The Danger of Ignoring Your Home Inspection Report

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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.

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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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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Habitation investigation is the way to go
for a home inspection in Ohio.
Trusted licensed homeinspectors for your needs.
From radon to mold towarranties For a great home
inspection, you really can't gowrong.

(00:21):
Visit homeinspectionsInOhiocom.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
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 homeinspection company take a look
at it, but then, fortunately, itwas our company, which is good,
am I right?

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah, we did this one .
Yeah, we did the inspection forher, and we called out a lot of
things in it in regards topotential organic growth.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yes, because we saw some stuff.
Technically, you really can'tcall it mold unless you
positively do a test to it.
You know, though, if, if youknow, 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 gettested.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
Quacks like a duck?
It's probably a duck, but youshould test it to make sure that
it is a duck or mold here's theunfortunate thing for her.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
She called us, had some issues, concerns, concerns.
So she talked to our companyhere and everything she
complained about or said shedidn't know about was in the
report yep everything come tofind out.
She never read her report andshe instead looks like she

(01:52):
relied on her real estate agentto tell her if there's anything
important in there sounds likeit so she, uh, abdicated her her
power to look at that and makedecisions for herself.
So what?
So?
What's going on?
That story now?

Speaker 3 (02:09):
so the sad thing about it is it's an older woman,
not from ohio, she's fromanother state.
Her daughter is going throughchemo, so they cannot have any
mold in this house like theyjust can't because their
daughter can't take it All right.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
How old is the daughter?
Is it a kid or an adult?
I did not ask.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Okay, I'm assuming it's an older adult, because
she's older.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Okay, that's good.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
That makes sense yeah .

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Most people don't have kids when they're in their
60s.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Right, and I think she's older than that so I'm
assuming it's an adult child.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
So this lady is out of state, moved up here where
her daughter lives, I'm going toassume or at least where her
daughter's doing chemo.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
Yes, and so they bought a house to be up here and
spend time and help take careof her nice of them, so yeah,
very nice of.
So now you come to the pointwhere apparently there was
supposed to be some type of moldremediation and the remediation
was just scrubbing it andkilsing.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
That remediation?
Was that before we did theinspection or is this like after
we did the inspection?

Speaker 3 (03:23):
I think it was after the inspection, but don't quote
me on that.
Okay, I think that was maybepart of the report that the
agent had requested.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Don't, don't okay, so the agent didn't like totally
neglect she.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yeah, well now here comes the interesting part they
didn't get anything from acompany saying that it had been
remediated.
Apparently, all they, literallyall they did was they scrubbed
it and painted over it, whichdidn't actually, um uh, make a

(03:57):
difference and do anything,because it's not coming through
the paint, so they didn't dryanything out.
They didn't actually fix theissue, they didn't do any
remediation or actually killedthe mold prior to this.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Okay, so somebody did remediation, but we don't know
if it was the seller, somehomeless dude that he just
pulled off the street to come doit, because there's no receipt
for any legit company, or anyreceipt at all.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
So somehow company B gets involved with this and
who's company b I don't know.
Company b wanted to come in anddig out the mold okay, so
that's another remediationcompany.
It's another remediation company.
They wanted to dig out the moldand then that was pretty much.

(04:45):
It Just throw out the, the, the, the stuff that had the mold on
it.
No containment, no killing themold prior, nothing like
absolutely nothing.
And he was pushing her hard tocome in and do the remediation
Like he just wanted it done, he,like he actually wanted it done
tonight.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
I never heard of digging it done.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
He like he actually wanted it done.
Tonight I never heard ofdigging it out.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
I mean.
I've heard of cutting out,removing a second, but just
digging it.
It sounds like you're justscraping it, which you are a
certified mold assessor throughNormie.
You, you know that's not theproper way to do it.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
No, yeah.
And if you're going to just goand you're going to start
digging at the mold withoutkilling it, you're going to
release mycotoxins because themold's going to protect itself.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
And you can't have that if somebody's going through
chemo, Because if you gothrough chemo your immune system
is weakened.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
Your immune system's shot.
They kill your immune system onpurpose.
Same thing if you go throughorgan transplant.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
That yeah, you gotta take medication, transplant,
chemo, which means you're gonnabe more susceptible to issues
with molds and mycotoxins and itsounds like man.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Well, the molds came back right, so it wasn't the
first time, so which means itwasn't killed.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
They just scraped it off, which tells me there's
probably going to be mycotoxinsthere.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Potentially yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
So now you?
You talked to the lady, sosince you're a certified mold
assessor, you're going to helpher get things set up.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
I've actually already contacted a remediation company
that I work with and they, tomy knowledge, were going out
tonight to see her because sheneeds to get back to see her
daughter.
No-transcript, I got a goodremediation company in there

(06:44):
that I know will do a good jobfor them and at this point
that's what they need.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, so this is well for anybody who's in a position
to recommend a home inspectioncompany.
You really need to trust youragent.
If you're going to abdicate,you're you're reading the report
because you and I, laura, wehad, we know, have several
stories over the years where theperson, the buyer, did not look
the report.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
Let the agent tell them if there's anything
important on there let the agentmake 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 havingproblems with this.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
The one I'm thinking about right now is like, hey,
their carbon monoxide wasentered in the house because the
exhaust vent for the waterheater was rusted out.
I'm like, well, yes, right herein the report.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Oh, I'm like, did you ?

Speaker 2 (07:38):
Well, she gave us a bad review and I'm like did you
even read the report?
Because everything was rightthere.
That she had asked about and Iwas like if you relied on
somebody else to tell youeverything is good.
You need to go after thatperson for not telling you being
negative, for not telling youwhat's on there, because if
you're the home buyer, this isyour house.

(08:00):
You get to make the decision.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
Your financial responsibility.
You're the one that has to fixand repair any issues or have
any remediation or anythingalong those lines.
I mean she could have had aprofessional remediation company
come in.
We could have come in afterthat and double checked and done
mold testing to make sure thatit was all cleaned up.

(08:23):
And she's lost that chancebecause I'm sure that first time
they already screwed it up.
Yeah, at this point, and it'sprobably all through the house
at this point.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
It potentially could be yep.
So this is one of the benefitsif you use a company like
Habitation Investigation or anyhome 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, alot of experience, a lot of
different areas.
We just don't learn the wholeinspection and that's that's it

(08:53):
we keep doing more and morethings and keep learning things.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
So if you have an issue we're.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
We're a great resource yeah for agents, buyers
and sellers to ask us.
Now we're not going to reallyhelp the seller too much on some
things.
We've had sellers lie and go.
No, they said this doesn't needfixed Bullshit.
We did not say it doesn't needfixed.
We say it's not a we're givingyou suggestions.
If I'm talking to the seller ifI ever do, which almost always

(09:23):
is going to be in writing emailit will be like hey, this is
where that area was and that'sabout it.
I'm never going to tell themit's not a big deal, because
that's that's not our choice.
Who determines it's a big dealis the buyer.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
They decide if it's a big deal well, and this little
lady asked us how it even passedinspection.
And I'm like there is no passor fail.
You look at the report anddecide can you live with this or
, in this case, can yourdaughter live with this?

Speaker 2 (09:56):
And makes me wonder if the agent go.
Yeah, it passed.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
Right, because there is no pass fail with home
inspections.
So for somebody to sit here andask that, that tells me that
their agent did not give themenough information.
And the sad thing is this womanwas like oh, our agent was such
a sweetheart, I absolutely loveher, she was such a dear.
Well, do you know how manytimes I've heard that?
And and like, the next time Italked to them they're like oh

(10:23):
yeah, I got stabbed in the back.
Once I really figured out whathappened.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
Oh yeah, Well, I used to work at Mel Hillfield.
Oh okay, okay.
And one of the persons I usedto work with was this nurse
who'd be interested in meetingagain.
I had to see her sometimes tosee what kind of crazy stuff
she's been involved in.
She's been doing.
Yeah, she was nice but she usedto work.
She worked at a mental hospitalwhere Billy Milligan was.

(10:49):
So for those that don't know whowas Billy Milligan, he was a
serial rapist here in Columbus,ohio who had multiple
personalities.
So there's like the Minds ofBilly Milligan.
I think that's a movie or abook.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
Wasn't he the first person that they used the
insanity defense on?

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Oh, he may have been.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
I think he was the first person.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
That or multiple personality?
I'm not certain.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
That would still be insanity.
I think that was how theycalled it.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
It was the first insanity plea, yeah, he was, but
she said he was a very charmingman.
But she said he was a verycharming man.
And, like I always said, whenwe interview people, anybody can
.
Or if you're single out there,if you're dating somebody,
anybody can act sane and normalfor a little while repeatedly,

(11:40):
but when you see them over time,no.
That's when it starts to breakdown.
Yeah, yeah they, they getrelaxed.
They think I made, I got pastthis hurdle and then they let
their true color show.
They can always act normal forso long, but I'm, I don't, I
don't know this agent, but I'm.
Hopefully she just made amistake or there's

(12:01):
miscommunication between her andthe lady, I don't know.
But if you're the home buyer,do not give up your right to
decide what you get inspectedand by that I'm talking about
your radon, your water test,mold testing.
You decide what you want,looked at.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
Not your agent.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Sewer scopes, chimney scopes.
You decide that stuff, so youdecide what you get looked at.
But you also never give up yourright to read the report for
yourself, because what you thinkis a big deal, your agent might
be like nope, I don't thinkthat's a big deal.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
That should not kill the deal.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
That should not kill the deal, so I'm not going to
say anything.
There's nothing major in here.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Right.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Well, maybe major to you.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
And then, if you are looking at your report and
you're confused or you're notsure which is more important or
which has more financialimplications, ask your home
inspector.
I mean, we're not going to tellyou whether to buy it or not,
but we can answer questions likethat and let you make your own
choices.
Yep, and that's what'simportant.
Yep, that, and let you makeyour own choices.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yep, and that's what's important.
Yep, you can also take thereport, send it off to a
contractor that you know and gohey, what would you prioritize
in this and what do you thinkwould cost to fix?
Hey, what are the top fivethings here you think, and then
how much would it cost to fixthose things?
You can always do that.
Then you can pick and choosefrom that number.
So, all right, I think that'sabout it on this one.
Thank you everybody.
Night Bye-bye.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
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(13:49):
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