My wife is a realtor and hears about stuff like this more often then you would think. There are disclosure rules that sellers must typically follow even if a home is being sold as-is. The hard part is to prove that the sellers knew about the problem and were silent. Typically when things like this happen you go after the inspector, sellers agent and the seller. You can pursue all three, but the negative is it will be costly and time consuming, but its at least worth a letter from your lawyer just to see where things go. You never know, they may come back to the table and offer you something, just to go away. Also, just because an inspector puts in their contract that they are not liable, does not protect them in all cases. Most courts will throw out exculpatory clauses where someone is seeking to relieve themselves of liability from doing a poor job.

I hope things turn out better for you. Just take care of the structural stuff and deal with the cosmetic stuff later. In a few years you'll forget all about this and hopefully when you sell the house, your buyer will not have any of the issues you faced.

Yep;

I know you don't have extra money, but the best thing you can do now is to get a very good real estate attorney. Not a regular attorney, and not a book.

You need someone who can go over all of the contracts and disclosures, and the information you have now, and figure out where you stand.

I wish you the best!

~Christina

I feel for you. Its scary out there.

Is this in a subdivision? It almost sounds like not.
It sounds like these people either custom built on the cheap and then didn't maintain it at all
or
bought a new subdivision house and didn't maintain it at all, just generally ignoring things like the windows and jury rigging the rest.

It also sounds like they didn't disclose a lot of things.
I realize your feelings about moving on and not wanting to get mired in negativity. But your alternative is being a victim that is soured by the experience and taken to the cleaners financially.
I wouldn't get my expectations up about getting any money but I would pursue, in a sort of unemotional, professional practical manner, going after the seller, the agent, the plumber. To make sure they don't do it again. That they can't get away with it and to give yourself some satisfaction and self- respect. Even if you get no money back, just get the realtors license pulled - you can say - yes we made mistakes but we not only learned from them but in a sense corrected them.
There may be some professional associations, federal or county agencies that you can at least file complaints with. But I'd definately go after the realtor relative.

(((((teafortwo72))))),
I know it will get better for you. Definitely talk to a RE lawyer, usually the consultation is free, not all ways tho.
One of our boys bought a house that DH and I have reservations with. If only we had seen the home before they made offer. Oh well, we will help wherever we can. The neighborhood is great, we just have issues with the previous owners and the way they did things, or should I say "should have done things".
Best to you, Kathy G in MI

None of this addresses the main point of perhaps getting ripped-off but-

Hang in there! In just a few years you and your husband will have to look back on all of this and laugh.

You'll figure it out bit by bit. It's like that old saying about eating an Elephant one bite at a time (they were tougher and hungrier in the old days). I know that you said that you weren't handy but I think that you've got potential - you have got the most important part down - being able to spot the problem. Step by step you will bring out the potential that you saw in the house.

-I don't know what type of windows you have, but there are secondary window locks/latches that you can buy and install yourself while you figure out a more permanent fix.
-You did not say if you had an exterminator out for the ants (I assume that you did) but maybe you could have the entire house treated for the pests that you mentioned for comfort and to prevent further damage.
-Was the house empty for a while before you bought it? Some of the smell could have been a result of not circulating the air during the summer.
-I'd start a budget planning on replacing the appliances (they are pretty much built to be disposable and were probably the cheapest the builder could find) one at a time starting with the water heater.

Best of luck to you!

Our first house was the same way and because we were inexperienced it did bite us a bit when we sold the house. We were living in Philadelphia at the time and moving to Tucson (this was in the early 1990s) and relied on our REA to be there for inspections, etc. The roof was a huge problem that was never disclosed to us. The seller was a elderly woman who was in a nursing home and her son was selling the house.

We bought not knowing how bad the roof was and ended up having to pay for replacement when we sold it 5 years later (we had put it off because my DH was a grad student and I was a teacher so not much $$ at the time).

Just breathe and know that it will get better. Take your time and just fix the absolutely necessary stuff first. Don't let this sour you entirely on your first house. Look at it as a lesson learned.

The plumbing issue - the sellers may not have known a thing. When I hire a plumber, I expect the work to be done competently and completely. If I do not see a leak, I do not presume a problem. I doubt I am alone.

Bugs - Hire an exterminator. When the house was sold to you, you should have received a termite certificate that the house had been checked/treated for termites. All the rest is up to you. Unless you had an exterminator inspect the house before purchase, you are SOL. This is not something a home inspector is qualified to do. Exterminators are licensed by the state and, as you learned, worth the few hundred dollars in a problem area.

The property line - didn't you have a survey done? Didn't you have your own representation?

Backyard - if it is/was a horror you purchased knowing this.

Looking at your list, I am surprised the inspector returned your fee - probably because once s/he had done that you are SOL on suing. About the only thing on the list the inspector should have noted was the windows locking (were they painted shut? If so, the HI could not have determined if they worked). The corroded valves on the hot water tank should have also been noted. An inspector does not tear apart door frames, pipes, dry wall, etc to look for defects.

As to the home owners, PROVE they knew about these problems. Nothing you listed would be something a homeowner would obviously know about. Their sense of smell may not be as keen as yours, the dishwasher may have worked "well enough" for them (and is probably considered a disposable item), they may have never noticed a leak, the insect problem is new... etc., etc.

Best advise - Get handy. Learn to install the window locks, the sub-flooring, etc. Call an exterminator and get on a regular treatment program.

You can wallow in your housing "mistake" and sell at a loss or take the bull by the horns and get handy.

Teafortwo72-

Welcome to home ownership.
It seems that your purchase had a lot of irritating things in it. But it's not all that unusual.

You would be surprised how people live. I'll bet that none of these things bothered the previous owners or they really didn't see them as big issues.
They didn't seem to be big issues. However, poor installations become BIG problems...so YOU need to be on top of things & SUPERVISE!

Many homeowners don't bother repairing everything.
No house is perfect, whether you buy a pre-owned house or have a new one built.

The plumbing issue is probably the plumber's fault, not theirs. The faster you learn to "babysit" people working on your home, the better off you will be. I'm not kidding you. Learn NOW. I do a lot myself & hire out the heavier work. There is always something to repair, re-do etc a in a house, even a new one! I had to become HANDY. Not by choice.

For whatever its worth, get a reputable handyperson & get those pesky things out of the way. You'll feel better after it's all done...Oh, and it will never end, so have that Handypersons number on file...

Homeownership is expensive. It's like owning an older car. There's always something to be done. Sometimes it's preventative maintainence. Sometimes it's repairs. One of the most difficult of lessons to learn is that the intial cost isn't the ultimate cost. Taxes go up. Insurance goes up. Wear and tear happens. Maintainence needs to happen. If getting into a home is a financial stretch for you, then you'd better be a DIYer, because when the inevitable happens, you're not going to be able to financially handle it if you're already at your limit on the PITA alone.

So much of TV is devoted to real estate entertainment shows that people forget it's entertainment first and real estate second. You see people moving into 4/3 3000 square foot "starter homes" on the salary of a teacher and a fireman. In the real world, that's a fantasy. A "starter home" is usually older, smaller, and no one's idea of a dream unless their parents are paying for it. Homeownership is more involved and more expensive than TV portrays. Unfortunately, you're learning that lesson right away and in a painfully expensive manner. I agree with xamsx advice. Get handy. And quick. Because there is sure to be more stuff to happen and if you have to pay for everything you want done in a home, you'd better win the lottery or go back to renting so you won't have to worry about it.

There are also a couple weird smells in the upstairs bedrooms that we can't put our fingers on... it is not mildew, we don't know what it is.

Do you have central air? If so, take the cover off if it is on the floor. See if you see anything in it. At my last house my daughter who was 5 or so when we moved, used to drop stuff in it all of the time.

If you have baseboard heaters, take the cover off give it a good inspection / cleaning. It's possible that food or something dropped into it and now that it is getting chilly some nights with the heat on, what ever is in there is heating up. Even up to 12 years old, my daughter somehow managed to still drop stuff in there, mostly things like Q-tips or gum wrappers. I clean her room thoroughly with the 4 seasons still. She has allergies, so getting out all of the dust is now the issue since she's better about not dropping things.

Also, since you appear to have a bug problem, it very well could be dead spiders or lady bugs heating up. I also wonder about mice since your house doesn't appear to be sealed. If the ductwork is in the attic, a mouse very well could have gotten into it above the "smelly" room and is decomposing.

My new neighbors bought the house next door & didn't move in for 4 months. They found a hard dead squirrel in the crawl, that I know had to smell. The master was under construction when they bought it, when they went to paint they found a window rotted which set them back. The water pump also went after they moved in; I kept asking them if they were sorry they bought that house. Amazing enough they aren't as they knew what was out there; they said they knew they would have issues, they just didn't know what kind of issues.

First thing we discover is a leaking pipe caused by the owners recently replacing a valve in the laundry area. They just had a plumber stick on a valve instead of soldering on a piece to the copper pipe.

I actually wonder if the home owner did this. I've never heard of a plumber not soldering unless it is the new type that crimps.

dishwasher didn't work correctly. Stove burner didn't work correctly.

If the owners didn't use the dishwasher, they may not have known. The burner they probably did. These would be things I did in the spring. Put them on your list, start looking for appliance sales. Maybe you have parents that will get you a gift certificate to a home improvement store?

A number of the windows won't lock at all and seem to possibly not be put in correctly.

Any replacement windows we've bought, they come with the locks already on. I wonder if your windows open to clean? If so, open them up, then try to close them. Hopefully this does the trick.

The house is infested with wasp and hornet nests under the shutters. More than i have ever seen.

This is nature, bugs do this. As a homeowner, you'll need to go around your house and inspect these areas. You might want to get a power washer for the house. We regularly spray the house down, especially by the shutters.

The backyard is a horror...we knew about this though...

What's wrong with the backyard?

Yesterday I had ladybugs dive bombing my house.. thousands of them. I have never seen anything like it... I guess there is a variety (asian) that seem to try to hibernate in peoples homes for the winter.. and they like light colored homes, and yesterday was warm... how lucky for me!

You're not alone. I've seen posts, think at the rose forum, from others with this issue. Go to the The Garden Clinic, also try the New England Gardening. Also look at Baldo Villegas aka bugman. His page good guys shows what they look like at various stages.

My daughter did a report on lady bugs, it's on my other computer. Doing a google, the best site that I remember is Ohio State University. Look down to where it says With Some Bad Habits!!! I also found Lady Bugs Are Your #1 Natural Pest Control, he says how to clean them up. Google home infestation results

We were also lied to about the property line by the broker who was a relative of the person selling the house. This gets complicated to explain, so I will leave it at that.. but I guess our fault for trusting the realtor and not double checking.. but you just expect sometimes people to be ethical... and it is sad.

I agree, you should have had a survey done and am surprised you didn't. They are common in NJ. I'm reading that you aren't too happy with your agent, so I will suggest you see if you can find their name with a google search. If others are unhappy, you might find some complaint sites and can add to it. I know there are a few agent feedback sites, links are on my other computer, maybe someone else here saved them.

I've lived in 165 yo house for nearly 20 years and it's always something! Except for giant holes in the roof, or active leaks or bad wiring, most things can be put off or spaced out as energy and funding requires.

Maybe you'll feel better about your house if you just declare a temporary halt to the repairs and concentrate on getting your life back. Then you may recapture the optimism and hope you had pre-house and feel better able to overcome the hurdles. Since you are newly in your house no one will expect it to be are perfect before the holidays. Just clean it up and live in it until next spring. One very useful piece of advice often given to new owners of very old historic houses is to do nothing except concentrate on deep cleaning for at least a year. This gives one a chance to avoid costly early projects, recover from the expense of moving house and improve and refine your ideas. Many of your orginal choices will seem ill-considered in a few years when the house has "told" you what you need to do for it. It's better not have invested too much in them right off the bat. It breaks ones heart to tear out expensive improvements you've made too soon.

I agree. Don't sweat the small stuff. If you can't afford to exterminate, go to Walmart or the Depot, they should still have the various bugs granuals. You can put them outside, around the house. I would then water it in. There are also sprays you can buy. I hate to say this, but be glad there weren't fleas in the house. After having a flea infested house, I would welcome ladybugs.

No house is perfect, every new owner will find something that needs to be done. Some things can be put off.

Thought I would chime in about the ladybugs since I live in MA and have seen this first hand. It's really not worth exterminating - they'll swarm your house maybe for a few days with this warm weather we're having, then they'll die off.

For the ones who get in to your house (and they will, believe me, I know!) just vacuum them up with a vacuum that has a bag and toss the bag, or open it outside to let them go. Caulk any areas where you see them come in.

The first year we had ladybugs it creeped me out - I felt like I was in a B movie! After that, it wasn't a big deal. They don't bother the house we're in now, and I kind of miss it. It made for great stories! They don't do any damage so no harm, no foul.

Best of luck to you with the other problems you're encountering!

Teafortwo72,
Been there, done that. We trust home inspections, but they really are cursory views of the house.

All of your issues are legitimate. But, they are now Your issues. One problem at a time is how it gets fixed. I know you're frustrated and feel cheated. Its called buyers remorse. Unlike car purchases, this is your home. Everything you do from here on out will add to its value and its beauty. In a while, it will be a genuine reflection of you and your family.

It will be o.k.

I would not stop making home improvements.
Make a list of everything that MUST be done, then make a list of what you would LIKE to have done.
Then prioritize the lists. Anything to do with the health and safety of the household gets highest prioritization.

Then, take a good hard look at the prioritized list.
What MUST be done by a professional? Start getting estimates, and then schedule these into your finances.

Look for the highest priority items that you think you can tackle (even if on the "would like" list.) Schedule at least one of these for each quarter of the year. I think you will find that you CAN do more than you realize. Painting is work, but it is truly satifying to see the fruit of your labor. The number one reason to get involved in improving your surroundings is that it does build pride in ownership. It has been my experience that you actually build a relationship with your house - as hokey as that sounds.
Yep - you have had some disapointments. Now, take control and be sure to update us.
Best of luck to you!

Unless you want to move out and sell (at a loss, apparently) you will need to get handy and stretch your money. I'd start by buying (or borrowing at the library) some how-to books. Having to buy materials and tools will cost you only about half of what a professional charges, and the tools you can keep and use on another future project for free! I too have a house that turned out to be a pretty big disappointment, but through doing numerous projects over time I've made it into a decent place. There's always something that needs to be better, but that's just the way it is. There will always be some jobs will need a professional - so I'd start on the small things and develop some experience and work your way up. Learn what you can and cannot do - I seriously doubt that everything you mentioned is beyond you. Just because you haven't done something like that doesn't mean that you can't do it.

I learned early on to fear the disassembly of anything in my house - there was always concealed damage that I didn't know about. As long as you repair things at a rate faster than which new things are breaking (and that is not difficult) eventually you will be able to stop having to fix things.

It took me years. It was like I had a new hobby - working on the house. There are worse things.

You've gotten some great advice here. Wish I had received it when we first bought our cottage, LOL!

Leaks in the walls are seldom evident. Our kitchen sink pipe leaked for years until it finally was so bad water from the DW started coming through the light fixtures in our downstairs master bathroom. Talk about panic time! Turned out one of the big box stores had long ago received bad batches of PVC pipe that cracked lengthwise; the plumber I called said he had already worked on two other homes with the same problem who had also purchased pipe from that store around the same time we did.

A few years later we at last had enough money to upgrade the master bathroom cabs and fixtures. I wasn't going to replace the tub but my husband insisted, he wanted to do everything at once. The contractor took the tub and matching shower surround out, broke into the wall - and discovered a nice steady leak from just behind the greenboard. Since it was all totally hidden by the surround walls, we would never have discovered it until maybe the foundation piers holding up the back end of the house rotted away completely. Turned out to be a relatively recent leak, no dry rot once it dried out, so we were VERY lucky all the way around.

It's the price of home ownership. And it's one of the reasons I've convinced a few of my friends not to buy, but to rent. There are certain situations where it simply does not always pay to buy, no matter what the conventional wisdom is.

teafortwo, I just want to also mention the first year you own a house is always the worst. You are stretched financially, face new house problems with ownership. You don't know what contractors to trust or how to DIY. So a lot of what you feel right now is normal. Things will get better.

Teafortwo, did we lose you?

Hopefully the feedback you got makes you feel a little better. Please post back to let us know how you are making out with the ladybugs.

It does sound like you have had more than your share of problems with your house. It is not always first houses where this happens, either. We were not in our first house very long before exDH was transferred out of state, but our second house had a few problems. I was giving the dog a bath in the front bathroom when I heard water running under the house. Turns out the drain pipe from this tub emptied into the crawlspace through a big hole in the trap! We later learned that the huge floor furnaces were still hooked up to the gas lines - even though the floor furnaces were now under carpet and padding and we had central heat.

My next house was a fixer-upper. I knew that going in. I was single by then. I had an inspection done on the house and some of the faults were pointed out to me - the rotten windowsills and bad gutters, the original gravity furnace with asbestos ducts. I had the furnace replaced before moving in. In cleaning the bathroom, I learned that the shower enclosure was not firmly attached to the walls, and behind it it was very moldy. I pulled it down myself and then had to hire someone to sister new boards into rotten wall framing, kill the mold, and put new walls in the tub surround. I used a cheap wall board as a finish product there because I could not afford ceramic tile at the time. This was all before I moved in.

Some of the more obvious problems were noted in the city inspection done before the sale, and the sellers were required to have them fixed. The drip-edge molding where the sill met the foundation was gone, and the fascia boards at the foundation were rotten. They were replaced before the sale. My home inspector said the roof was new. He was right. The shingles were all new, but they were laid on top of the bare roof deck on the back side of the house and on top of two older layers of shingles on the front side of the house. The flashing in the back leaked. We did not find out about that for a few years.

I knew the gutters were bad, but not until it rained did I learn that the holes in the gutter were mostly above the front porch. The original concrete porch had been removed at some point and a big wooden porch put on. I did not realize that the old concrete porch was not under the wooden one, or that the concrete porch had been the roof of the root cellar. So when it rained, the gutters leaked onto the porch, where the rain flowed down into the root cellar in the basement, across the basement floor, and into the basement drain! I think it was two years before we (I had remarried) had the money for a new porch.

Next we got windows and doors, the year after the porch. The back door going from the garage to the back yard had a crack in it big enough to let the snow in. The window sills on one side of the home were rotted (which I knew going in), and when the new windows were installed, we were able to have the contractor fix the rotted wood in the outer walls there, too. I had some boric acid put into the wall before he closed it up, to kill the carpenter ants there. It helped, but we still saw occasional ants for years. Once the old dying apple tree out back was removed, the ants were gone on that side of the house. I had to replace some rotting wood on the garage before they left for good.

I went into this house knowing about some of these problems. My home inspector was really pretty useless in finding these other problems. I have never had a home inspector be THAT helpful with a house. We took about five years to get the house structurally sound, watertight, and comfortable. Our house was 50 years old, though, and I know you did not expect your problems with your newer house. The thing I learned hanging out at the Building a Home and Buying and Selling forums is that the building industry hires people who do not know what they are doing. A ten year-old house should not have the problems yours did, but sometimes they do. If the guy who installed your door knew nothing about proper flashing, it would all rot out, just as you saw. Housekeeping is right in the reply above about not having to fix everything right away. I was up nights worried about the proper sequence for fixing things. It is no fun at all to have more projects to do on your house than you can do or can afford. Eventually, though, you get things done and you begin to like the house. Keep focused on what you liked about it in the first place.

Even buyers of new houses have some of these problems. There is one poster on Building a Home who had to have her unfinished home demolished because it rotted to the point of being unfix-able before she even moved in. Just looking at things, no one would ever know to expect these problems. And the home inspectors really don't do enough to ferret them out. You CAN't see some of these problems without tearing off molding or getting into walls.

Talk to a lawyer if you want to think about suing. Watch DYI network and subscribe to Handyman magazine. You will learn a lot, I did. We ended up loving our house. I hope you get that back with yours, too.

And the home inspectors really don't do enough to ferret them out. You CAN't see some of these problems without tearing off molding or getting into walls.

Actually, in reality home inspectors CAN'T "do enough" to ferret certain problems out...as they can't tear out walls etc. on a home that does not belong to you...as no seller would allow such...and of course...who would pay for all of the repairs?

IMO, I still maintain that the reason most people believe their home inspection to be less than thorough is because they have not taken the time to become educated on the inherent limitations...and, because they wait until the last minute to hire an HI. They don't check references; they don't check to see if he is insured; they don't check with the regulating authority to see if there have been complaints against the HI.

Last but not least, every HI I speak with claims the same...most people never ask any of the above...they dont even ask how long the inspection will take...or what type of report they will receive...the main, number one question always boils down to "How much"? All else is often irrelevant.

People need to take the time to perform due diligence in hiring the HI; if so, far fewer folks would be unpleasantly surprised by the result.

You should have those problems in a 50 year old house either Nancy. Put the blame where it belongs -
(1) builders who don't build right (50 years ago on up through current day)
(2) serviceman who don't repair right
and number one (even if its #3:) people who don't maintain their houses!
Drives me crazy now that I'm looking. People just don't put anything into houses anymore. But the prices are still way up there. I thought I knew what I could afford but most of what I'm looking at, even though they aren't considered junky I would immediately want to start replacing things. Ugh.
And they should be disclosing what they know about.

It is upsetting to read in an era of "Flip This House" etc. That this house did not get a thorough home inspection. Being that I live in SE MA I take a particular interest in situations such as this; it is simply called performance and remedy where the home inspector was required to provide complete home inspection and a thorough written report (this would be required by your lender). The remedy is to sue both the lender and the home inspector for breach of contract.
There is a good read in all of your paperwork including the lenders agreement. Where is the house located?

We are all here to help.

bushleague, I know of no lender that requires a home inspection report.....

That said, the home inspection is for the buyer only...it is not valid for use for anyone but the buyer...and most state laws even preclude the HI from providing info about the house or report to anyone BUT the buyer without the buyers consent.

If a lender would like to have a home inspected, they would hire their own HI...just as they do with the appraiser.

Last but not least, although it does seem as if the HI missed items in this case, one can't make an equivocal judgment without seeing the contract to see what may have been excluded...and/or without seeing the report to see what may not have been accessible on the day of inspection. Case in point are the insect issues...as that is beyond the scope of a home inspection...as is the inspection and/or testing for mold. In addition, the sellers clearly took steps to conceal problems.

That said, such misconceptions about home inspections are often the true source of buyer remorse...as opposed to the inspection itself...

Of course, after I moved in I learned all kinds of things about how the house had been neglected by multiple owners. The neighbors were happy to share their stories.

I wanna know who decided that every room had to be wallpapered with textured wallpaper! It was as if there was a blind person living there who wanted to be able to ID what room she was it by feeling the wallpaper pattern! Then there was the previious owner who "remodeled" and left three live wires in the walls in the kitchen and removed the beams holding up a header!

Home ownership is full of surprizes.

It sounds pretty typical to me, honestly. Sympathy is not one of my strong points, but everything you've described to me I've either encountered in one of my houses or know someone who has. It's just part of home ownership.

See, here's the thing, I think some people are happier renting. My husband would much rather rent and have the owner deal with whatever problems crop up in the house, and have the advantage of less stress and more mobility when he's ready to move somewhere else.

I like the "it's mine" feeling and fixing things the right way when they break. Of course, the wife always wins in a happy marriage ;) so we own this house.

But what I'm saying is to examine your feelings-if owning makes you this unhappy, there's nothing wrong with deciding it's not for you.

Many, many sources of information say that people do as well financially renting as they do buying. I'm sure at some point we will happily rent again as we have in the past.

Frankly, the worst-built house in our neighborhood was built by the developer who built up most of this area. He simply didn't care, and just maximized his profits.

How do we know it's the worst-built house? Our brother in law now owns it! He's a former contractor who's been slowly DIY'ing the improvements on his home over the last ten years. The shoddiness of the internal workmanship surprised even him, and there's absolutely no way the PO/developer could not have known what the workmen were doing. Things were done to the house that were potentially dangerous, but the PO/developer obviously could have cared less. And yes, he died rich!