Charles Buell, Seattle, WA, Home Inspector

Home Inspector Licensing has happened to Washington State.

I for one am excited about it. I see it as a starting point for turning what, up until now, would best be described as a, “rag-tag band of alpha-wolves roaming the local real estate” into an ACTUAL profession.

Some of these wolves were (and are) very good inspectors and do their best to provide the best of service to the consumer. There have even been home inspector associations that attempted to raise the bar by creating their own Standards of Practice and minimum requirements for membership. The problem is that there were (and are) many associations with very different qualification protocols, and agendas---not to mention that they only affected whomever chose to join them----which left the majority of inspectors outside of anyone’s oversight.

The process of bringing Licensing to Washington State has been going on for many years, but very specifically, the last five years. The whole process of licensing involved years of hearings and public meetings that were well publicized, televised and made unbelievably accessible on the internet. The pros and cons have been argued on all the major home inspector internet forums until most inspectors’ monitors could have resulted in the “blue-screen-of-death.” The result has been a licensing law that, while not perfect, is a good start by establishing minimum educational requirements (including testing) for all inspectors in the state, providing a common Standards of Practice, providing a common Code of Ethics, and requiring continuing inspection education.

Some of the “old guard” are being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st Century of Home Inspection.

And this brings me to the real topic of this post.

HOW CAN THERE BE ANYONE IN WASHINGTON STATE THAT DOES NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS LAW???

And yet, this is apparently the case as the state has had to set up some special meetings to give inspectors that may have literally been living under a log for the last five years a chance to understand what they must do to become licensed. To have not heard about licensing would mean that they never heard about it on the news;

Never read about it in the papers;

Never heard about it from the WSDA (where it was discussed at most continuing education sessions----leading one to conclude that perhaps they are not Licensed Structural Pest Inspectors as required by law);

Did not hear about it as a member of any of the National Inspection Associations (again begging the question if they are operating under anyone’s Standards of Practice and continuing education);

Did not hear about it on the Internet (begging the question of how much they access internet inspector forums etc);

Did not hear about it from other more involved inspectors (making one wonder if they ever consult with, or have communications with other inspectors); or,

Are pretending to not have ever heard about it, with the hope that it won’t be true (and we all know that hope is frosting on a turd).

I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW WHAT OTHER OPTIONS I AM MISSING!!

Click on the Rose to check out: AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

DeCroe, is my "ethereal" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.

Since I am away teaching all week---doing my stint of the, 160 hour, Residential Home Inspection Training Course at Bellingham Technical College, I thought I would give you all a chance to play student. This teaching business is going to radically cut into my Rain time, but I will be checking in and playing as much as I can.

While this should be fairly easy for home inspectors, I hope that the inspectors in the rain will give everyone else at least a chance to give it a go.

So NO INSPECTORS until after 15 comments (and mine don’t count).

What is this thing?

It is a ____________________________.

Charles Buell

Click on the Rose to check out: AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

DeCroe, is my "etherial" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.

One of home inspector’s favorite conversations with other inspectors is how quick they can do an inspection----and conversely how long they sometimes take. While I (and hopefully others) would never sacrifice “quality” while considering “speed,” we still like to remark on an inspection that is exceptionally short due to there being very few defects or because the house is very small----or one that takes an extremely long amount of time because of its size or its horrible condition.

It is not uncommon for a very small condo to take 1-1/2 to 2 hours. I have taken as long as 9 hours on a property with two houses. The other day I inspected a house in “5” MINUTES.

Yup----the whole thing---ALL 9 sq ft.

Gotta love slab on grade houses.

I elected to neither walk NOR ride this roof.

The biggest defect was that Snow White was nowhere to be seen even though I had previously seen some of the dwarfs in the garage apparently preparing to mow the lawn.

Where the heck was Snow White anyway?

It was such a nice sunny day----perhaps she went to the mountain.

Perhaps the mountain IS Snow White.

Charles Buell

Click on the Rose to check out: AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

DeCroe, is my "etherial" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.

The other day I was visiting my son at the beautiful Evergreen College, near Olympia, Washington. I parked in one of the public parking lots and was hanging out waiting for my son when I noticed this pile of dirt around one of the trees in the grass medians in the parking lot. In this picture you can see that brown dirt patch.

As I got closer to this brown patch I realized that the brown patch was ALIVE. Yes, everything visible in the picture at the base of the tree that is dark in color is ANTS! These are thatching ants and the large mound has been there quite a while as is evidenced by the grass and other vegetation growing up the sides of the mound. The activity on the surface of the mound would increase and decrease as the sun went in and out behind the clouds.

As I watched their activity it seemed almost incomprehensible that each one of these ants, on a genetic level, knows exactly what it is doing. What appears as total chaos to the observer from above is not the truth at all.

When we extrapolate this mass of interactions to human activities, it certainly gives one a reason to pause regarding notions of “individuality.” If one were to look down from above at the activities of human beings would it seem this chaotic?

On some level, is the mass of human activity following unseen laws or rules that would actually make sense if we were capable of seeing the whole picture---or would human activity be “truly” chaotic as opposed to the very ordered chaos of the ants?

Here is another picture of a Thatching Ant nest I found on Whidbey Island last summer. These nests are very common in Washington State and can be very large. This one is at least 24 inches tall and 36 inches in diameter.

The darker shadow-like arc visible on the left side of the mound is actually a covering of ants as they stay out of the direct sun. The entire mound is constructed of bits of grass and twigs----which is a bit like “thatch” and has earned them the name of Thatching Ants.

These ants take “finding oneself” to a whole new level.

Charles Buell

Click on the Rose to check out: AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group

PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.

DeCroe, is my "etherial" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.