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Hello, this is Ben with Ben’s pest control. And it’s time for another one of our events pest control podcast. And today I want to talk about something that I believe I’ve talked about before, but it kind of is important and it bears revisiting. So yesterday, I went to a customer, they called up and they said that they were selling their house, and that the people buying the house had an inspection. And that they told him they had termites in the house. And they were shocked to hear that because they weren’t aware of any termites. And the people that they bought the house weren’t aware of any termites. Anyways, I went out to the house and the house ended up being a very expensive house, probably between 1 million and $2 million. And when I got to the house, they told me where the inspector said they had found signs of the termites and I climbed up in the attic to where they pointed out and after climbing over to the area where the termites were reported to be. When I got there, sure enough, there were drywood termite pellets, all over a gable wall in the attic, and not just some quite a few dry wood pellets. And when I came down out of the attic, I took some pictures. And actually, I’m sorry, I took pictures, then I came down out of the attic. And I went to the lady who was there and she was the agent for the house. And I said, Yeah, I said there are termite pellets up there. And the lady said, Well, this is very surprising, because when people bought the house, they weren’t aware of any termites. And I said, Well, did the people have an inspection when they bought the house? And she said, No. She said that what happened was they were very frustrated, because they had gone to buy another house in the community. That was pretty expensive. And after they had had the inspection at the other house, there was a whole list of problems found. And the wife was very upset that they had gone through the whole process, only to decide they weren’t going to buy the house. So when they found this house, and they saw that the house was in immaculate shape, they decided that they really did not need an inspection. Nor did they want an inspection. They felt like the people who own the house had done everything up to par and everything was so well taken care of. There was no way that this house could have termites. So I said, so what you’re telling me is that the people bought the house and decided to waive the inspection and not do it and just bought it as is. And the realtor said, Yes. And I went, Oh, that’s a problem. And the realtor said, I gotta be honest with you, I told them when they bought the house to get it inspected, because you just never know. And she said, now I’m in a situation where this is what I told them to do. I remember telling them to do it. And they didn’t. And now I’m representing them in the sale. And they’re being told the House has dry wood termites. And I’m like, that’s a problem. So, long story short, I had to recommend that they get a company into fumigate the house, I’m going to guess in my mind that the house is probably somewhere between 3005 1000 square feet. And I had to tell them that I think there’s a good chance that because it is such a big house, that it might cost between five and $7,000, to fumigate this structure for the termite, and of course, that cause frustration. And before you know what I’m getting calls from the seller, who has a lot of questions on how this could have happened. And the best answer I could give him was I apologize, sir, but you really should have had the house inspected before you decided to buy the house yourself. It is extremely, extremely important. I know in my other podcasts when I’ve talked about this, I’ve discussed it from other standpoints. When you’re buying a house, you should know the shape of the roof, you should have an idea of how much life is left on it. You really want to have some of the major components checked out. But you want to make sure that you don’t have termites. And in this case, it turned out to be a bad situation that now has to be addressed. And I’m not exactly sure where it’s going to go from here. I recommended them to companies that could come out and treat it. And so I’m sure they got a hold of those companies today and they are waiting on estimates. But it is a large structure and it’s kind It is strange for me to say this only because I’m not sure in my life I’ll ever know this problem. I sit back and think, Oh, 5000 to $7,000 is a lot of money. But I guess maybe when you are selling a house that’s worth a million, a million and a half or more, maybe to those folks, that’s not a lot and doesn’t really matter. I’m not sure. But I think it matters to me. And I would hope it matters to a lot of people. And that doesn’t even account for the fact that the seller asked me Well, what about the damage from the termite? And I said, Well, that’s a whole different ball of wax, because now you have a buyer who’s giving you an offer on your house, they’ve inspected your house, they’ve found termites, yeah, they’re probably going to want to treat it. But if they start to question how much damage is there, I’m not sure where you’re gonna go, we are not structural engineer, so I cannot get into the extent. As far as how bad it is, I can tell him that when I was up there, I did not see a whole lot of damage, like in some houses where we see two by fours that are just eaten, and there’s almost nothing there. I mean, you could karate chop it with your hand and go right through the wood. All of the wood that I saw was solid, but based on the pellets, they had been there for a while. So they couldn’t have had that many pellets without having caused some damage to the wood. And I don’t even know how they would go about fixing that, because we’re talking about attic trusses, and Gable walls, and the house on the outside of the stucco. So I’m hoping for the seller sake that hope the buyer will be happy with just having the house treated and moving on. But I’m not exactly sure. And I can’t tell them. So hopefully what you got from this podcast is that inspecting your house and knowing what you’re getting two is a very important thing. And it’s important that you have the right inspector, it’s important that you do your due diligence to protect yourself because this, this one turned into a bit of a nightmare for the people involved. And it was kind of sad. But in the end, hopefully everything will work out. So now, if you’re looking to buy a house, yes, Benz does offer what they call wood destroying organism reports. We can go in and inspect the house before you buy it and tell you what we found. I would tell you as long as you’re listening to the podcast, it might not be a bad idea to make sure that you let your inspector if it’s not us know that you also want to know anything going on with the structure as far as rodents or insects that may not be associated with that report. So that way you know exactly what you’re getting into. When it comes time to sign on the dotted line and buy your new home. So again, this is Ben with Ben’s pest control. I hope you have a great day. If there’s anything we can do, we do offer you the free free 58 Point Inspection. And you can either call us at 772 878 1972
