They made these inspectors look bad for not doing things that fall outside of home inspection Standards of Practice, and even home inspection standards of care. Would you ding a medical doctor for not checking your teeth for cavities? These items are not included in home inspection Standards of Practice (SoP), and in our humble opinion, are not “soon to be needed expensive repairs”. They also state the focus was to find “soon to be needed expensive repairs.” This included things like loose hinges to a vanity door, cut cords at window blinds, dirty filters at window AC units, trees and landscaping in need of care and trimming, and a doorbell that wasn’t working. The article says that Checkbook’s research staff identified 28 “too obvious to miss” items. The Star Tribune ran the same story as well, first stating that the home was rented by “Undercover shoppers from Twin Cities Consumer’s Checkbook.” This was later changed to the current version that appears online, which states that the house was located in the suburbs of Washington, DC. On the second round, they said that there was actually only one test house, located in the Washington, D.C. Reuben pressed for more details, asking how the results from every house could have been identical, and they got back to him a few days later with a different story. They claimed that there were indeed seven identical houses rented in seven cities. This didn’t ring true, so Reuben put in a call to Consumers’ Checkbook to ask about this. The location of the test house is not told, but it’s clearly implied that the test house was in the city that the story takes place in. First, the premise of the article is not candid. Each one of these articles gives the impression that the story takes place in that particular city. The inspections were labeled superficial and the inspectors were called lazy, sloppy, and ding-dongs. The basis of each article is that Consumers' Checkbook rented a three-bedroom house, hired 12 home inspectors to inspect the home, and the inspectors did a poor job of inspecting to a standard that doesn’t exist. These areas include the Twin Cities, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Puget Sound, Delaware Valley, and Washington, DC. We’ve seen the exact same concerning article from Consumers' Checkbook pop up in seven different areas of the country. This is a joint post from Reuben Saltzman, Charles Buell, and Barry Stone.
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