the house that isn't…

well, the house we were all set to buy ended up not really being too great. appealing to the eye, yes- but upon inspection totally failed. a couple of the problems: black mold covering the whole attic, garage roof leaking, needed new windows b/c wood was soft, the wood on the top half was soft, the caulking was not kept up with so that was bad, the dryer was installed incorrectly so there would be possible fire damage, the piping for the washer and utility sink was done poorly, the shingles were not appropriately place on the roof, the gutters were incorrectly linked up so that water was draining on the outside, the gutters were practically falling off because the wood it was supposed to be adhered to was soft- a.k.a. rotting. what a sad story, isn't it? the people who owned it before totally didn't keep up with it, and basically made it a dump. there are a couple of other issues that didn't make the list- but it is mainly water damage. we learned a lot during the inspection, and we feel like it was totally worth the money we paid to have it done. it felt like a class and we feel way more prepared to buy a house in the future. some things that the inspector mentioned to us that i didn't think of to do is: talk to the neighbors to see what the area is like- are the normal? safe? helpful? do a sexual predator search on-line for the area, find out who did the insurance for the house and see the paper trail for the house (claims, etc), check city records to double check what could have happened to the house. all good stuff that we didn't think of doing. praise God that we had a great inspector who was totally tough on us and the house. i feel like my life has so much more freedom because i don't have all those burdens on me to fix up the issues.