In the season premiere of CBC Marketplace Grow-Op Cover Up (this episode with Mike Holmes) last Friday, the host Erica Johnson asked the question, “Can you trust home inspector?” The conclusion from the show’s research is sadly an emphatic NO !!!
You see, Marketplace invited Mike Holmes to inspect a house where he was able to find many obvious telltale signs the house was a former grow-op. And these obvious signs were missed by a home inspector the home owner hired before making their home purchase decision. And when this same house was shown to four randomly chosen house inspectors after Mike identified the problems, the shocking findings were ALL four of these “house inspectors” missed all the obvious signs.
In the show (you can watch the full episode online), you can see footage of police busting a grow-op and you will realize how easy you can pick up these telltale signs of a house was a grow-op that you wonder why the four randomly chosen home inspectors were so incompetent.
If you’ve hired a home inspector in Calgary and have some horror home inspection stories (either they found major problems and saved you from buying a bad house or they missed major problems and you are stuck with the problems), please share your horror home inspection stories so other Calgarians can learn something from your experiences.
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Mike Holmes knew ahead of time that the home was a grow-op and was informed what and where to look contrary to the home inspectors.
You should instead challenge CBC Market Place for a throw-down with Mike Holmes to inspect a house with known defects but unknown to the inspectors including Mike Holmes and provide a written report using accepted industry standards.
Mike Holmes would fail.
Now, I don’t know if CBC Marketplace told Mike the home was a grow-op but even if they did, I doubt that CBC knows enough to tell Mike where to look.
In fact, after watching Mike’s show, I would have been able to spot the same beeping problems that four out of four of the so-called “home inspectors” missed!
Once you watch what a grow-op looks like (as we have learned from watching the show), it is not rocket science to see the ducts are round and the drug growers will cut round holes on the floor to get the vent up from the basement.
Thanks for sharing your comment. I personally have enough trust in Mike that he wouldn’t missed the basic stuff that he had identified right in front of our eyes.
Mike Holmes is not an inspector…he plays one on television. People with problems call and make appointments to be interviewed by his producers. Unlike real inspectors, he has been briefed as to the troubles before he arrives at the house and, unlike real inspectors, he is able to rip up carpet and take other invasive measures to expose what he already knows is there.
Mike Holmes has continuously avoided invitations made by the International Association of Certified Home Inspectors to simply inspect a house (without his producers and advance men) side by side with a real inspector and compare findings.
He is incapable of inspecting a home under the same restrictions using the same skills of non-invasive observation as a real inspector. Until such time that he does, he’s just another fictional television character.
In the case of CBC Marketplace, it will be a bit misrepresentation and unfair if Mike Holmes are allowed to have his producers to interview the home owner in this case.
You are right that Mike is “rip up carpet and take other invasive measures” that regular home inspectors are not able to do. But you don’t need to rip up anything to see the beeping ceiling has dipped and had a hole in it that was covered up. The water damage on the ceiling are rather obvious won’t you say? And FOUR out of FOUR “inspectors” missed these signs!!! How do you explain and justify them?
Haven’t heard of the invitation you talked about but it will be an interesting competition for sure. Will need someone independent though.
Understand that the scope of a home inspection requires that a home inspector report that “there is a dip in the ceiling and a hole in it that was covered up”. It is not within the scope of a home inspection or the expertise of every home inspector to determine, for the record, what previous owners did with the property or why they put the hole in the ceiling. It is an inspector’s job to observe and record what he observes and allow others to draw conclusions from his observations.
Again, it makes for good television to do what the producers of this show, and its flamboyant and heroic star, do……but it is not what home inspectors do.
I guess “… but it is not what home inspectors do” is part of the problem.
As prospective home owners and home buyers, people expect “home inspectors” to find and warn people of serious problems and to avoid these duds.
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Home purchase may be many people’s largest single purchase (in total value) so it make sense to pay attention in the home inspection process and not simply blindly trust an “expert” and not do their own homework and be observant. Ask lots of questions. And watch the Marketplace program.
And there lies the problem…
A home inspection is a noninvasive observation and a report of that observation that describes the condition of the systems of a home on the day it was inspected. It is not a warranty or guarantee in any way shape or form of anything, for it does not account for what is behind the drywall, under the insulation, behnd the exterior cladding, etc…
The inspection report is a tool to assist…not to totally advise and be responsible for….a buyer in the process of deciding whether or not to buy a home.
It is an insane idea on the part of anyone to expect that….for a couple hundred dollars…they are going to bring someone into a 50 year old building and in two to three hours, he will be able to tell you the activities of all of the families who ever lived in it.
A home inspection report does NOT tell you everything about the home, only those parts that fall under the scope of the inspection. Every home inspector provides his client, prior to the inspection, with a written description of the scope of the inspection so that they can understand what is and what is NOT going to be reflected in the report.
What your not taking into consideration is that Police possibly knew of theis house. If they house has sold buy the owners (drugdealers) then the realestate agent met talked and had a contract signed by the drugdealers. Disclosure or the apparent grow-op was missed by the agent, the agents that toured the house, and the prior people whom went through the home.
But when the home inspector shows up and something is missed, it’s the inspectors fault.
I understand the blame the last guy mentality.
But there were plenty of other professional through the building prior.
Lets go one step farther and police should make a database available to inspectors to verify if houses hvae been grow-ops, and from one plant to a zillion should not matter, its on the list.
Now the collision grow-op found in the GTA area, here is an opportunity to do so, but no address will be released, so all GTA inspectors that inspect a collision shop, should clip and give the news report of the property being a previous grow op.
Oh, I think the real estate agents are to blame too if they didn’t disclose the house was a grow-op too.
In the show, one of the poor lady lives next door to the seller who sold her the grow-op house! How pathetic! horrible.