Raj came to us highly recommended by our real estate agent (who is actually Penny B. below's business partner). During the inspection process, she was really wonderful and I couldn't ask for more. She really teaches you about your house while she does the inspection, and sends a very complete and thorough email summary of everything she found. She told us about many small maintenance and repair issues on our 1911 home that we should take care of, and was very honest about rating them as things we should do now, soon, when we get around to it, or just leave until something breaks. She also gave her (very valuable) 2 cents on some major issues we already knew about. I was very pleased with her work and we decided to go through with our purchase largely because of her inspection.
Unfortunately, soon after we bought the house we ran into a huge problem she hadn't identified in the inspection. We knew we were going to have major electrical work to do, and when the electricians were here they cut into a basement wall to find the insulation completely saturated. The basement had previously had serious water issues, but the previous owners had put in a french drain system and we thought we were in the clear. Not so; the water was getting into this wall through a leaking foundation and creating an ideal environment for black mold to grow. Awesome. Now, we know that inspectors can't actually see inside the walls - but we called Raj at that time to see if she had any advice on how to proceed. We just didn't know what type of contractor to call for this kind of repair. Raj very generously agreed to come out to our house and used a moisture meter to quickly discover the extent of the problem and recommended a few contractors we could call. Wait wait wait, what? Did I say she in about 30 seconds used a little machine to discover that one of our walls was completely full of water? She did indeed. Why she did not do this while we were paying for her to inspect our house I will never understand. So, the upshot: we are now close to the end of an unexpected $10k, 2 month foundation resealing project that involved , among other things, a backhoe in our yard, a brand new basement kitchen, and a great deal of stress we were not expecting while moving into a new house with a four month old infant. Knowledgeable friends have since told us that they don't know how she could have missed this. She told us that she believed that the visibly crumbling cement block foundation that was visible in the backyard was a facade; we now know that was the actual foundation. I really, really, really want to love Raj because we really learned a lot from her while she was here and she was exceedingly professional. Unfortunately, because of our experience I wouldn't recommend using her for your inspection. read more