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Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas!
Travis McGowin:
Hey, so today we want to come and talk about a topic that if you have ever bought or sold a home, any kind of structure like that, you’re probably familiar with the term wood infestation report or a WDO wood destroying organism report. If you have sold real estate or bought real estate, most likely you are familiar with it. Michael, what is a wood infestation report?
Michael Wienecke:
So a wood infestation report, wood destroying organism, in our world is the most important thing that we do because you are buying a home or investing in a piece of property and there’s nothing worse than to find out that that piece of property has $50,000, $60,000 worth of termite damage because we’ve seen it. And my neighbor actually across the street, he bought his home and I did an inspection for him and he has about, I’d say 30, 40% of his floor joist is completely eaten out by termites. So basically it’s just where we go around, we do a full inspection top to bottom inside and out looking for any wood destroying organisms. So it could be carpenter ants, it could be termites, it could be mold, fungus, anything that is going to destroy that home.
Travis McGowin:
Yeah, and you know, wood destroying beetles too, that’s another one. And we don’t find, I find a lot of, especially in these crawl spaces and some of these older homes, I find a lot of old, you know, beetle damage like powder post beetles. But here lately I have found some that have active powder post beetle damage too. So you got all these things and you know, as a homeowner or a home buyer, home seller, you may actually hear a real estate agent refer to this as a pest inspection, but that’s not really an accurate description of what it is. I think when people hear pest inspection, sometimes they get the idea of, oh, you know, someone’s going to come in my house and they’re going to look and see if I got bugs. Yes and no. I mean, we are looking for some insects, but we’re not looking for crickets or cockroaches or silverfish or earwigs or anything like that. Which of course having those may, you know, may indicate that you’ve got some sort of moisture problem in the house. But we’re there looking for, like you said, termites, wood destroying beetles, wood rot, you know, those sorts of things too. So it’s crazy to think that, you know, there’s sometimes some people that miss some things in these reports when they go and do these inspections. And case in point, I have a customer who wanted to go with us for termites or termite coverage. And so I went in to inspect this house. She had just bought it. She was doing a lot of renovations herself and, you know, just several weeks before had closed and they had a wood infestation report done by another company. And so I went in to do my full inspection because of course we don’t ever take over a coverage on a house without doing our own inspection. So I came in to do the inspection and, you know, I’m looking at the walls with a light and looking for different imperfections in the wall textures. And I’m sounding the baseboards because we sound the baseboards in every house that we inspect. And all of a sudden I get to the kitchen under these big bay windows and I hear a crunch as soon as my inspection tool hits the wood. And to the naked eye, this white painted, this white painted, Lord, I’m blanking now.
Michael Wienecke:
Baseboard.
Travis McGowin:
Baseboard. Thank you. This white painted baseboard looked immaculate to the naked eye. But the moment that you hit it, it crunched and the termites had eaten the entire baseboard out across one side of this wall and the other company had completely missed it. So these are things that are very important to be thorough and to have done by a reputable company that does these wood infestation reports because you could be missing telltale signs that tell you about all this damage that your house that you’re wanting to purchase or sell could have.
Michael Wienecke:
That’s correct. And you know, once you buy that home and sign that paperwork, you are responsible for that home and any damage that comes with it. So my biggest thing about an inspection is like you had said, you’re sounding the wood. I know a lot of companies don’t do that. They typically go in with a flashlight. They look around. They’ll get in the crawl space. They’ll look around. I think that we don’t have x-ray vision, so we can’t see behind walls. The next best thing that we can do is we can sound that baseboard. I’ve even sounded the crown molding if it looked like something that needed to be sounded. The sheet rock.
Travis McGowin:
Window frames, trim around windows. Yeah, definitely.
Michael Wienecke:
Yeah, I actually found one the other day. Same deal. Just doing a regular termite protection inspection and got around the window. The window looked completely fine. Noticed something with the flashlight. There was a little bit of a piece of dirt right there. I thought it was a mud tube. I started sounding it out with the donger is what we call it.
Travis McGowin:
Such a great name.
Michael Wienecke:
Great name. Right out of Australia. Love it. So anyway, sounded around the window sill and the termites had eaten out the entire window sill from top to bottom. So it was something that she had no idea she had and the previous company that she had canceled probably six months prior had never found it.
Travis McGowin:
Ouch. Well, that’s no fun. So I will say this too, kind of in closing, if you’re about to buy or sell a house and your real estate agent or attorney’s office sends out a request for a wood infestation report and then you go to sit down at the table at closing, you’re going to have to sign this paperwork. So just kind of go over things. So here in Alabama, ours is usually two to three pages depending upon if there’s an amendment to it or anything like that that’s done. But usually, you know, for most of the inspections, it’s two pages. And that very first page is going to have a couple of very important things on it that you really want to pay attention to. The top, of course, making sure that the right house was inspected, that the right address is on there. That’s always important. It’s also going to detail what structures on the property were inspected. Was it just the house itself? Is there a detached shop that was inspected? So, you know, that section is going to detail that. It’s also going to detail if the inspector found any evidence that there was a previous termite treatment done. Is there bait stations in the ground? Is there drill marks in the concrete or in any portions of the house that could indicate that there was a treatment done? And so the next section down is a listing of what’s found, active or previous. All of those wood destroying issues that we mentioned earlier on in this podcast. There’s an active or previous checkbox on any of those and then there’s a note section. Very important to look at that note section. I know when I do what infestation reports, I like to put things in there that I’ve discovered or give a little more detail about. And then probably one of the most important sections on that report is just below that. And that is talks about your actual coverage. If the house itself has coverage by the company that did the inspection. So there’s checkbox there that say, yes, it does. No, it doesn’t. It also lists if it’s transferable or non-transferable to the person buying the house. And it also lists your coverage dates and what’s coverage. What coverage has been applied to that house? Your second page is going to be where your graph is at. It’s going to tell you if there was active or previous issues, where they’re at. And it should list where those issues were discovered in kind of a little bit of detail. And then, of course, you’ll have your signature from your inspector below that. And then you’ll have your place for your buyers and sellers to sign and whatnot on those too. So just give it a really good look over. I know, unfortunately, as a society, we have a very bad habit. It’s like on the computer. Click to acknowledge so that you can get to the next page. It’s like, okay, I acknowledge these terms of use or I acknowledge these agreements that I’m doing to use this software to get on this website or what have you. I would recommend take a second at the closing table. Really look over this report. Look over those pages and make sure that you know what you’re signing. Because like Michael said a minute ago, you don’t want to come home from closing a couple of weeks later to discover that you’ve got some sort of damage that was listed that you signed for, that you said it was okay because you didn’t read the paperwork.
Michael Wienecke:
100%. I’ve bought a house and it is taxing to sit there and sign all. I mean, you sign your name, what, 50, 60, 70 times. It’s a lot. But it’s one of the biggest assets that you’ll ever purchase. I wouldn’t take that lightly. Another thing is pay attention. Do not waive the termite inspection. I wouldn’t waive any inspection. I’ve seen some crazy things happen from that. And I never, ever recommend waiving any home inspection, termite inspection, sewer inspection, any of that. Just get it done. It’s worth the money and it’s going to pay off in the long run.
