Dear Barry,

I hired a home inspector before buying my house. He was supposed to find the defects. After moving in, I discovered that the shower in the basement has no drain connection. During the inspection, the inspector turned the shower on briefly, but he didn't find any problem with it. Now it appears that the shower is a manufactured stall that was set in place on the basement floor, connected to the water lines, but not to the sewer drain system. Instead, it is located near a clogged floor drain.  more...

Dear Barry,

We live in a six-unit apartment building, and the dryer exhaust ducts for all six of the laundry rooms blow into my attic. Every few months, the landlord's maintenance man goes into the attic to remove the lint that clogs the neighbor's dryer vents. He insists that this is not a problem, but I'm afraid it is causing the moldy smell in our apartment. What is your opinion of this situation? --Wendy

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Dear Barry,

My parents just sold their home, and they disclosed in writing that the basement becomes wet during rainy weather. The buyers chose not to have a home inspection, and now they accuse my parents of hiding a mold problem in the basement. They've even hired an attorney. Shouldn't the buyers have hired a home inspector, and if they chose not to have an inspection, weren't they saying, in effect, that they weren't particularly concerned about disclosure of defects? --Dan

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Dear Barry,

We bought our home one year ago. When we had our home inspection, we asked the inspector about a small water stain on the ceiling. He pointed some kind of sensor at it and said it was not an active leak. Recently, the ceiling stain became wet again, and that portion of the drywall fell down. It turned out that the water came from the old air conditioner in the attic. But according to the inspection report, the A/C was "new and in good working order." Do we have any recourse against the inspector? --Deanna

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