mtbc | Much follow-up work for the house

When I bought my house I got a home inspection done first, it turned up some issues and I had the seller drop the price accordingly. It is now looking as if I will more than spend that discount in the fixes. That is okay, I do have the cash, it would just have been nice to use it in other ways.

The home inspection lists fifty-one points and, having my hands already quite full with the move and a new job, I have hired a local handyman. Some of the larger issues missed by the inspection that I am now having him work on include:

The chimney leaks, he has caulked some cracks and is in the process of painting it with some kind of liquid rubber substance.

Raccoons get into the attic, he's replacing some wood trim and suchlike to seal the roof better.

There have been multiple plumbing leaks, we hope he doesn't have to break through the shoddy tiling to fix the latest which is in a supply line. (We initially blamed that water on a now-fixed leak.)

The hardwood flooring is largely missing sealant so I shall hold off on buying large furniture.

There is black mold in the basement that he will treat then coat the surfaces with mold-unfriendly paint.

Many of the fittings are poorly secured and many of the water-related ones are not sealed.

He had already remediated many of the home inspection issues and these extra ones should appear at a lower rate now that he has had time to explore the house. A new one today was that he realized that he hadn't seen vent ducting in the attic, it turned out that the bathroom and stovetop ceiling fans simply blow into the insulation.

While I have been unlucky in managing to buy a house for which a rather thorough inspection still missed so much, I also feel lucky in some ways. The handyman is experienced and reasonably priced and he very readily shows me what he is talking about and looks for cheap, effective alternatives. For example, rather than have me buy a spark guard for the chimney, he is adapting some wire mesh into the existing mechanism, and for a small cracked window pane he thinks I have a suitable piece of glass in an old window in the shed. He has also confirmed that many things are in good condition or done well. Also, none of these surprises are extremely unpleasant. No structural issues have emerged and many of the issues that we have found have been readily fixed, it's just that there appear to be enough of them that I get to almost live with him for a little while yet.