Apparently the house just could not take it any longer and decided that enough is enough.

I mean really, what is a house to do, when no one ever cared enough about it for the last hundred years to put a proper foundation under it and has allowed a river of mud to attempt to carry it down the hillside.

It is actually somewhat amazing that the house put up with such difficult life circumstances for as long as it did before deciding to go over the edge.  It had to fight off infestations of structure crippling fungi and insects for most of its life and had the same injuries bandaged over and over in many places.

But some lives can’t be fixed with band-aids.  Sometimes the things that “bug” us get the best of us.  In this case the bugs are Anobiid Beetles and Dampwood Termites.  Forget about all the wood decay/rot eating away at many areas.

A mud slide under the house

Eventually nature always reclaims its own—-all we can do as home builders and as home owners is to put it off as long as possible.  The best homes are given protection that does not involve someone’s plan for job security.  It is likely that many of the under structures have been replaced multiple times due to the conducive conditions that have never been dealt with properly.

PS—-those things sticking out of the mud are “horsetail” starting to grow.

***

Charles Buell, Real Estate Inspections in Seattle

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Take a look at the picture below.  Note how convoluted the run of the vent pipes are from the water heater and the furnace.  There is nothing about the installation of vent pipes from gas appliances that requires them to look like spaghetti, in fact, the shortest runs with the least number of bends is desirable.

Poor venting of the furnace and water heater

It is difficult to see in this picture, but it is not possible to remove the furnace filter because it runs into the vent pipe.

Filter hits vent pipe

In the inspection report I called to have the venting repaired so that the water heater would vent better and that changing the furnace filter would be possible.  In this next picture we can see the “repair,” by the licensed heating contractor, did improve the venting of the water heater by eliminating the long bending run to the point of attachment.

The way the venting was "repaired"

But,—-once again it was not possible to remove the filter without pushing the vent pipe out of the way.

The filter still cannot be removed---even after "repairs"

This “solution” just made me want to vent!

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Charles Buell, Real Estate Inspections in Seattle

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While they generally kept the “volume” of their fighting turned down—-occasionally it was loud enough for the neighbors to hear.  In fact, their fighting was legendary in the neighborhood.

Regarding keeping the squirrels and cats out of their yard, they had very different ideas.  The squirrels and cats, that roamed the neighborhood, relentlessly attacked the birds they were trying to attract to the many bird feeders and bird houses they had installed around the property.  Harry had gotten very good at making these structures from left over bits of wood and items to be thrown in the trash—-he had even sold a few on EBay.

Harry’s approach was very direct.  He would dress in his finest Army Surplus garb and hide out in the bamboo thicket and wait—-BB Gun cocked and loaded.  It was Millie that had to deal with the complaints of the neighbors about broken windows—-and (occasionally) a kid with a sore behind.  It was Harry that had to deal with Millie when it was their own windows that got “thwacked!”

It didn’t seem to bother him that he was the one that was going to have to fix them—-somehow it was worth it to see those furry bird-food-chomping squirrels, and bird-chomping cat-beasts go “ass over teakettle” out of the trees and off the fences—–especially when they would sometime drop into the Koi pond.

Koi pond

One day when they were having their home re-carpeted Harry came up with an “ultimate weapon” to deter the critters.

While the carpet guys were out in the truck eating their lunch, taking a break from installing new carpet in the living room, he got an idea when he inadvertently stepped on the uncovered tack strip with his bare feet when he had come in from the bamboo to get more BB’s.  While  a bit “eye-watering” for Harry, it was nonetheless a “light-bulb” moment for him. He put on his gardening gloves and pilfered the carton of tack strip from the carpet guys and headed for the back yard.  (Hopefully the carpet guys had more tack strip in the truck.)

Tack strip security system

Necessity is the Grandmother of invention—–or so they say!

Sort of looks like a lawsuit waiting to happen doesn’t it?

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Charles Buell, Real Estate Inspections in Seattle

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I mean, how is it that I am able to “look” down on myself—-without “feeling” down on myself?

There is an old wisdom that says that the essence of who we are is that part within us that is able to observe ourselves, observing ourselves. 

It is kind of like our own internal, kinky, 24/7, mini-cam in our mind’s eye.  We usually only have fleeting moments of this ability, and one of the difficult things to understand about it is that as soon as we become aware of it, we are once again not behind the camera.  But, when we are “in that moment,” it is a truly fulfilling experience—-not unlike looking at a sunset, smelling a baby’s head, or eating a nice bowl of chicken noodle soup when one is sick.

So how is it that I am able to look down on myself without feeling down on myself?

Who is watching who?

 I trust that when I look in the mirror in the morning I will know the answer.

Why would anyone put mirrors on their Bathroom ceiling anyway?

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Charles Buell, Real Estate Inspections in Seattle

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Especially the big black bottomless type.

For me, there is nothing more un-nerving than to be feeling my way across the plastic ground cover and feel “NOTHING” under the plastic.

Water under the plastic—-feeling like a giant waterbed—–is not uncommon and that is fairly simple to deal with.  You either back up and leave—-or you go around it.

It is those holes you come upon that seem like “Black Holes” in your crawl-space-universe—-until you peer over the edge with your flashlight and discover snarling vermin, the ground only inches away or water 20 feet down.  The water-20-feet-down type holes—-as in abandoned wells—CAN FREAK A PERSON OUT!!!  Yup!

Other types of holes are:  abandoned septic tanks with collapsed covers; abandoned cisterns full of junk automobile parts, water, and rat carcasses; abandoned basements full of old water heaters and bug infested furniture; and, holes created where stumps have rotted away.

I just love that feeling of adrenalin as I visualize being swallowed up by any one of these versions of holes.

Another type of hole is where with every knee placement—–with every hand placement—–the ground underneath collapses 2-3 inches.  This happens when the top layer of dirt is riddled with rat tunnels.  These kinds of holes you get used to, but they can FREAK YOU OUT at first—-but not as much as the ones you think might be “bottomless.”  I am just grateful when the rat tunnels are covered with plastic to minimize the mold and asbestos-laden dust that would otherwise billow up around you.

The following picture was from a crawl space at a recent inspection.

Sink hole in crawl space?

Even when you can see them ahead of time, they can still be unnerving, because you still don’t know how deep they are and you don’t know if it is hollow under where you are laying—-but just hasn’t collapsed yet!

Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on what you are into) this one was only good for a small adrenalin rush.

What the-------?

I know that there really is no such thing as a bottomless pit, but it really doesn’t have to be very deep to represent a difficult scenario for the “Search and Rescue” crew——assuming of course you remembered to fall into the hole with your cell phone.

I think my worse nightmare would be falling though the cover of an old hidden septic tank full of raw sewage, drowning my cell phone, if not myself.

These ARE the REAL reasons they pay us the big bucks.

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Charles Buell, Real Estate Inspections in Seattle

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