Background

My house was built in 1979. The second owners, a couple with two small children did some cosmetic work to the house before we purchased it in 1998. Mostly, they replaced the original carpet, repainted, and installed new cabinet doors. Our first surprise as newlywed homeowners was a massive termite invasion, which should have been caught by the termite inspector. We even had the termite inspector come back out as our fence was rapidly disappearing and they still claimed there were no termites. When a tree broke apart in the front yard, we figured the termite inspector was lying and went directly to an exterminator.

We used a national exterminator, and the salesperson was very professional, he had many years of experience. The person who came to do the work however was another story. He tried to shake me down mid-job for cash. Later, as he was drilling holes in the garage, and riding the drill hard, the drill exploded sending hydraulic fluid or oil all over the walls...Not a fun experience for a new first time home owner.

Much later, I realized that our home inspector was also most likely a fraud. I put the blame on our realtor Debbie Breau, she was doing what she had to to sell the house. The termite inspector and home inspector she recommended deliberately hid major defects from us. We had asked Debbie to be our Buyers Agent and told her we didn't want to see any homes where she was the seller's agent. While she was not initially the sellers agent on this house, the home was being sold through her agency, Linda Sonnhalter Weichert Realtors. After she showed us the house and we decided to make an offer, she magically also became the seller's agent. At that point we knew were screwed (but we didn't know how screwed), but we wanted the house.

That was 10 years ago.