect every week. Imagine if we hadn’t gone back to the home until our next inspection. Rotten things in the refrigerator. Contents of freezer thawed and a puddle on the floor. No AC!! And to top it off, NO WORKING ALARM SYSTEM!
Food can be replaced, but with no AC a mold problem could have easily developed. Mold remediation is very expensive, even for a small area.
And what if the home had been broken into? I shudder to think of all the beautiful things that could have been missing.
This is why we recommend weekly inspections. While these things can’t be prevented by home inspections, at least they are discovered quickly and can prevent a host of heart ache down the road.
Another example of inspections being so important, we had a client that signed up with us and the very first time we went to their home, we found the front door unlocked! A call to the owner said only the painter they had hired had been in the home, but that he had finished up a couple weeks before. Well, guess what? The painting WASN’T finished and this painter had left doors unlocked. Because the painter told the owner he was finished, the owner paid him….for work that was never done! Plus, you wouldn’t believe what this guy charged.
Having a reputable home watch company can save you a lot of money, as shown in these two real life examples. We could have painted this clients home for literally half of what the other guy charged, we would have done a professional job, and the job would have been finished.
Making sure doors and windows are locked and the power and other systems are working is SO important. And it isn’t just vendors that make these mistakes. We’ve gone to homes after an owner has left to find doors unlocked, food left out, freezer doors left ajar, wet clothes left on the floor and in washing machines. All recipes for disaster.
Make sure your home is safe. Hire a responsible, professional home watch company with experience in home watch and other related areas, such as construction and property management. The money you save could be substantial.