What I'm Seeing Now

This is another post of the never-ending complaints home inspectors have about common sense.

This is a rear porch which was installed recently on a house I inspected last fall.  It was not put on by the builder, but a custom porch company, well known in the area.

People often ask me if this or that is a good builder or remodeling company.  My answer is usually something like, "Well, it depends on the foreman on site everyday, and the crew."

They called me long after they started having problems with this porch.  The problems started  even before the floor was stained and finished.

They chose a beautiful, virgin  mahogany floor.  It is a top of the line product.  But it was installed when it was very cold.  But it was left unprotected by the plastic you see now - for weeks.  It was snowed on and rained on and water froze on it.  When the company came to stain it, the stain would not hold.  So they stained it again.  Then they put an exterior poly finish on it which bubbled.  They sanded the bubbles off and re-coated just those spots!  So, obviously, the finish looked quite erratic.  The homeowners have known me for years from three past inspections.  They called.  Whatever could be the problem?  I could almost tell them over the phone, sight unseen.  But I went over to see it anyway.

Well, the flooring wasn't the only problem!  There were many issues with just how the porch was constructed.  For one  example, in the photo above, you can see that a downspout drains right beside the bottom of the stairs.  That downspout represents about 2,000 square feet of rain water from the main house and porch.  Look closely.  The stair case is already sinking on the lower right side.  Wood is cracking as the assembly moves.  But I digress.

They did not dream that there were any of the other issues that I came up with on my inspection.  They were interested only in the flooring.  It was cupping, warping, water stained, had erratic coats of colored stain and poly, and it was separating as some of the flooring swelled and some shrank.  My moisture meter registered everywhere from 37% in the center to 89% near the screens, and this on a sunny day.  It goes on and on.

The company was called to come and fill some holes and dings that they had created during installation.  The two photos below show what color they selected to fill the holes.  It is a mahogany floor - they chose white putty!

In addition to white putty, the "repair" crew got something on their shoes.  They tracked it all over the floor.  I don't know what it is, but this is how they left it.  It dried and is not coming off easily.

Further, in the photo to the right, they filled nail holes (how nail holes got there I don't know) and did not even attempt to clean the residual off the floor but left it to dry. 

I know there are perhaps a couple of dozen putty colors, and crayons, available to try to match to the various colors of flooring.  A careful floor professional would take the time to do that before the finish coat, especially when the floor costs as much as this one.  For all I know, that stuff above is wall spackle!  After they were done, they left many, many "repaired" spots in the condition you see above!

What do you say?  What can you say?

I sent them my letter of inspection details.  They were horrified when they saw I had 18 inspection concerns in addition to the floor problems.  They called me to say the porch company is giving them a hard time about the floor!  Giving THEM a hard time?  Something tells me this isn't the last time I will be called upon to offer my findings and opinions as to this porch!

My recommendation:  Even if a remodeling company is well known in your area, ask them for plans and a flow chart that shows the order that things will be done in.  Then have that flow chart reviewed by a professional to determine if it is logical and makes sense.  Common sense is often very uncommon.

After the last presidential election, I wrote a blog entry stating my point of view.  It got me many, many more emailed comments (favoring what I said) off-line than in the blog responses.   Privately, these people were afraid to publicly state what they thought of my post, which you can review here:

http://899a0c9.activerain.com/post/775031/this-time-it-will-work

We are only in the beginning stages of "fundamental change."  We see where it will lead.  At this point, with little of the total, planned agenda having been implemented, The Heritage Foundation has determined that younger people and today's newborns are each individually saddled with $175,000 in new Federal taxes over and above current obligations.  And someone born just a few years from now will be similarly plagued, but to the tune of $384,000.  That is a taxing prospect.

This is only the beginning.  Taken further, after the many other things this administration wants to do -- Cap and Trade (better put "Cap and Tax"), planned regulations, forcing "green" business practices, business take-overs and bailouts, production limits and "standards," health "care," (read that:  non-care), and the list goes on -- Heritage estimates individual obligations will be well over $1 million.  And that does NOT include servicing the debt.

Today 40 cents is taken from every $1 produced just to service our economy's current debt - BEFORE that $1 even hits the economy.  This percentage will increase and is unsustainable.  And, again, this $.40 is servicing this debt BEFORE the rest of the current administration's "plans" take form.

Recently I received this cartoon from my brother:

This is a political cartoon published in the Chicago Tribune in 1934.  It was in response to Roosevelt's "stimulus" plan during the depression.  I remembered seeing it in a text book when I was studying economics in college.  You would NEVER see this in a current text book as it would be considered fractious, seditious and subversive!  Read it carefully.  You see the guy in the middle, Ickes?  He was the Roosevelt Interior Secretary for 13 years and economic adviser.  He is the father of our very own Harold M. Ickes, Clinton's so-called "Garbage Man," and current Democrat economic policy activist.  What goes around comes around!

We learn from history that we learn nothing from history. 

Our population has been so dumbed down as to historical records and precedents, particularly economic history, they are lulled by empty words into thinking that this is the first time something like the current "stimulus" plan has been put forth!  Oh, AND THAT IT WILL WORK!!

It did not work then, and it will not work now.  Roosevelt's secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., said, "We have tried spending money.  We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work...  We have never made good on our promises...  I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started... and an enormous debt to boot!  All this money and we don't have a damned thing to show for it!"  That was said in 1938 - after 8 years of "stimulus" - unemployment was 19%.

Roosevelt's "ill-conceived stimulus policies" are said to have prolonged the Great Depression by seven years.*  Economists have concluded that the depression should have ended in 1936 instead of waiting for a war to pull the economy out in 1943. 

And - in our time - we have only just begun!!

Why am I worried about this?  Because I am a home inspector.  My business is VERY economy/market oriented.  This is what I fear -- Inflation is just now beginning to hit.  I do the shopping in my family and I have noticed.  Have you?  Inflation has no choice but to rear its society-killing head.  Money is being printed with wild abandon.  We are already on inflation's path.  You will see business inventories go up, in anticipation of inflation, buying now at lower prices so these products can be sold later at higher prices.  This will be followed by interest rate increases, gradual, but insistent.  Businesses will have no choice but to lay off more and more employees or face dissolution.  They might face dissolution anyway.   This will stultify everything from lending and borrowing, to credit, to production, to consumer spending, to -- well, you name it.  Do you think people will be buying houses?

I hope sincerely that I am wrong.  Do I feel I am sticking my neck out by publishing this?  No.  Economic principles are economic principles - they are fundamental and do not change.  And I fear the writing is on the wall.

Everybody should be required to read Friedrich Hayek's Road to Serfdom.  If you do not want to, at least read a summary here (not a bad one!):  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Serfdom.  He says,

"Socialism was to bring 'economic freedom,' without which political freedom was 'not worth having.'  To make this argument sound plausible, the word 'freedom' was subjected to a subtle change in meaning.  The word had formerly meant freedom from coercion, from the arbitrary power of other men.  Now it was made to mean freedom from necessity, release from the compulsion of the circumstances which inevitably limit the range of choice of all of us.  Freedom in this sense is, of course, merely another name for power or wealth.  The demand for the new freedom was thus only another name for the old demand for a redistribution of wealth."

Sounds like a certain presidential candidate who said to Joe the Plumber, "We just want to spread the wealth around a little."  Unfortunately that candidate is still around.

If there is any group of people who can bounce back, if not combat and defeat, unsound economic policies, it is the American people.  We are inventive, self-reliant, untiring and tough when it comes to doing things in a new or productive way.  When we wake up, and to this new economic threat I hope we do soon, we wake up big and ready for action!  Let's hope we act forcefully at this crucial moment in time!!

LET'S LEARN FROM HISTORY, RECENT HISTORY, WAKE UP AND ACT FORCEFULLY BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!  LET'S ACT LIKE AMERICANS AND GO FOR IT!

* UCLA economists Harold Cole and Lee Ohanian, "New Deal Policies and the Persistence of the Great Depression:  A General Equilibrium Analysis," Journal of Political Economy 112.4 (Aug. 2004), 779-816.  Also, Meg Sullivan, "FDR's Policies Prolonged the Depression by 7 Years, UCLA Economists Calculate," UCLA News, Aug 10, 2004.

The postage prices changed, again.  They change quickly.  I am left with lots of left overs.  I needed to clean up my piles.  So I went to the local post office.

I have many 41 and 42 cent stamps.  I have many 27 cent post card stamps that I use for thank you cards to referrals.  The new rates, as you know are 44 cents first class and 28 cents post card.  Easy enough.

Or is it?  This is my visit.  As you read it, consider this post a metaphor:

Me -- (I have been in line for 22 minutes.  It is finally my turn...)  "Hi, I need some stamps please."

P.O. --  "Certainly!  What do you need?"

Me -- "I need 139 one cent stamps, 78 two cent stamps and 43 three cent stamps."

P.O. -- "Just a minute, I will check."  (She is gone for 7 minutes.)  "I am sorry, sir, but we don't have any one cent stamps."

Me -- "The post card rate is going up one cent and you have no stamps?!"

P.O.  "No sir.  I couldn't find any.  And we have no three cent stamps either."

Me -- "No three cent stamps either!?"

P.O. -- "Oh, and you are limited to only one small sheet of two cent stamps."

Me -- "How many is that?"

P.O. -- "Twenty.  We have no rolls left."

Me -- "You are limiting the amount of stamps people can buy?!  You have known for how long that this change was to happen, and you don't have any stamps!  Why not?  This is the post office.  Where else am I going to go to get stamps?"

P.O. -- "I guess we didn't order enough."

Me -- "You change your prices more quickly than people can keep up with, and then when you make your change you haven't enough stamps to handle people's needs.  This is the U.S. Postal Service.  I think you need to call it the U.S. Postal.  You have forgotten the service."

I got 20 stamps for my trouble!  And don't get me started on the delivery to my house!  We get other people's mail.  They get ours.  We are forever running letters to other people in the neighborhood and vice verse.  And two-three-day Priority Mail is NOT two to three days!  The last time I did that it took five.  The price keeps going up and the service keeps going down.

Fedex, UPS, DHL, you name it are cheaper, quicker and provide much better service.  Why is that?  I order a book from Amazon, pay the cheapest postage rate (they don't use USPS) and get the book in two days.  Why is that?  My order never goes to the wrong house.  Why is that?

Think carefully.

And the metaphor?

YOU ARE LOOKING AT THE FUTURE OF HEALTH CARE.  THE DIFFERENCE IS, THEY ARE GOING TO MAKE IT SO YOU CANNOT, CANNOT, CANNOT GO TO A PRIVATE PROVIDER FOR CHEAPER, QUICKER AND BETTER SERVICE.

And where will the rich British and Canadians go for their health care?