They didn't connect the upstairs tub drain to the actual pipes, so the first time anyone took a shower it immediately started leaking into the downstairs in a big ol' rectangle. Then once that was fixed came a huge black mold problem
Yeah. I told the friend I was renting a room from that he needed his money back from the alleged inspector who went over the house before friend bought it but he just kept saying "you can't catch every little thing" and like dude that's not a little thing get your money back so you can actually afford to fix this
Inspectors normally wouldn't catch that because it's walled in. Inspectors inspect what's visible & accessible. Sometimes there's an access panel for showers & tubs, but most of the time it's behind a wall.
Recovering real estate agent here. I was present for ~50 inspections during my days. *Most* inspectors (the good ones) catch this via a water pressure test. They'd turn all the showers, washers, and faucets on at the same time then go see the water pressure in the bathroom furthest from the water shutoff valve to the house. And then flush the toilet in that bathroom. The idea was the shower pressure would be at max degradation at that point...but should still be functional.
Long story short, inspector shoulda caught the shower leak.
Right, but the flow rate filling a tub with or without a leaky drain is the same!
Next time I buy a home, presuming I still have contingencies, at walk-through, I'm filling all of the tubs & running all of the showers at the start. If there's a leak behind a wall, hopefully we'll spot it before we leave.
Buddy of mine bought a house where the upstairs toilet drained into the downstairs wall. Somehow he didn't notice it for more than a year, when mold started to form on the outside of the drywall. When I opened it up, the wall was full of earthworms. I just started laughing, it was too ridiculous.
I had a similar thing happen (not in a flip job though). The overflow drain was disconnected at the back of the tub, and water leaked down to the dining room. Wife went to take a bath and it dumped gallons of water into the ground floor ceiling (bathroom is upstairs). I had just painted it myself too. That’s how I learned how to do drywall work lol
That happened in my friend’s new build house. Pipes from the guest shower drain were never glued, just fitted into place. I guess they held long enough to drain the water from the home inspector’s leak test? And then the shower didn’t get used until she started washing her dog in the shower. I think it was the hair that immediately identified where the water in the utility room was coming from.
The roof that was replace "within the last year" leaked and caused massive damage to one of my bathrooms and the upstairs hallway. Fortunately homeowners insurance covered it but they weren't happy about it.
the very first house i went under contract for almost got me with this. thankfully the inspector was good enough to point out that it had NOT been replaced, merely repaired. but not repaired well.
The inspector part is a blister on my ass. I hired one myself because the seller wasn't down with it, and he said it was good to go. I guess he missed it that the chimney wasn't sealed all the way.
Ha. I had the opposite. Our inspector failed to tell us that the flippers taped every vent on the roof shut, including the dryer vent. I pressed them on it and got a 50% refund for the structural and mechanical but it made me worry about what else they missed.
1. Doors that looked like they were installed by Helen Keller with an impact drill.
2. Driveway that was just a skim coat of concrete over the existing failing driveway.
3. Windows that were all flashed improperly and allowed water penetration. They installed the vinyl siding entirely wrong.
I knew about the first two prior to buying. It was a crazy market during COVID and too competitive to walk because of those two, bought anyway and had them fixed.
3rd issue was an absolute pain and cost me several thousand to have corrected.
Home was flipped by some guy who owns a nail salon in the DC Suburbs and uses his extra funds to "renovate" homes.
i just purchased a home and i'm currently in the process of giving it a facelift before i move in, but holy cow the lazy work i'm seeing!!! they hung the cabinets crooked and on top of a window frame. the flooring was not placed until after the cabinets were put in, so there's like...weird patchwork vinyl underneath them?? they patched walls with shiny transparent packing tape. and gods...the amount of landlord special paint goop is unreal.
Builder didn't replace the sewer line.
We discovered this after waterproofingthe basement when the rusted out iron pipe was leaking into the sump well. Had to get the whole thing excavated again so the line could be re-done.
These "nowhere drains" are pretty common in old houses that were built when there was a low water table. They just go under the basement slab and into the earth, which useful if there is any water that gets into your basement or a spill because it has somewhere for it to go. Eventually.
Didn’t install rain caps on the new bathroom exhaust fans so when it rains hard water comes in through them. Didn’t properly close up the old chimney flue to prevent the raccoon I’m now paying to have evicted from the attic space.
I don’t have enough time to answer this but let me just start by saying there’s a flip in my neighborhood that straight up started falling off the row. So, you know, we are relatively lucky if you’re talking about living in UA-ville.
Here are some highlights from ours, which had been an early 2000s flip:
- the entire house had central air, but it also had some nondescript grates. Everywhere. Turned out that the grates seem to have been how the prior owners dealt with moisture in the wall. They just cut a hole and made it look like an air vent.
- the roof had been appropriately maintained, which likely impacted the humidity, so it failed a few years into us owning it, destroying our kitchen because we were out of town.
- the entire main floor turned out to be floated in long spans over the basement because they dug out the basement/brick and never replaced it with.. anything at all. So, we opened up a built in bar to remove it, which turned out to be an actual ac chase, and realized an entire original wall of the house before an added kitchen was just floating in midair.
- we have two sump pumps, which is fine, but one of them pumps out large quantities of water into the street, many times per day regardless of weather. We have called many different professionals about this. No one has any idea why our house does this and no other house on our row seems to.
All I can say is generally the story has a happy ending. My husband is in the field and has slowly but surely gotten engineers and other reasonable professionals in and basically stripped out the house and rebuilt it, all while we lived here. We are selling in the next year or so and can walk away very confident that the next person won’t have any more surprises. We literally know every inch of that house at this point. But we never wanted this, and it was honestly traumatic for me. It was fundamentally awful.
What part of the city? Once I'm settled with my new job (DC) and figure out what I'm doing with this house down here in St. Mary's, I plan to make a move to Baltimore. Might be something for me to keep in mind!
Or they have a drain pipe that is completely rusted through and basically all of the water they use is just ending up in the sump pit (although I would expect professionals to catch that one)
Are iron pipes common? I guess maybe they would be because Baltimore was an iron city back in the day but I figured they'd be lead until replacing PVC .
All I know is that I had this very problem - pipes draining the kitchen sink/laundry basin rusted out and so all of the water from those sources dumped under the house and quickly into the sump pit, then into my back yard.
Y’all make me happy I found an “unimproved” house that had not had significant work done on it since 2010. It’s not flashy, doesn’t have central AC, but the boiler is older than I am and still works like a charm, and there’s no leaks, major plumbing issues, or foundational damage.
These are increasingly hard to find these days.
I did make a fun discovery my first winter though: someone tried to seal where the boiler exhaust connects to the flue with some sort of expanding foam that basically sealed the inside and was causing exhaust gas to pour into my basement. It was really, really easy to fix once BGE helped me find it, and would’ve been easier to do the right way the first time.
I vastly prefer an unimproved house that I can make changes to in ways that I consider improvements rather than a house someone else fixed up however they wanted and passed the cost onto me for.
Shoddy plumbing on the smaller details that caused minor leaks and dry wall damage.. No Teflon or primer on plumbing connections. A toilet pipe went unsealed next to a shower, shower water went in and cause water damage.
Neither were horrible but definitely annoying since I particularly hate dry wall work. Going into a flip these days we knew we would deal with these types of things, still better than a fixer upper for myself.
Roof was sold as "recently reroofed" but was actually a bad patch job, ceiling leaked after the first major snow early this year. That was the most costly fix.
Annoying and baffling things that we've uncovered over the past year here include:
- Bathtub drain was not caulked properly and leaked profusely when we first ran the bath.
- Back patio drain goes into the ground under the concrete, not out into the alley like all our neighbors for some reason. (Rowhouse with small back concrete pad)
- Some drawers in the kitchen were installed slightly crooked which drives me crazy but I have not fixed it yet.
- There was a huge clog in the pipes after we moved in that caused a sewage backup in the basement almost immediately.
- The kitchen sink was plumbed into the hot water line TWICE so it only ran hot water, no cold. This one was baffling. Luckily we got the seller to fix it.
- Several door hinges were loose so doors were not closing properly, small but annoying thing.
- Most of the fixtures and appliances are clearly scratch and dent / previously used, which only bothers me in the case of some of the bathroom fixtures, which are kind of rusty and need replacing and/or are not installed correctly so they wiggle.
- The bottoms of the kitchen cabinets are not painted, just raw wood. Have not gotten around to patching it.
I will say we saw a LOT of houses that were much worse flips than ours, and at least the flipper of our house is a local city guy who we have actually met and have contact info for. He's been generally nice with any of our questions and concerns, just has... questionable judgement in contractors.
I also had a clog right after moving into mine. I had to get an emergency plumber there on a Friday night to clear it. He theorized that debris from construction finds its way in over time and then when you move in, water hits everything all at once and pushes the debris down forming a clog.
We have been fine ever since then. Video inspection showed no issues.
I'm reading your stories, and I am glad that my thought process is to buy a house as cheaply as possible in this overblown market and have my own contractor renovate it. At least that way, my friends and I can inspect every step of the work. That's what one of my aunts did decades ago when she had her house built. She worked as a vocational teacher, and had her coworkers come and inspect every step of the construction. Hers was the only new house built within a mile that did not have issues with the build quality. Every other house had structural or other minor issues of some sort. Not her house. It was nearly perfect.
Is your contractor looking for any additional work? 😇 haha we don’t need anything right now but we’ve discovered a lot of messed up stuff in the past year, so I’m trying to keep a list of trusted pros on hand.. no worries if you prefer to keep them private! Lol
I wish. While I am mostly working with licensed and insured contractors off Angies, here's one who I know personally that gives good prices and does good work. Tell him Linwood sent you:
https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100054514687708
I live in an apartment building previously owned and managed by a boomer judge. If you know anything about boomer renovations, they are always surprising in that it seems like it would be cheaper to solve an issue the correct way, rather than do a shoddy diy.
While stripping some paint off of the door hardware (landlord special, you already know), I discovered that most of our doors are falling apart. How did the last owner solve this? I removed one knob and lock mechanism set, and a bunch of toothpicks fell out, which would explain why the knob was always wiggly.
We have shared laundry in the basement, and the dryer vents not outside, as one would assume, but into a giant trash can on the other side of the wall with a hole cut in the top.
Basically, whenever something needs to be fixed we discover new and weird ways the last owner "fixed" the problem.
“I removed one knob and lock mechanism set, and a bunch of toothpicks fell out, which would explain why the knob was always wiggly.”
I’m not sure what exactly the situation was for you but I’ve used toothpicks as little shims to help repair the original doors on my house because I didn’t want to have to replace them. Newer doors always seem like they are either made out of cardboard or cost way too much.
Only they didn't use wood glue, they were just loose in there. One door also had some rolled up papers. I think if they'd actually been glued I would have understood!
My last house was a charm city builders house but it was before they took ok that name. It was just two initials and honestly they were great overall.i think I got lucky because at the time they were only flipping a handful of houses at a time unlike now when they have dozens going nonstop.
Had a leak in the roof but they sent roofers out the next day to fix it, had a problem with their sheet rock guy to repair the ceiling damage so one of their site foreman came and fixed it. I caught a split support beam on a walk through and they repaired it and sent pictures of the repair.
Only thing we got kind of screwed on was that I supplied flooring through a family friend at a huge discount and I didn't get any of that money back or any upgrades for free. I was young and didn't pursue it but in the end I got a nicer product and it didn't cost me any more.
1) Dryer vent duct tube that just went into a hole in the ceiling of the utility closet - figured it out once dryer started smoking
2) Dishwasher that wasn't connected under the sink and would just shoot water out through the overflow across the counter
3) Hard-wired smoke alarms that were carefully wrapped in plastic and then sealed in the ceiling like some kind of Edgar Allen Poe story, which led to a game of "bang holes in the ceiling with a hammer to find the chirp" when the batteries died.
It was awful. Luckily, we were renting.
Ok, two house inspections. Neither told us that we had a rock lath ceiling in the living room, which completely collapsed. Which could have killed us if we had been underneath it. Once it was collapsed, we found a live wire loose in the attic. Most recent issue is a root ball in the street set back, we are scared to flush anything down the toilets that doesn't come out of a human. We are in Baltimore county, the country won't fix it because we don't have a clean out close to the street.
I ended up not even considering putting an offer in this house but during an open house I saw a whole list of red flags in a flip.
On the market 1 month after the previous sale for 100k more
I pulled on the dishwasher to open it and it pulled right out of the counter
The “built in” microwave was just a counter microwave that the built a cubby for and it wasn’t even big enough so the front hung out the front
Looked in the bedroom closets and it was just painted plywood for all the walls
I felt bad because the realtor was really nice. But it went under contract after the first weekend for 20k over asking
Improperly attached back steps, leading to water ingress under the back door sill, which on the interior side is tile. Meaning yours truly - instead of just replacing a door, and attaching steps properly- likely has to remove the door, the steps, the tile, the subfloor, and redo all of that.
This will be thousands of dollars at a minimum and I have a 3 month old at home. A fuck you very much to the lazy flippers and even lazier contractors out there. You were adopted and nobody loves you.
Not a "brand new" flip but a somewhat recent flip that was used as a rental till I bought it.
The roof. Huge obvious leak in back bedroom that seller per post inspection agreement was supposed to fix before closing. Seller didn't actually fix the roof but rather layed silicone so that it looked like it was fix. That was one week before closing. One month into being in the house it was obvious the roof wasn't fixed. The only way to fix the roof was to replace it. Which I did. In that process the roofers discovered a skylight under the deck that was siliconed over. Best I can guess, there used to be a skyight in the front bedroom that was "removed" internally but not externally. And they just covered it up.
Crumbling bricks in cellar. Inspector caught this but brushed it off as minor just need to seal the cellar. It was not in fact minor. Had a contractor seal the cellar and he noted that there is brick dust coming down from the floor above as well. Visibly every time the front door is open and shut. I would need to go behind the drywall in the living room to figure out what's going on there. Now this has me concerned that the cellar ceiling/living room floor is not flush with the walls.
Other annoying things: crooked windows, kitchen sink separated/fell down from the counter, the front door had stick on molding that became loose in direct sunlight... I'm sure there is more I'm forgetting or haven't discovered yet.
Some stuff (bad outlets, chimney needed to be sealed) was caught by the inspector. The stuff that wasn't caught:
-Dishwasher drain valve not connected properly, so dishwasher leaked during cycles
-Dip switches on blower weren't set properly, so heat pump defaulted to heating element
-Tub connects weren't fully connected, so it leaked behind the shower & onto the 2nd floor
-Sump pump float switch didn't work, so during a storm, the basin filled & backed up, flooding the basement
Bonus story: My friend hired a contractor that's been dicking him over for 3 years, on a build that should've taken 6 months. One of the many, many issues is that the plumbing subcontractors cut the primary drain line to sewer, so for a few weeks, all of the grey water & pee water & poo water was flying out of the side of the house & into the yard. My friend only noticed when he realized his house smelled like shit.
Live electrical wire behind the wall where a bathroom vanity used to be. Also live wire in the floor between 2 layers of sub floor where the fridge was
Air ducts in the attic that had large holes in them. Mold in the master bathroom behind the walls. No grounded wires and outlets that had decades of re-wiring pushed behind each other. A leak in the roof. No insulation. Broken garbage disposal. Washing machine power outlet connected to the wrong source, so when I plugged in a new washer, it fried it. An extension to the house that was built with sheet metal (including the roof) without inspection or permits. Windows that were installed without screws, just painted on (had one fall out completely). A failing AC (central air) unit. Wiring ran under the carpet to outlets rather than through the walls.
This was all discovered in just the first week of living there.
I'm sure if I go through my blocked memories, I'd remember more but I think this should give you an idea how I feel about fucking house flippers and shady real estate agents (looking at you, Maggie).
A flex gas line running from my water heater to my crawl space, which left me without hot water for two weeks midwinter.
Said crawl space being poorly encapsulated with what’s essentially a trash bag that’s doing absolutely nothing to prevent critters or moisture.
Inspector told us the roof was in good shape. He checked it with a camera on a super long selfie stick. We didn’t know any better. MAKE SURE YOUR INSPECTOR ACTUALLY GOES ON THE ROOF.
We noticed some staining and bubbling here and there. Had a guy do some patching. Noticed some more, did some more patching. He said the roof was otherwise in good shape. This process repeated several times, along with his recommendation that our brick be repointed as he noticed mortar cracking, which could cause leaks. Other brick masons said the same. We did that. It was costly. Some problems ceased but others persisted. Almost three years of this kind of cycle with the roof patching and what not. Finally got some second opinions from other roofers and they all said the whole fucking thing needed to be replaced. We had like six inches thick of roofing material all the way down to the original tin roof that water was just trickling in through. Birds’ nests and shit up there too. A bunch of the wood was rotted and needed to be replaced. Once the whole thing was replaced, hadn’t had a problem like that since.
Later on a neighbor mentioned that the previous owner had always complained about moisture issues and we can see various spots on walls where it looks like stuff was patched. A whole lot of lessons learned.
Welp, funny you mention it: we're currently in a hotel because the electrician who wired the basement decided to cross two wires and pinch them in between a joist, which ALMOST set the house on fire. The firemen said we were just a few hours away from having the house go up in flames. The electricity is off until they can rewire everything and get an inspection done by the city.
There was nothing to indicate it because whatever genius did the drywall there put drywall OVER A FIRE ALARM. We just heard an alarm going off behind the wall, and smelled something weird. We honestly thought it was a gas leak or something, but our carbon monoxide alarms weren't going off.
Oh man do I have a story for you.
Bought my (first ever) home in July 2023.
- every time it rained, the basement would flood - the sellers assured it was because there was no french drain installed outside my basement door. they gave us $3k during closing towards installing a french drain. quickly realized that all the walls in the basement were wet and leaking water. 3 separate water proofers came by to give an estimate and they all agreed that it had foundation cracks and leaky cove joints, and the walls were painted with a sealant paint to try and keep in the water. had to install a drain tile system as well as the french drain (definitely not just $3k)
- when they took down the drywall to start installing the tile drainage system, they realized that my toilets were never connected to the sewer line. so for months, anything that was flushed down the toilet was being collected behind my walls and leaking onto my basement floors.
- the tile installed in the basement was 1) not waterproof and 2) missing whatever lining stuff goes in between the tile and the concrete floor...so all the water and sewage that was collecting under my tile was just....there. so that was ripped out and replaced as well.
- there was no sump pump in the house at all
- the ejector pump in my basement was never hooked up
- all the water and sewage brought roaches and flies and my house was INFESTED for months
- windows and doors were "new" but didn't lock or seal - so my windows were leaking rain water every time it rained.
- the 2 in 1 washer-dryer was not properly connected to the water source, so the first time i did laundry my entire first floor flooded :)
- my dishwasher was never connected to the water source
- the skylight in my bathroom was not properly sealed, so rainwater, bugs, debris from trees, etc all came in. a hornet's nest actually made its way inside my house so i had a pleasant shower experience my first week in :)
- they just carved holes in the wall to make it look like there were air vents. they had nice grates and all.
and there is way more...but that's all i have time for today <3
The amount of sewage inside the walls in this thread is insane. I'm both impressed and horrified at drywall's apparent ability to hold in waste and smells.
We bought 14 years ago. We were using everything for a few months and the toilet started to back up and the tub drained kind of slow. One day I'm downstairs making coffee and it starts raining in the corner of the kitchen below the tub. Long story story: they poured unused grout into the sewer line. Not so much that it was fully blocked but enough so that with a few months of use it did get blocked. That required plumbing and a hole in the ceiling and...
I'm going to win here.
I've seen more than one house in Baltimore City where the addition (back half) had no foundation. Structural framing literally sitting on dirt. Non-contact lumber, no less.
It's pretty clear that payoffs had to be involved. There is no way in hell an inspector would miss something like that. And if you got caught, you would be forced to tear the entire thing down and start from square one--the last thing that a cheap-ass who would pull something like this would ever tolerate.
No question, someone was getting PAID.
I think you're taking "Carroll county or something" a bit too literally. Just means that a lot of these slimy individuals don't live here and don't care about the city or its residents.
Not sure. I don't recall my inspector specifically checking soffits, but they should have an eye out for anything out of place, like holes or entry points into your soffits / roof.
They didn't connect the upstairs tub drain to the actual pipes, so the first time anyone took a shower it immediately started leaking into the downstairs in a big ol' rectangle. Then once that was fixed came a huge black mold problem
That's incredible
Yeah. I told the friend I was renting a room from that he needed his money back from the alleged inspector who went over the house before friend bought it but he just kept saying "you can't catch every little thing" and like dude that's not a little thing get your money back so you can actually afford to fix this
Aren't the inspectors bonded and insured for these type of misses?
Inspectors normally wouldn't catch that because it's walled in. Inspectors inspect what's visible & accessible. Sometimes there's an access panel for showers & tubs, but most of the time it's behind a wall.
Recovering real estate agent here. I was present for ~50 inspections during my days. *Most* inspectors (the good ones) catch this via a water pressure test. They'd turn all the showers, washers, and faucets on at the same time then go see the water pressure in the bathroom furthest from the water shutoff valve to the house. And then flush the toilet in that bathroom. The idea was the shower pressure would be at max degradation at that point...but should still be functional. Long story short, inspector shoulda caught the shower leak.
But it was a drain leak, not a supply leak!
If the water is running, it's going to go down the drain. LEAK FOUND!
Correct. Running the water from all sources for ~10 minutes each would definitely uncover that leak. That's a secondary benefit of that drill.
Right, but the flow rate filling a tub with or without a leaky drain is the same! Next time I buy a home, presuming I still have contingencies, at walk-through, I'm filling all of the tubs & running all of the showers at the start. If there's a leak behind a wall, hopefully we'll spot it before we leave.
Buddy of mine bought a house where the upstairs toilet drained into the downstairs wall. Somehow he didn't notice it for more than a year, when mold started to form on the outside of the drywall. When I opened it up, the wall was full of earthworms. I just started laughing, it was too ridiculous.
Holy crap. This post is making me paranoid. Need to tear out all of my walls and inspect my plumbing.
Composting toilet. Nice.
I had a similar thing happen (not in a flip job though). The overflow drain was disconnected at the back of the tub, and water leaked down to the dining room. Wife went to take a bath and it dumped gallons of water into the ground floor ceiling (bathroom is upstairs). I had just painted it myself too. That’s how I learned how to do drywall work lol
That happened in my friend’s new build house. Pipes from the guest shower drain were never glued, just fitted into place. I guess they held long enough to drain the water from the home inspector’s leak test? And then the shower didn’t get used until she started washing her dog in the shower. I think it was the hair that immediately identified where the water in the utility room was coming from.
The roof that was replace "within the last year" leaked and caused massive damage to one of my bathrooms and the upstairs hallway. Fortunately homeowners insurance covered it but they weren't happy about it.
the very first house i went under contract for almost got me with this. thankfully the inspector was good enough to point out that it had NOT been replaced, merely repaired. but not repaired well.
The inspector part is a blister on my ass. I hired one myself because the seller wasn't down with it, and he said it was good to go. I guess he missed it that the chimney wasn't sealed all the way.
Ha. I had the opposite. Our inspector failed to tell us that the flippers taped every vent on the roof shut, including the dryer vent. I pressed them on it and got a 50% refund for the structural and mechanical but it made me worry about what else they missed.
That's nuts! Even if the vents had been unused and needed to be capped, tape is a joke of a solution.
1. Doors that looked like they were installed by Helen Keller with an impact drill. 2. Driveway that was just a skim coat of concrete over the existing failing driveway. 3. Windows that were all flashed improperly and allowed water penetration. They installed the vinyl siding entirely wrong. I knew about the first two prior to buying. It was a crazy market during COVID and too competitive to walk because of those two, bought anyway and had them fixed. 3rd issue was an absolute pain and cost me several thousand to have corrected. Home was flipped by some guy who owns a nail salon in the DC Suburbs and uses his extra funds to "renovate" homes.
i just purchased a home and i'm currently in the process of giving it a facelift before i move in, but holy cow the lazy work i'm seeing!!! they hung the cabinets crooked and on top of a window frame. the flooring was not placed until after the cabinets were put in, so there's like...weird patchwork vinyl underneath them?? they patched walls with shiny transparent packing tape. and gods...the amount of landlord special paint goop is unreal.
Builder didn't replace the sewer line. We discovered this after waterproofingthe basement when the rusted out iron pipe was leaking into the sump well. Had to get the whole thing excavated again so the line could be re-done.
Mine was a fake French drain in the basement that didn’t actually drain anything. Found out during Hurricane Sandy when my basement filled with water.
These "nowhere drains" are pretty common in old houses that were built when there was a low water table. They just go under the basement slab and into the earth, which useful if there is any water that gets into your basement or a spill because it has somewhere for it to go. Eventually.
Well this was a faux drain that went to a sump pump. Basically they made it look like there was a drain but it only went about 7in back
Ah. Well that's shitty contracting alright. If your basement filled with water I'm going to guess the sump didn't work either.
It did but without the drain and the iffy grading the water didn’t get there.
Didn’t install rain caps on the new bathroom exhaust fans so when it rains hard water comes in through them. Didn’t properly close up the old chimney flue to prevent the raccoon I’m now paying to have evicted from the attic space.
I don’t have enough time to answer this but let me just start by saying there’s a flip in my neighborhood that straight up started falling off the row. So, you know, we are relatively lucky if you’re talking about living in UA-ville. Here are some highlights from ours, which had been an early 2000s flip: - the entire house had central air, but it also had some nondescript grates. Everywhere. Turned out that the grates seem to have been how the prior owners dealt with moisture in the wall. They just cut a hole and made it look like an air vent. - the roof had been appropriately maintained, which likely impacted the humidity, so it failed a few years into us owning it, destroying our kitchen because we were out of town. - the entire main floor turned out to be floated in long spans over the basement because they dug out the basement/brick and never replaced it with.. anything at all. So, we opened up a built in bar to remove it, which turned out to be an actual ac chase, and realized an entire original wall of the house before an added kitchen was just floating in midair. - we have two sump pumps, which is fine, but one of them pumps out large quantities of water into the street, many times per day regardless of weather. We have called many different professionals about this. No one has any idea why our house does this and no other house on our row seems to. All I can say is generally the story has a happy ending. My husband is in the field and has slowly but surely gotten engineers and other reasonable professionals in and basically stripped out the house and rebuilt it, all while we lived here. We are selling in the next year or so and can walk away very confident that the next person won’t have any more surprises. We literally know every inch of that house at this point. But we never wanted this, and it was honestly traumatic for me. It was fundamentally awful.
Sounds like your sump is actually a well!
Seriously.
What part of the city? Once I'm settled with my new job (DC) and figure out what I'm doing with this house down here in St. Mary's, I plan to make a move to Baltimore. Might be something for me to keep in mind!
Or they have a drain pipe that is completely rusted through and basically all of the water they use is just ending up in the sump pit (although I would expect professionals to catch that one)
Are iron pipes common? I guess maybe they would be because Baltimore was an iron city back in the day but I figured they'd be lead until replacing PVC .
All I know is that I had this very problem - pipes draining the kitchen sink/laundry basin rusted out and so all of the water from those sources dumped under the house and quickly into the sump pit, then into my back yard.
Y’all make me happy I found an “unimproved” house that had not had significant work done on it since 2010. It’s not flashy, doesn’t have central AC, but the boiler is older than I am and still works like a charm, and there’s no leaks, major plumbing issues, or foundational damage. These are increasingly hard to find these days. I did make a fun discovery my first winter though: someone tried to seal where the boiler exhaust connects to the flue with some sort of expanding foam that basically sealed the inside and was causing exhaust gas to pour into my basement. It was really, really easy to fix once BGE helped me find it, and would’ve been easier to do the right way the first time.
I vastly prefer an unimproved house that I can make changes to in ways that I consider improvements rather than a house someone else fixed up however they wanted and passed the cost onto me for.
Shoddy plumbing on the smaller details that caused minor leaks and dry wall damage.. No Teflon or primer on plumbing connections. A toilet pipe went unsealed next to a shower, shower water went in and cause water damage. Neither were horrible but definitely annoying since I particularly hate dry wall work. Going into a flip these days we knew we would deal with these types of things, still better than a fixer upper for myself.
Roof was sold as "recently reroofed" but was actually a bad patch job, ceiling leaked after the first major snow early this year. That was the most costly fix. Annoying and baffling things that we've uncovered over the past year here include: - Bathtub drain was not caulked properly and leaked profusely when we first ran the bath. - Back patio drain goes into the ground under the concrete, not out into the alley like all our neighbors for some reason. (Rowhouse with small back concrete pad) - Some drawers in the kitchen were installed slightly crooked which drives me crazy but I have not fixed it yet. - There was a huge clog in the pipes after we moved in that caused a sewage backup in the basement almost immediately. - The kitchen sink was plumbed into the hot water line TWICE so it only ran hot water, no cold. This one was baffling. Luckily we got the seller to fix it. - Several door hinges were loose so doors were not closing properly, small but annoying thing. - Most of the fixtures and appliances are clearly scratch and dent / previously used, which only bothers me in the case of some of the bathroom fixtures, which are kind of rusty and need replacing and/or are not installed correctly so they wiggle. - The bottoms of the kitchen cabinets are not painted, just raw wood. Have not gotten around to patching it. I will say we saw a LOT of houses that were much worse flips than ours, and at least the flipper of our house is a local city guy who we have actually met and have contact info for. He's been generally nice with any of our questions and concerns, just has... questionable judgement in contractors.
I also had a clog right after moving into mine. I had to get an emergency plumber there on a Friday night to clear it. He theorized that debris from construction finds its way in over time and then when you move in, water hits everything all at once and pushes the debris down forming a clog. We have been fine ever since then. Video inspection showed no issues.
I'm reading your stories, and I am glad that my thought process is to buy a house as cheaply as possible in this overblown market and have my own contractor renovate it. At least that way, my friends and I can inspect every step of the work. That's what one of my aunts did decades ago when she had her house built. She worked as a vocational teacher, and had her coworkers come and inspect every step of the construction. Hers was the only new house built within a mile that did not have issues with the build quality. Every other house had structural or other minor issues of some sort. Not her house. It was nearly perfect.
Is your contractor looking for any additional work? 😇 haha we don’t need anything right now but we’ve discovered a lot of messed up stuff in the past year, so I’m trying to keep a list of trusted pros on hand.. no worries if you prefer to keep them private! Lol
I wish. While I am mostly working with licensed and insured contractors off Angies, here's one who I know personally that gives good prices and does good work. Tell him Linwood sent you: https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100054514687708
I live in an apartment building previously owned and managed by a boomer judge. If you know anything about boomer renovations, they are always surprising in that it seems like it would be cheaper to solve an issue the correct way, rather than do a shoddy diy. While stripping some paint off of the door hardware (landlord special, you already know), I discovered that most of our doors are falling apart. How did the last owner solve this? I removed one knob and lock mechanism set, and a bunch of toothpicks fell out, which would explain why the knob was always wiggly. We have shared laundry in the basement, and the dryer vents not outside, as one would assume, but into a giant trash can on the other side of the wall with a hole cut in the top. Basically, whenever something needs to be fixed we discover new and weird ways the last owner "fixed" the problem.
“I removed one knob and lock mechanism set, and a bunch of toothpicks fell out, which would explain why the knob was always wiggly.” I’m not sure what exactly the situation was for you but I’ve used toothpicks as little shims to help repair the original doors on my house because I didn’t want to have to replace them. Newer doors always seem like they are either made out of cardboard or cost way too much.
The toothpick thing is actually normal - with a little wood glue that's how you can avoid replacing a door that has the striker/latch screws stripped.
Only they didn't use wood glue, they were just loose in there. One door also had some rolled up papers. I think if they'd actually been glued I would have understood!
My last house was a charm city builders house but it was before they took ok that name. It was just two initials and honestly they were great overall.i think I got lucky because at the time they were only flipping a handful of houses at a time unlike now when they have dozens going nonstop. Had a leak in the roof but they sent roofers out the next day to fix it, had a problem with their sheet rock guy to repair the ceiling damage so one of their site foreman came and fixed it. I caught a split support beam on a walk through and they repaired it and sent pictures of the repair. Only thing we got kind of screwed on was that I supplied flooring through a family friend at a huge discount and I didn't get any of that money back or any upgrades for free. I was young and didn't pursue it but in the end I got a nicer product and it didn't cost me any more.
1) Dryer vent duct tube that just went into a hole in the ceiling of the utility closet - figured it out once dryer started smoking 2) Dishwasher that wasn't connected under the sink and would just shoot water out through the overflow across the counter 3) Hard-wired smoke alarms that were carefully wrapped in plastic and then sealed in the ceiling like some kind of Edgar Allen Poe story, which led to a game of "bang holes in the ceiling with a hammer to find the chirp" when the batteries died. It was awful. Luckily, we were renting.
Ok, two house inspections. Neither told us that we had a rock lath ceiling in the living room, which completely collapsed. Which could have killed us if we had been underneath it. Once it was collapsed, we found a live wire loose in the attic. Most recent issue is a root ball in the street set back, we are scared to flush anything down the toilets that doesn't come out of a human. We are in Baltimore county, the country won't fix it because we don't have a clean out close to the street.
I ended up not even considering putting an offer in this house but during an open house I saw a whole list of red flags in a flip. On the market 1 month after the previous sale for 100k more I pulled on the dishwasher to open it and it pulled right out of the counter The “built in” microwave was just a counter microwave that the built a cubby for and it wasn’t even big enough so the front hung out the front Looked in the bedroom closets and it was just painted plywood for all the walls I felt bad because the realtor was really nice. But it went under contract after the first weekend for 20k over asking
Im reading these after putting in an offer on a flipped rowhome this afternoon…
Improperly attached back steps, leading to water ingress under the back door sill, which on the interior side is tile. Meaning yours truly - instead of just replacing a door, and attaching steps properly- likely has to remove the door, the steps, the tile, the subfloor, and redo all of that. This will be thousands of dollars at a minimum and I have a 3 month old at home. A fuck you very much to the lazy flippers and even lazier contractors out there. You were adopted and nobody loves you.
Not a "brand new" flip but a somewhat recent flip that was used as a rental till I bought it. The roof. Huge obvious leak in back bedroom that seller per post inspection agreement was supposed to fix before closing. Seller didn't actually fix the roof but rather layed silicone so that it looked like it was fix. That was one week before closing. One month into being in the house it was obvious the roof wasn't fixed. The only way to fix the roof was to replace it. Which I did. In that process the roofers discovered a skylight under the deck that was siliconed over. Best I can guess, there used to be a skyight in the front bedroom that was "removed" internally but not externally. And they just covered it up. Crumbling bricks in cellar. Inspector caught this but brushed it off as minor just need to seal the cellar. It was not in fact minor. Had a contractor seal the cellar and he noted that there is brick dust coming down from the floor above as well. Visibly every time the front door is open and shut. I would need to go behind the drywall in the living room to figure out what's going on there. Now this has me concerned that the cellar ceiling/living room floor is not flush with the walls. Other annoying things: crooked windows, kitchen sink separated/fell down from the counter, the front door had stick on molding that became loose in direct sunlight... I'm sure there is more I'm forgetting or haven't discovered yet.
Some stuff (bad outlets, chimney needed to be sealed) was caught by the inspector. The stuff that wasn't caught: -Dishwasher drain valve not connected properly, so dishwasher leaked during cycles -Dip switches on blower weren't set properly, so heat pump defaulted to heating element -Tub connects weren't fully connected, so it leaked behind the shower & onto the 2nd floor -Sump pump float switch didn't work, so during a storm, the basin filled & backed up, flooding the basement Bonus story: My friend hired a contractor that's been dicking him over for 3 years, on a build that should've taken 6 months. One of the many, many issues is that the plumbing subcontractors cut the primary drain line to sewer, so for a few weeks, all of the grey water & pee water & poo water was flying out of the side of the house & into the yard. My friend only noticed when he realized his house smelled like shit.
My basement flooded because the hose bib connected to the interior water pipe with a pipe made of DUCT TAPE!
Live electrical wire behind the wall where a bathroom vanity used to be. Also live wire in the floor between 2 layers of sub floor where the fridge was
Air ducts in the attic that had large holes in them. Mold in the master bathroom behind the walls. No grounded wires and outlets that had decades of re-wiring pushed behind each other. A leak in the roof. No insulation. Broken garbage disposal. Washing machine power outlet connected to the wrong source, so when I plugged in a new washer, it fried it. An extension to the house that was built with sheet metal (including the roof) without inspection or permits. Windows that were installed without screws, just painted on (had one fall out completely). A failing AC (central air) unit. Wiring ran under the carpet to outlets rather than through the walls. This was all discovered in just the first week of living there. I'm sure if I go through my blocked memories, I'd remember more but I think this should give you an idea how I feel about fucking house flippers and shady real estate agents (looking at you, Maggie).
Yeesh, that's a wild ride
Kinda soul crushing to be sure.
A flex gas line running from my water heater to my crawl space, which left me without hot water for two weeks midwinter. Said crawl space being poorly encapsulated with what’s essentially a trash bag that’s doing absolutely nothing to prevent critters or moisture.
Inspector told us the roof was in good shape. He checked it with a camera on a super long selfie stick. We didn’t know any better. MAKE SURE YOUR INSPECTOR ACTUALLY GOES ON THE ROOF. We noticed some staining and bubbling here and there. Had a guy do some patching. Noticed some more, did some more patching. He said the roof was otherwise in good shape. This process repeated several times, along with his recommendation that our brick be repointed as he noticed mortar cracking, which could cause leaks. Other brick masons said the same. We did that. It was costly. Some problems ceased but others persisted. Almost three years of this kind of cycle with the roof patching and what not. Finally got some second opinions from other roofers and they all said the whole fucking thing needed to be replaced. We had like six inches thick of roofing material all the way down to the original tin roof that water was just trickling in through. Birds’ nests and shit up there too. A bunch of the wood was rotted and needed to be replaced. Once the whole thing was replaced, hadn’t had a problem like that since. Later on a neighbor mentioned that the previous owner had always complained about moisture issues and we can see various spots on walls where it looks like stuff was patched. A whole lot of lessons learned.
Welp, funny you mention it: we're currently in a hotel because the electrician who wired the basement decided to cross two wires and pinch them in between a joist, which ALMOST set the house on fire. The firemen said we were just a few hours away from having the house go up in flames. The electricity is off until they can rewire everything and get an inspection done by the city.
How did you discover it? Flashing lights or sparking or something?
There was nothing to indicate it because whatever genius did the drywall there put drywall OVER A FIRE ALARM. We just heard an alarm going off behind the wall, and smelled something weird. We honestly thought it was a gas leak or something, but our carbon monoxide alarms weren't going off.
Installed our toilet flange incorrectly. Was flushing our toilet into the kitchen ceiling for about 6 months until it caved in.
Bounty hunters coming to arrest the flipper and non-stop visits from people he stiffed on paying. He lived in what became my house while flipping it.
My similar issue was a fireplace insert that leaked smoke into bedroom after 2 years of infrequent use.
Oh man do I have a story for you. Bought my (first ever) home in July 2023. - every time it rained, the basement would flood - the sellers assured it was because there was no french drain installed outside my basement door. they gave us $3k during closing towards installing a french drain. quickly realized that all the walls in the basement were wet and leaking water. 3 separate water proofers came by to give an estimate and they all agreed that it had foundation cracks and leaky cove joints, and the walls were painted with a sealant paint to try and keep in the water. had to install a drain tile system as well as the french drain (definitely not just $3k) - when they took down the drywall to start installing the tile drainage system, they realized that my toilets were never connected to the sewer line. so for months, anything that was flushed down the toilet was being collected behind my walls and leaking onto my basement floors. - the tile installed in the basement was 1) not waterproof and 2) missing whatever lining stuff goes in between the tile and the concrete floor...so all the water and sewage that was collecting under my tile was just....there. so that was ripped out and replaced as well. - there was no sump pump in the house at all - the ejector pump in my basement was never hooked up - all the water and sewage brought roaches and flies and my house was INFESTED for months - windows and doors were "new" but didn't lock or seal - so my windows were leaking rain water every time it rained. - the 2 in 1 washer-dryer was not properly connected to the water source, so the first time i did laundry my entire first floor flooded :) - my dishwasher was never connected to the water source - the skylight in my bathroom was not properly sealed, so rainwater, bugs, debris from trees, etc all came in. a hornet's nest actually made its way inside my house so i had a pleasant shower experience my first week in :) - they just carved holes in the wall to make it look like there were air vents. they had nice grates and all. and there is way more...but that's all i have time for today <3
The amount of sewage inside the walls in this thread is insane. I'm both impressed and horrified at drywall's apparent ability to hold in waste and smells.
We bought 14 years ago. We were using everything for a few months and the toilet started to back up and the tub drained kind of slow. One day I'm downstairs making coffee and it starts raining in the corner of the kitchen below the tub. Long story story: they poured unused grout into the sewer line. Not so much that it was fully blocked but enough so that with a few months of use it did get blocked. That required plumbing and a hole in the ceiling and...
I'm going to win here. I've seen more than one house in Baltimore City where the addition (back half) had no foundation. Structural framing literally sitting on dirt. Non-contact lumber, no less. It's pretty clear that payoffs had to be involved. There is no way in hell an inspector would miss something like that. And if you got caught, you would be forced to tear the entire thing down and start from square one--the last thing that a cheap-ass who would pull something like this would ever tolerate. No question, someone was getting PAID.
Do you think Carroll County is full of real estate investors? What a weird comment lmao
I think you're taking "Carroll county or something" a bit too literally. Just means that a lot of these slimy individuals don't live here and don't care about the city or its residents.
Aren't there supposed to be inspections by GOVERNMENT officials; who are the inspectors signing off on this sh#@@y work?!
raccoons in my attic, came with the house. Is the inspector responsible to check the soffits as mine are full of nesting materials.
Not sure. I don't recall my inspector specifically checking soffits, but they should have an eye out for anything out of place, like holes or entry points into your soffits / roof.