Last Edit June 11, 1996
In May, 1995, I moved into an older home. Not my first house. Not my first old house. I called for and paid for inspections. I played by the rules. I thought I did it right, after all, it had worked for me before. But.......
On moving into the home, the extension cords hanging all over the garage were visible but I was not made aware that they were, in fact, illegal. The home inspection made at my request had called out the non-code conditions in the garage and I understood that they were to be fixed by the seller. I have now been informed by THREE DIFFERENT contractors, including the one who did the upgrade, that the house WOULD BE CLOSED IF THE FIRE MARSHAL SAW IT.
I had paid $600 for upgrades to the electrical system. I have also added outlets for my computer and the new air-conditioner. I found suspicious blue caps on the wires coming off the power pole. OOPS!
On moving into the home, I found that the bathtub in the master bath did not drain. I had my home warranty company come to fix this (over two week period). At that time they indicated that the tub installation had been done using "cheap" parts and that the tub drain had been jammed for some time. This condition was not disclosed and the seller said "they never took baths so did not know". This made no sense as I was also taking showers. Warranty replaced the tub drain mechanism.
All the faucets in the home were dripping. The assigned plumber came and put washers into the faucets. The faucets began dripping again within about 4-6 weeks and I was told it was another call ($50) as they only warranted their work for 30 days. I spent $100 on calls. I was not happy with the service. On the next leak, I turned off the cold water line in the hall bath and decided to repair it when I repaired other things in the bathroom.
The bathroom toilet in the hall bath was constantly plugging and not draining from the first week on.. The plumber, on one of their calls, tried to run a snake down but could not so just told me that "it was a cheap toilet" and left it. They said to use drain cleaner. They made no attempt to open or locate a clean out and in fact, did not do what I had requested, i.e., fix the toilet problem. I continued putting drain cleaner down it weekly and it was barely operational.
Note that had the plumber fixed the problem at this time, the later sewage disaster would have been prevented.
Within weeks of moving into the house, all the outside lights blew out. I left this alone during the summer as I was busy with the other problems. When I did call home warranty, they told me that the garage was illegally wired, that the lights had blown out due to a power surge, and that the surge had taken out the motion detector unit on the garage as well. They also said that the perimeter lights at the gate and on the atrium wall were illegal (not to code) and we walked around the garage identifying problems. One electrician was to provide me with a quote to fix the problem but they never did. He did ballpark it at $200-300. The lights are still out.
On moving in I had experienced the thrill of being informed by my at-home son that there were guys on the roof. (He is not little (14) and has had 4 years of martial arts. Actually he is rather big at 175lbs and almost 6 feet tall. And he's still growing.) It was the roofers finishing the repairs to the roof that had been called out in the inspection and that were supposed to be completed prior to the close of escrow. During the following rain storms, I noted a few leaks and began calling to see about repairs. The roof is not covered under the Buyers Warranty.
On the new storms of this year, we experienced severe leaking in 5-6 locations. The roofing company has been there about 5 times. The roof is still leaking. On one call, I was told that the flashing had "pulled away" - in fact, it had not been fixed at all prior to the close of escrow. The only work completed was a poor attempt at a resurfacing of the roof which shows cracks and unevenness, no sealing was attempted.
There are water stains on ceilings in four locations and the bowed roof boards, which had been described as "cosmetic" damage in the home inspection, have been joined by several others. These are not "cosmetic" problems. On going up to the roof, it is obvious that stepping on these boards will put you through the roof.
On checking the attic (difficult since it is full), we found batting falling down from the roof. I cannot tell where water is coming in or why.
In January I was gifted with a sewage back-up that spread through two bathrooms, the master bedroom and the kitchen. I called in my own contractor for emergency repairs. He could not locate the clean-out - although I remember my real estate agent asking about one. In eight hours we ran snake lines through every opening we could get to. We found the clean-out under the kitchen sink located behind the garbage disposal and jammed shut. The U-bend was leaking. (In the course of discovering the pipes, the contractor said the kitchen faucet which was leaking would need replacing not a washer, the bathroom faucet that was turned off it was dripping so bad needed a rebuild, and the sink drain control was too short. The Master bath drain was also incorrectly installed.) We tried the toilet and finally pulled the toilets off. It was noted from the sewage seepage that neither toilet was properly seated (why the sewage was not contained in the bathtubs). The floor being uneven, it takes two collars to seat the toilets and only one had been used. The sewage had backed up and flowed out under the toilet itself across the floors.
One toilet was found to be cracked - as was noted in the home inspection - and he said it would have to be replaced. In other words, it should have been seen to before escrow closed.
We then went to the garage and tried the washing machine drain. He found that it had 90 degree bends - a code violation. He cut that open and we tried the snake again.
On its failure, we finally found a plate in the garage that marked the clean-out. The former owner had jury-rigged the washing machine drain to fall into the clean-out - it was not attached to the sewer pipe and had 90 degree bends - the reason the snake could not be inserted in the line. He had to cut up the pipe mess and break up the cement floor to reach the sewer drain to open it and run the snake.
He rebuilt a legal washing machine drain, reinstalled a clean-out cover and repoured cement in the garage.
All the towels in the house had gone down to stop the flow of sewage across the bedroom. We had no bathrooms and no washing facilities for several days during this adventure. My bedroom carpet needs to be replaced. The animals were without proper home facilities. (Cat, dog, 4 Chinchillas and 3 rabbits. One rabbit died.)
He properly installed two toilets and fixed the drips the warranty plumber had failed to fix.
During this time, we still had drips from the roof and the phone was acting up. I finally called Pacific Bell and they came out on Saturday the 13th of Feb. They found that the phone line into the Master Bedroom had been put in without a drip bend and without caulking so water had been seeping into the wall. It had corroded the line. I had a new outlet properly run and sealed. The home inspection had not called out this "hole" nor had the termite inspection - a serious oversight since there most likely is water damage inside the wall. I will cut the line and seal it up.
Just to be consistent, the seller did not properly install the door knobs and they either do not work, fell off or, in the case of the garage, lock nothing.
When I had my contractor install tub enclosures, we found that the tubs are not level and the doors magically slide open at will.
PG&E will be called to examine the furnace. Just in case, I had a new one installed in the garage.
PS: I got a lawyer. She named the house (hence the title). The faulty wiring is now being fixed - $1,400 worth of fixes. The upgrade I paid for was never inspected. The rest of the mess is supposed to be settled soon. Or I will sue. Stay tuned.
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