n/a30

A simple and very sensible answer.

I have walked on a few for a variety of reasons too lengthy to discuss here due to the fact that I choose NOT to be squeaky clean with excessive amount of PC just to make anyone happy. Truth is more important than having a Disney dialog. i.e. (omit all the real important details but provide illusion [like a real estate agent]) dialog. Everything is political if you look deep enough to connect the dots. So pretty many subjects are dead in the water from the get go in a PC world that could be printed in Reader Digest. A dumbed down discussion is not worth pursuing in a PC illusion. Gee wiz the truth might offend someone. It especially can offend the guilty. Funny I thought that we inspectors were in the business of telling the truth without coloration, spin, hype or any form of bias.

It is a good idea, but it probably costs more than some builders would want to pay without passing the cost along. They could use it as a sales feature to show that the builder is thinking about their buyer and trying to add features and quality into their final product. I see good products advertised and promoted all the time in Popular Mechanics / Popular Science and other similar magazines but few new products make it to shelves of hardware stores. Marketing these new items is very expensive.

Yes, immigration does play a huge part of the problem related to the errors created. Denial of that fact is delusional and counterproductive. Most of the qualified workers have left the business and only a few of the remaining workers can speak English properly. Some of the more qualified workers become managers and many others outsource the services. Some contractors just use day labor workers that congregate at street corners. There needs to be better compliance to the demands of quality performance. It is not only the construction industry that has been highly diminished. Almost every industry has been undermined by the lack of quality control. The public is screwed. It is difficult to find any construction workers that are competent and capable of proper communication and proper ability in this country. It takes more than little technical education to have a conscience and dedication to doing the right thing to insure quality control to protect the public from substandard work and service providers. The bottom line is if you want quality artisanship, you may find it a difficult task to locate anyone with a competitive bid because many American craftsmen cannot compete with the substandard and poorly done work done by others with lacking skills /creditentials / abilities. For a variety of obvious reasons, you will not get quality work from many in the current workforces due to the lack of control over the industry.

They probably come from Mexico and can not read, speak or write much English. It is the illegal visitors from the south that do most of the construction, including residential building and they make the majority of the very stupid mistakes.

It seems that some people in this crazy old world will find justification for their positions rather than really examine them for true value and depth of character. If you lay down with dogs you eventually will get fleas. Those guilty of getting put into questionable and compromising positions will eventually get unquestionably karmically compromised. Enough said.

When playing the agent's version of Russian Roulette for inspectors, changes are the gun has a bullet in almost every chamber. It is the agents that spins the chamber , points the gun and decides when to pull the trigger. If you are mentally challenged or immoral enough to play lay dog and get the fleas of the manipulators, you get what you deserve. What is that nasty smell? If in a weak compromising moment put on some whorish lipstick, pucker up for them and then go sit in the dark corner with a dunce cap until you come to your senses. What do you think will happen if a controlling agent hits your hand with a "show him who's boss" hammer? If you have no clue, try it. Whamo! Snap goes the mouse trap on the unfortunate one so foolish to think they can outsmart those planting the cheese and controlling the referral aspects of the dirty system. A new agent trick: (maybe it not really new, just new to me) The agent pretends to be someone other than the actual role they are playing. i.e. a seller's agent pretending to be a buyer's agent. Or... the agent pretends to be be buyer who is not around. In one case a builder pretended to be the buyer. In each case the poser wanted an unfair advantage. You can not trust those devils, or anyone else who wants an unfair advantage of power / position or any form of undeserved special treatment.

There are shades of Enron trading at work when any power (including internet services) comes into play. Enron may be gone but the practices of shady game theory trading still exists at the top of the money pile. "Everybody needs some power I'm told To shield them from the darkness and the cold Some may see a way to take control when it's bought and sold." lyrics by John Hall

Some one in Kentucky might have gotten some road kill laced with mad cow disease. That notice is dangerous and does not represent the best interests of the public. Erby please set them right.

Speaking from personal experience with TREC and some other governmental entities, it does little good to speak to the many entrenched bureaucrats. The closer you get the governments operations the waste, incompetence and corruption becomes more obvious.

The mess with the insurance is typical of corrupt government and lobbying efforts to force capital into the pockets of politicians and campaign contributors with vested interests. The lawyers are already starting to ramp up litigation to tap the insurance companies.

Many years ago I went to an inspectors association meeting were many inspectors were standing around in a circle. One inspector was left out of discussions. He wore a P 2 P shirt. Being naive at the time I wondered why they shunned him. It was not until the P2P guy spoke his mind that I understood why they threated him like an untouchable. The entire P 2 P business model is built around Realtor referrals, not quality service to the public. In these days of centralization and prepackaged dirty deals with entangling alliances, grouped entities serve the needs of those who want to make any deal happen, where profits for tainted entities are maximized and the details of kickbacks / quid pro quo relationships are kept secret. Consolidated bundeling of servces trough a marketing funnel only serves financial benefits of the gatekeeping bundler. It is what the public does NOT know is the associaions are often questionable.

The huge jump in housing costs in the past 6 years is far beyond a healthy / reasonable increase. Greed played a huge factor in the overall escalation. The slow down in sales should bring an eventual market correction base on currently inflated prices. Tax based and independent appraisals then should also change the picture, but it is rare for them significantly lower the assessed values once they are inflated. The fiscal infrastructure depends upon the escalating prices at some rate that is reasonable and affordable. Thus, the bubble will continue to deflate until other economic factors are moderated. Large ticket items are not moving significantly enough to stave off long term repercussions because the consumer confidence in the economy is at best lack luster. Due to excessive federal spending the deficit is nearing a Trillion dollars owed to foreign interests such as China and Japan, who naturally want an attractive return on investment. The fed is warning of a pre-recessionary period that may take many years to play out. Reference Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech to Congress. It brought about huge sell off at Wall Street. The stocks got devalued and thus the dollar weaker again. Predictions: 1. Belts and budgets will be tightened, 2. US citizenry jobs lost, 3. Productivity drops, 4. More manufacturing and service sector jobs will be outsourced to third world and developing countries, 5. Huge immigration problems will not be fixed by using enforcement, 6. Federal spending will continue at current levels into early 2009 and 7. The US will attempt to appease creditors by printing more paper-backed capital. 8. Social Security funds will be greatly strained as Baby Boomers expect to reap rewards. 9. Banks and major lenders will continue to feel the pinch of their poor management of sub-prime loans to persons with inadequate credit and/or sound finances. 10. Sales will continue to be sluggish in the next three to four years. 11. Some irresponsible people caught in the crunch will turn to unwise spending on escapist based items such as entertainment, booze, and excessive use of (prescription) drugs to quell their economically depressed states.

Thanks for the One Team One Fight description of OT OF. Before Mike's branding of it, the OT OF thing was new to me. Maybe it came from sports competition. It is so much clear to type it out and avoid the confusion. The only such abbreviated grouping I use is GFCI that is written out in reports. For field notes I use lots of abbreviations but those are not read by anyone except my self.

WB-What bar? TINBH -There is no bar here. NSDNC-Null set does not compute PIWLTBAV-Pat I would like to buy a vowel SWYM-MWYS = ?? What does this mean Milke? or this WITCHE (hint you have heard it 100s of times).