Steven LeFrois was referred by our attorney Ried Holter to perform a home inspection on our first rental property, and older 2 family home in town. He performed the inspection and based on his information we purchased the property.
We immediately found a problem with the heating system, which Steven said was in fair condition, but old.in fact the unit was not functioning, as both circulators were seized in the open position - $2000 repair. We replaved the furnace for $5,000.
Our downstairs tenant complained about high electric cost, and started shutting off his hot water heater. The upstairs apartment then could not get hot water, and an investigation showed that the 2 hot water heaters were plumbed together with narrow guage tubing. The entire house was plumbed incorrectly! We had to install a new high efficiency hot water heater off of the furnace for $1500.
Soon after, we were notified by the electric company that our meters were not up to code (downstairs tenant complained to RG&E because of the water heater problem), and that we would have to re-wire the house or pay all electric bills (as a commercial account at a higher rate). Steve was not educated about electric code, which he should have been.
When we tried to raise the rent, because now we had to pay all utilities, we lost our tenants. It was about that time the roof started to leak.
The roof was 3 layers thick (it should be no more than 2), and the roofing was hidden by the drip edge. Our contractor informed us that the drip edge, easily seen from the ground, was installed t intentionally hide the roof problems. Also, the false ceiling was installed for the same reason. When the tiles were pulled out from the inside of the kitchen (this took 1 minute on a kitchen chair) the original litchen ceiling showed years of water damage. The false ceiling was also intentionally put up to conceil the problem.
The contractor then made a trip to the basement and discovered that the sills and support had rotted due to the water seeping under the roof, and the house had to be jacked up and new block installed.
We are out tens of thousands of dollars, please understand that this guy does not have a clue, use a contractor to inspect a house and not Steven LeFrois!
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