I don't have a degree in engineering....

Who would have thought buying a house could be so darn difficult? Not me. At least for the reasons that this particular purchase has been difficult. I thought that finding a property and negotiating a price and even negotiating repairs could be difficult, but we have encountered things I didn't realize could possibly happen.

After we had our inspection there were multiple big problems....broken asbestos in the basement, signs of past termite damage, a bad leak from the downstairs bathroom, some electrical issues, the roof needing to be replaced, loose gutters and a bad foundation without any center supports in a portion of the house. There were a lot of minor things too. We negotiated through this, and the seller was to make repairs on a list of items. We opted to use the contractors that the seller's realtor suggested (I know....I know...). We spoke to them, they explained in great detail how they were going to make some of the repairs...specifically the foundation problems. They used phrases like "jack the area up" and "pour new concrete foundation walls" and "add center support poles"...and it sounded like they knew what they were talking about. The other realtor gave them a rave review...he used them all of the time, they do great work, if they screw him over he wouldn't use them anymore and since he gives them a lot of business he's sure that wouldn't happen.

And he was wrong.

They called to say the work was finished, and were excited...but a touch nervous because it didn't take very long at all. And, Marc and his mom took walks by the house a lot and never saw any work going on. I blew that part off because it was in the evening when most contractors would have been done of for the day. But...we still thought the foundation problem seemed large enough that we should have seen some equipment left behind, or something...but I can't say I've ever seen a project like this take place, so who knows. We opted to have the property reinspected because we know absolutely nothing about the things listed and felt better having our inspector insure us the work was completed correctly.

And it wasn't.

Most of the things were done (although the tone that our inspector used indicated that it wasn't done exactly how he would have done it...). But not everything. A lot of the gutters were still loose, and they failed to replace some rotted gutter boards. Then he got to the foundation.
And this is what they had done to correct the problem...
Now, in case you are construction challenged like I am, and since this is a poor photo let me tell you what that is. That is a stepping stone that was laying outside the entrance to the crawl space (actually holding the entrance to the crawl space closed) that is being used as the foundation to hold an untreated 2x4 in place. That is the center support that they added. And that is all that they did. I'm not positive, but it sort of looks like this added support isn't actually supporting anything structural either, but rather a pipe of some sort. I'm not an expert or anything, but I'm gonna go ahead and say that just aint right.

The situation now is that they are legally obligated to make the repairs to our satisfaction, and they obviously haven't. Our realtor sent the new inspection papers to the other realtor this morning, and they have to have the contractors come back and finish the repairs that they started. They can't refuse because of that legal obligation thing...if they tried to, the other realtor could lose his license...and it could end in a legal battle.

If I were the seller I would be beyond angry if I paid someone money to make repairs and that's what they did. The lazy jerks couldn't even bring their own materials...they just looked around her yard to use things for their crap repair. I would also be willing to bet large sums of money that these fools did not go through the proper steps to safely remove asbestos (covering the area in plastic, securing the area, wearing suits...etc) and simply threw on a mask, dumped the stuff in a trash bag, vacuumed up the dust and took it to the dump. Or just threw it in the seller's trash.

This is beyond frustrating because our closing is in 12 days, and they have to have this completed five days before closing so that we have adequate time to check it again. They're running out of time. And I don't want to pack up all of my belongings if I'm really not moving.

I just want my house...and my big kitchen...and dishwasher...and AC...and big bathrooms...and laundry room...and big front porch...why must these morons screw it up? I'm going to invite them over, because if they see the hoarder like conditions we're living in that haven't been improved by the addition of boxes stacked every where maybe they will feel sorry for us and just do their job.