Stupid Homeowner Stories

[Brett Hull]

Bah, builders annoy me in the extreme. If you build in a development or with a large builder, you have to watch them every day, and call them on every single thing you find wrong. They just brazenly try to get away with as much as they can, betting on the fact that most people are too lazy, busy and/or stupid to catch them at it.


Nu

The wife and I just went through this. It was so bad, we told them they could either tear it all down and start over, or give us our money back. We got our money back. I think after they figured out they were dealing with people who had a clue, they were caught. Here's what it looked like: http://www.despair.com/demotivators/incompetence.html

Avoid D.R Horton like the plague.

 

[FN FAL]

Yea, we got two of those builders building neighborhoods full of cracker box homes. As you look at them, they just exude fine construction quality...not!

We just got an offer to manage the eight plex we are living in. We do not have to mow the lawn, and we do not have to clean the apartments if a tenant leaves it messy, and we do not have to shovel snow. We just have to drag the lawn sprinkler out in the summer time, take care of calling the plumber, electrician or the cleaning service for the proprietor, should there be a problem. We have to show the apartments that are being rented and change the filters in AC/heating units.

This drops our rent down to 450 a month for a two-bedroom apartment, which is less than 7 years old.

We are looking for a house, but even with low interest rates, those sumbatchin bascages have raised the prices of their homes through the roof. In the nice neighbor hood around the corner from us, there is at least 5 nice houses for sale and I bet they will still be sitting there next summer and into winter again. If interest rates go up, they will become crack houses before they sell. One just got finished being built, the siding does not match and they want 279,000 for it. The whole time those people were building it, it had a for sale sign in front of it. Good luck.

One of the houses for sale back there, that was actually close in price to what we could afford, was taken off the market because the owner could not sell it. It was a split-level and the wife was not interested in it. I thought about putting a low-ball offer on it, but I bet the person selling probably was tired of low-ball offers and decided to stay in it.

Another one back there is an L shaped ranch that is for sale. Nobody has lived in it for at least a year. I do not know how a person can afford to make a house payment on a house and turn down reasonable offers. It went from "for sale by owner" to being listed by a real estate agency. I would put in a lowball offer on that property, but 450 a month rent in a nice apartment is hard to give up.

There is a certain amount of flexibility with living in an apartment. No lawns to mow, money left over every month to play with or save and if a new job comes up, I can move without some albatross of a house hanging around my neck.

We just lost a bunch of manufacturing jobs in our state and that trend has been going on for over two years now. I would expect that even if interest rates do go up a bit, all these people trying to make a million dollars off their 175,000 dollar homes are going to have to wake up and smell the stagnant home selling coffee and list them houses at real prices. Not get rich quick prices.

 

[Salty Dog]

If the light switch is part of a two or three switch wall plate, it may very well be wired for separate light and fan. In the homes I build for a major production homebuilder (yeah, yeah, cracker box rubber stamper, whatever) we wire both to the light so the homeowner can see the switches work and know that they will work should they choose to install a fan.

If the switch is a loner it could be for an attic light. If you have a scuttle (square cut into the ceiling so they can blow in the insulation) it requires a light for inspection purposes. Even if it's not a walk-in attic. Dead walls often require multiple scuttles to get ceiling coverage where needed.

GFCIs require their own circuit to the breaker so they will string as many in series as possible before they loop it back in order to save wiring $, regardless if it makes sense or not. In our homes, we have the kitchen plugs reset only by a kitchen master, bathrooms reset in the master bath, and the front/back porch reset in the garage. Costs a little more, but it makes sense.

While DHI is the competition and I relish their bad press here, claiming the whole company is f-d up based on one person's experience would be like basing my assessment of an airline on one flight or crew.

My company bonuses builders based in large part on customer satisfaction surveys and it's probably not the only one.

Just trying to throw a little truth out there...

 

[katanabob]

Many years ago, my dad was bound and determined to hang this big mirror on a particular wall of our house. Unfortunately, every nail driven into the wall seemed to be repelled by the stud. They would go through the drywall, then 'magically' change direction. Nothing a drill can't solve, right? Mere moments (and a small pile of metal shavings) later, there is water coming out of the hole and the drywall is wet. Nothing a little duct tape can't fix, right? He breaks about a two-foot diameter hole in the wall (so he can get to the pipe) and begins the taping ritual.

The best part? The mirror was able to cover the hole perfectly, and noone believed my story until the family moved a decade later.