So, once again I am on the hunt for a house. Woe is me. The inspector told me last night, 4 hours into the inspection, that the house was starting to give him a really bad feeling and if I were his daughter he wouldn't let me buy the house. So I'm not.

The details of the inspection

It started off pretty well, all things considered. Here's what was found in the approximate chronological order:

1. Termites. The termite guy found a nest of termites in the wooden fence, which he said was very common in Houston, and he would recommend that the seller de-bug the house. There were no signs of termites or past termite damage anywhere actually on or in the house.

2. A foundation crack. We had noticed a crack in the tile of the breakfast room when we first looked at the house. What we didn't notice was that the crack extended from a corner in the garage to the corner of the breakfast room, through the cement. This is the point when the inspector told me not to worry about it too much and he isn't shy about letting his clients know when and if a house started giving him "bad vibes." The way the breakfast room was build, a crack was almost inevitable (it was like a cantelever on the rest of the house and built on yucky, flexible Houston mud), and he said it looked like the crack had been there for a long time and hadn't grown or widened (it was hairline), so it was fine.

3. Bad door. The back door was rusted and warped. We had noticed this before and already factored in replacing it (since I want a doggy door there anyway). Turns out this warping actually probably came from when the crack appeared, since it was right on the line of the crack.

4. Ceiling cracks He pointed out several cracks starting to form at the stress points of my lovely cathedral ceiling. Again, he said this is normal for a 12 year old house, but he spent a lot of time looking at the ceiling and decided, basically, that the engineer who designed it must have been on crack, because all the supports seemed precariously positioned, with certain forces being directed in weird ways. But in the end, he concluded that it worked, it was just weird. Up to this point, he was pretty convinced things would work out. The only other defect that we would have to talk to the seller about was a bad AC coil.

4. Warped siding This is a MUCH bigger issue. The house is mostly brick, but on the second story on both sides of the house, there is some siding. Anyway, it was all warped. More disturbing was some warped parts had obviously been hammered back in, meaning that the owners noticed it, and instead of fixing it (or painting it, which would have prevented the rest of the warping in the first place) they tried to conceal it. Not to mention, it was pretty clear they were aware of it and didn't disclose it like they should have (the disclosure questionnaire is very specific about siding). That made the inspector worried, he started ho-humming saying there were lots of issues I would need to sort out before I bought the house.

5. The straw that broke the camel's back. As we were circling the house outside (in the rain), he did a double take at the gorgeous bay window. He said the trim around the edge of the window was most definitely not standard for the builders in the area, and the owners must have added it and he wondered why the did that. Anyway, we went back inside and he pulled up the carpet that goes up to the wall where the bay window is, and sure enough, there was water damage on the floor. He said there was no sign of water damage around the window sills, meaning the water didn't come through the window, but through the wall. He said the owners probably added the trim because they notices the damage and wanted to stop the leak. Anyway, he said there was no way to tell how much damage was inside the wall without taking out the bricks from the outside. He said, this was starting to be trouble. Then he looked up and there was a dark water stain on the ceiling above the bay window. How mom and David and I didn't notice the stain is beyond me, as I think all of us spent a lot of time looking at ceilings and notice water stains in multiple houses. Anyway, this was one of the darkest stains I've seen. Maybe because it was raining, it was actually getting wetter. The inspector said the stain was old, but still wet -- meaning water had been coming through the roof above the bay window for a long time (he said possibly years or even the lifetime of the house). Best case scenario, the roof above the bay window would need to be replaced and the dry wall torn out.

Then he said, in almost these words, "I've got the bad vibes now. This is really not good at all. (frowns, pauses for about 2 minutes) Because on either side of your bay window are the two beams that structurally support the cathedral ceiling [I mentioned earlier how we talked in detail about how precariously balanced the ceiling structure was] and if the water got into those beams, which is very well could have, because the stain stretched the whole length of the window to the edges where the beams are, the water could have gotten into the beams, weakening them to the point of eventual buckling. Then, in a few years from now, the roof could collapse onto the living room." He said the only way to assess the level of damage was to pretty much tear out the whole front wall.

Lovely. This is when he informed me I should "run, not walk" away from this house. So I did.

And the post-decision frenzy

So of course this started the phone tree of the realtor, the mom, the aunt diane and the rest of the family gossip circle. I was just a little rattled, well, mostly because I was really delighted that the inspector found these things before I made a really big mistake. However, I was also upset -- what if something like that happens to me when I go to sell whatever house I do buy -- the owners were looking at $30k+ just to take care of the few major issues (termites, siding, determine the extent of the water damage, door, and AC), I'll barely have that much equity in a house when I go to sell.

All in all, it was a roller coaster (a very expensive one). So, I dragged Sarah over to my apartment to be tortured by my dog (she doesn't like to be licked) and opened a bottle of wine and ordered a pizza. Then I talked on the phone to concerned family members and Irwin half the night. And I stayed up late just in general worrying.

The conclusion I came to is that I should quit my job and use my down payment to take an around-the-world trip or buy an BMW convertable or something let nerve racking and less sensible.

So this morning, I woke up 5 minutes before (6:10 am) I needed to leave for exercise class, only to determine that all my running shorts and sports bras were still in the washing machine soaking wet. I threw them in the dryer and went back to sleep for a desparately needed extra 30 minutes of sleep, and went jogging at home -- so I know its not my training class, but I needed to do it, especially since I'll be at the Space Generation Summit on Friday instead of at class then too. That was a nice change, but there was no way to judge distances (my plan gradually pushes me up to greater and greater distances) so I don't know if I jogged for long-enough or far-enough. Judging by my aching legs, I think I did, though.

I'm trying to see the bright side of this whole house thing. This is why we have inspectors. And it helped me make up my mind about what I want -- when I talked to my realtor last night she told me we could go look at the other one I had been considering, but I think after going through all the rigimorale of deciding, I really want a two story, open-plan house, so I'm going to stop looking at the one-floors. There are less two-stories on the market, but I have until the end of December before my rent goes to obscene heights. Now, I'm tired, and fed up, and want to move to Australia.