How many pictures should an Inspector take ?

Thanks everybody…I ment a 1500 to 2000 squ. fr home

I knew that, which caused me to laugh at some of the other posts here.

A couple of weeks ago, I had my first legitimate complaint since March 2003. Let me preface this by saying that I take pictures of absolutely everything, appliances, rooms, absolutely everything. Since there’s no film involved, it’s just time to me, and how long it takes me to do an inspection once I had all my inspectors on site was never a concern since, if we were running late, I could always send an inspector off to go start the next inspection and we would show up as soon as we finished with the first inspection. Leapfrogging, we called it.

So for a 1500 to 2000-SF home, I’ll come back with around 200 pictures, of which only about 10 might make it into the report. The others are kept for posterity (as if I’ll ever have any. Ha!). So my Client from January 2005 calls up. He’s selling and his buyer’s inspector, a guy that I know, found a 6-inch stain on the dining room ceiling. My Client was infuriated that I had missed the stain in January 2005. In fact, he said that he had a picture of the ceiling from February 2005 when the renovated the kitchen, which was next to the dining room. I asked him to email me the picture. Then I compared it to my picture of the exact same area, almost from the exact same angle. My picture showed no stain, his did. My picture also was of better quality (amateurs!).

The next day I went out to help him out, showed him the two pictures, and explained that (1) the previous sellers might have unknowingly caused a leak during the move-out process, which often happens when people are trying to get all the stuff out that they crammed into the sink cabinets, or (2) they had a leak and didn’t disclose it, choosing to paint instead, at which point the leak stain reappeared between the time of my inspection and their kitchen renovation, or (3) the leak simply happened sometime between when they closed escrow on January 28, 2005, and when they started doing kitchen remodeling.

The stain was moist according to the buyer’s inspector, but was not moist eight days later when I was there. That led me to believe that it was not a plumbing leak from a sink, toilet, or bathtub that got used regularly. I helped them track it down to the laundry room, where the washer standpipe drain was clogged, so every time they washed, the standpipe would overflow some and leak onto the dining room ceiling. My Client was quite happy with my pictures and my follow-up HELP. The buyer, however, wanted to open up the ceiling to look for mold. I told her that with intermittent moisture, there would be no mold. She didn’t/wouldn’t believe me until after they had a hole in the ceiling and perfectly white drywall. Alas… Since that time, the buyer, a Realtor herself, has given me one inspection on a small house for a property investor (she learned of my property investment experience through my explanation that she wouldn’t find any mold in the ceiling).

Moral of the story: Take pictures. Take lots of pictures. They are digital and cost you nothing. Save those pictures for posterity (as if I’ll ever have any. Ha! Wait! I already said that. Onward, then.). HELP your Clients resolve problems.