Charles and his crew are the most professional, most experienced and most helpful. Where as many inspectors cheat, scimp and don't report everything there is to report, you can count on Charles Mayer to divulge everything that the home needs. Only 17 reviews and two stars is an absolute farce. They are excellent. Aaron Grant real estate consultant and property Manager -- Sexton group real estate and property management read more

Horrible horrible horrible! Should have check the Yelp reviews and saved us the cost and the frustration of dealing with this man and his company! Over priced and incompetent report sent without pictures to back up his report! Why would we spend 16k if we can't see pictures that show the problem he claims is there! Don't waste your money or time on them and heaven forbid you let them do repairs! Do read other reviews on them for further information! read more

Charles did an excellent pre-purchase inspection on my future home. We almost decided to skip the pest inspection, since our seller provided us with a "clean" report from Gressett. We thought we were golden, but my agent recommended hiring Charles to double check. Good thing! He provided evidence of foundation damage that I could see myself, entirely missed by the previous inspector. Thanks to Charles and our general contracor inspector, the sellers will be fixing the damage prior to selling us the house. He also identified several other problems the other guys missed. I would absolutely recommend him, and will most definitely use him again. read more

It's been about a year since we used Charles Mayer. We purchased our house in late Spring of 2009, and Mr. Mayer came out to do our pre-purchase pest inspection. He was a bit gruff, but thorough and seemed to know his business. He indicated that there were some dry rot issues at several of the corners, and provided us with a report and a quote. After we bought the house we had enough cash to do a couple of the repair areas, so we called him up. On the plus side, they were able to fit us in quite quickly. On the other hand, they did NOT actually schedule a day or time to come out. I happened to come home from dropping my son off at childcare and two guys in a truck were sitting outside the house. Annoying but I guess it worked out. The work took about a week longer than they stated, and I feel that at least part of this delay was because the workers tended to stretch their lunch hours, seemed to run out of necessary items, etc. on a regular basis. They also "forgot" to do the earthquake strapping on the repaired areas - luckily the Berkeley city inspector caught this, so they had to tear down the chicken wire and put the strapping in. There were also some minor issues with invoicing that were resolved satisfactorily. All of that said, they did do good work in the end - they used good materials, the workmanship was solid, and they re-stucco'd and primered the repair areas and did a nice job of both. Not 100% sure if I'd use them again, but I'd definitely ask them for a quote if I was going out to bid on pest repair work. read more

Wow! What a wonderful inspection! I can't thank Charles enough for his descriptions of how we can improve things. We are in the middle of a huge overhaul of our house, new foundation to new roof. We plan to sell once the reconstruction is complete. Charles pointed out weakness in the current structure -- it's all about water -- and gave us great advice on how to proceed in a way that will make this house water tight for the next occupants. They will be be very lucky because we got his advice while the stucco is still off the house. read more

Horrific company. If you want to save money and aggravation, do not use Charles Mayer. The previous owner used them for the pest inspection for our newly purchased house, so we decided to hire them to complete the work they recommended. I rue the day I didn't check Yelp before making that decision. Communications with them was a living nightmare. I never knew what day they would be working or how far long in the schedule they were. They couldn't get the billing straight and tried to overcharge us by $1200 although we walked through the accounting with them multiple times. In terms of the work, to this day, I am unsure if all the work was actually completed. It didn't appear that they even tried to limit the damage to our plants. The contract stated that they would replace the stucco to match the existing texture...not even close. And there is remnants of stucco all over the wood railing (I tried removing it, but it is permanent). Overall very sloppy and disappointing. Then, just when I thought it couldn't get worse, towards the end of the project, he produces another estimate in the amount of almost $9000 for an inspection he performed on our house 5 years earlier. Why wasn't this included in the disclosure statement when we purchased the house? (The previous owner confirmed that did not perform any of these recommendations.) This would have been important information to know while we were negotiating with the sellers. To me, this smells of fraud. read more

Charles did a pest inspection prior to close of escrow to verify the buyers report. He did a great job, finding things the other report failed to see. Judy also performed chemical treatment for drywood termites and did a great job as well. read more

i highly do not recommend this company. beware. they dont provide pictures, they gave a bogus ass amount and no pictures! on top of that they charged my clients extra for a detached garage. come on!! total rip off. read more

I'm not sure about these people. Our real estate agent contracted with them when I was selling my house. They originally estimated $9000 to do the repairs and pest work that needed to be done - about $5000 of that was for pest work and $4000 in repairs. I got my regular contractor (who is very good) to do the repair piece for less than $2000. When the actual bill came for the pest work, it was about half the original $5000 estimate. However, they tried to double bill me for the original inspection fee, which I had already paid. I know it can be hard to estimate exactly, but to be off by 100% it's hard to feel like they know what they are doing. read more

LONG & SHORT: Charles gave the home we bought a negligent inspection. Refused responsibility, lied about what he did and didn't know, his staff was rude, and we basically had to threaten small claims court to get a resolution, which still took weeks longer than it should have. I don't recommend using Charles for your inspection report. ------- THE LONG STORY: We bought a house in Oakland this year, and Charles Mayer had been the company/person who did the pest inspection on the home. After moving in, it turned out we needed to do some roof work, and so we budgeted for some amount of wood rot that would need fixing as the roof was replaced. Our roofer - who was a really awesome roofer, Marcus from Reliable Roofing - went above and beyond and showed us a huge amount of rot that was not only up there covered by roof boards, but that would've been easily visible from the ground by a trained inspector that Charles completely failed to call out. The cost for this ended up being DOUBLE what we had budgeted for wood replacement, which was insane because we had already budgeted quite a bit for that. As soon as we discovered this, we called Charles directly. His staff were very rude to us until they realized this was a potential litigation situation, at which point they became flustered and said he'd call us back. He phoned us about a day later, showing not a huge amount of interest in helping us solve the problem. We finally got him to come out and take a look at the situation, but the roofers had to be continuing their work since discovering this (the house had no roof!), and although we saved ALL the damaged wood and had photos very clearly showing that the damage would've been very visible from the ground, Charles was fairly adamant that since he didn't see the state of the house before the roofers started working, he basically didn't believe us that he should've found this. This, in spite of the fact that he showed us a Terminix report he had on him RIGHT THERE that day that indicated easily visible rot on that side of the house- that, the ONLY side of the house he had not indicated any rot existed. To put this into more perspective - Charles had not poked any of the eave boards coming off the roof to see if they were stable. There were no poke holes. Charles indicated he never poked eaves that high - but this was a 1 story house. If you had a 2-3 foot pole, they'd be easily accessible, and my understanding (based on discussed with realtors and roofers) is this is a standard in the industry. Not a single poke took place. And if he had poked them, several would have just crumbled immediately. Some boards were even visibly only attached by bondo; this was a major screw job. And sure, the previous owners are the ones who did the bondo and some other terrible things to the house - but we were relying on Charles Mayer to call these things out, because we are not licensed inspection professionals. Beyond that, Charles entirely lied to us when he said we should've called him to get him to fix the rot. He said he could fix the rotten wood without replacing the roof - something about removing the wood and sliding new wood in. The roofers we've discussed this with since have just laughed when they heard that; there is no such reliable method as he describes. You would have had to take off the entire roof to replace the boards, thereby seeing all the rot and how it was a much bigger job. But Charles attempted to downplay the situation by outright lying about how he would've fixed this rot for less money, clearly trying to suggest he didn't owe anything for his negligent inspection. To be fair - the rest of the inspection was accurate. The problems underneath the house were noted. The problems on the other sides of the house/roof were noted. But this one longest side of the house, that had 100% wood rot on the roof, was entirely disregarded in Charles' inspection. And then when confronted with this reality, he denied. Even when he had a Terminix inspection report that he had in his hand PRIOR to his inspection that clearly said there was rot on this side of the house. Ultimately, after weeks of insisting he did no wrong, he gave us some money to help pay for the additional costs - about 1/3 of the amount it cost us to fix the rot beyond what we had initially budgeted. I am glad he had the integrity to at least do this, but remain shocked at not only his negligent inspection report but also his refusal to accept accountability until we essentially threatened him with legal action. Completely ridiculous. Also, he should train his staff to not get argumentative with unhappy customers; not cute. All in all, this was at least resolved. But I don't recommend using this service for your inspection. read more

I used Charles J. Mayer for my pest inspection prior to purchasing my house back in November 2011. Charles was gruff, and curt, not outright rude, but certainly testier than I want when I'm the customer. He was thorough, & he took time to explain things. My house had some brown-rot in some of the siding. Charles quantified the issues, then he mentioned that his company does this type of repair work. He provided an estimate of over $45,000 to replace what actually amounted to 32 siding boards. This estimate seemed a bit high but I was new to this arena. This year I addressed all of the house's exterior deferred maintenance issues. Even with proper permits from The City of Oakland, and using the original, fairly pricey clapboards, & removing anything that was even remotely questionable, the siding portion of the repairs, again including the permits, labor, & materials, was about $40,000 less than Charles' estimate!! $40,000!! This work was done by a GC that builds 6000+ S/F homes in the Los Altos hills, certainly not an amateur. Charles' ridiculous estimate hung over my head for nearly four years. Once I was ready to correct all of the structure's exterior deferred maintenance woes, it became clear that Charles' estimate was disingenuous at best. My GC and his crew(s) ripped off the 3 layers of roof, added plywood, added paper, installed a 50 year architectural shingle, and fixed all the siding dry rot correctly, I also hired a top notch painting contractor to do a 3 color paint job for the entire exterior of the home, & added new fascia style gutters for $17K total for everything, and it's all top notch work. All of that work was still $28,000 less than Charles's estimate for just the siding repair!!! read more

I had an inspection scheduled today and the inspector did not show up on time nor did he call to let me know he was running late (He did not show up at all). I called the company and the office manager was very nice and found out the status of the inspector for me but the lack of courtesy and communication was a big turn off. read more

If you love your neighbor, stay away. I never worked with them my neighbor did. Well, where should i start ? 1st, enjoying my back uard wasn't possible without earing discusting burp. 2nd, they let trash in my property that they never cleaned up. 3rd, they blocked my driveway almost everyday. 4th, they are absolutly not nice. When i asked then to move their car from my driveway they'll just be rude and block it again the next day. The younger people working there are maybe a little nicer than the oldest, and their restroom doesn't stink that's a plus, but they don't need to buckle their pants in the street nobody want to see that. read more

They repaired termite damage and dry rot in our laundry room and exterior. They did an admirable job, BUT failed to use TREX for the exterior steps. This was specified in the contract. The office gave me a very hard time and finally agreed to replace the stairs with Trex. So far they have not come back to do this and it has been 2 weeks. The comment that sticks in my mind is that "the stairs would only need to be resealed every two years" ...and THAT was why we specified Trex instead of redwood. I would even go along with pressure treated wood, but they used redwood. I would think that given the written contract they would have followed it. I would hate to go to court to get them to fix the stairs, but will if necessary. read more

My real estate agent hired this company to do my pest inspection. I thought my real estate agent in this business a long time, she will not refer company have bad reputation. I was wrong. If I have read the Yelp review, I will not hire them. They send Judy Goodner (I would rather name her Judy Goofer) to do the inspection. I was not at the house when she do the inspection, my second mistake. I live in a 2 story house, with concrete stair leading from the side walk to the front door in the 2nd level. Half of the space under the stair is for utilities meter, and the other half is for closet space. To make the long story short, I shut off the main water valve to avoid busted water line in a vacant house. Judy did not check the water before she use the toilet, leaving a toilet full of poo in the toilet and she did not tell anybody. When I got the report, she mention there are a few things she can not check, because there is no water. I don't understand what is a termite inspection have to do with water supply. Judy also wanted to cut a permanent opening in one of the wall under the staircase (this cost $100) and a return inspection for $175. I called Judy and explained to her the other side of the wall is closet space, she just said is not there, but she can not make it clear where she want to make a permanent opening. Both me and my agent talked to her over the phone, but still not very clear what she wanted to do. My agent told me the pest inspection report is not complete like this and suggested to have Judy come again. So I call her to come again, this time I waited at the house to meet her and show her the other side of the wall is closet space. All she said it is fine now. So I pay her $175 to come to my house for nothing. This is her mistake, she did not realized the other side of the wall is closet space. She should not charge me $175 for nothing. Conclusion is this company is trying to nickle and dime there customers. Never hire this company to do anything. If your real estate agent recommend this company to you, fire your real estate agent too! read more

We were buying a home which came with a very clean pest report from John MacDonald. After finding several pest issues not on the MacDonald report, our home inspectors recommended we get our own pest report. Charles Mayer came out and inspected the home and found dry wood termites, subterranean termites, and wood boring beetles. (Once he pointed them out, they seemed really obvious to me.) His estimates did seem high, and we landed up having the repair work done elsewhere, but he did an exemplary job with the inspection and saved us a lot. read more

Our realtor recommended Charles Mayer who provided a home inspection. After the first rain of the season, we had a lot of termites fly-off the property so we called to have it (vs the house) checked. The other company offered a complimentary check of the house and found an area that had some new activity. We called Charles Mayer who personally came out, inspected the house and agreed. He agreed to do the work and treat the entire house at no charge. I think their response was fair. Their people were professional and did the work quickly. Based on their follow up and not hiding from the issue, I would use them again. read more

I used Charles Mayer pest control over and over for inspections for my clients and for my own house. I was always very satisfied with his contributions to my sales - I'm a Realtor, and to protection of my home. We, I and the people for whom he did inspections found him altogether reliable and capable. One good one was my request that his worker look at the little holes in some wood on the porch. He said it's really nothing - some bees had taken up residence and would likely soon be leaving; seasonal creatures. That was a few years ago. They haven't been back and no structural damage has been done. This action was free. read more

Got an estimate of 17k from Charles J. Mayer company for some termite damage. We ended up hiring someone else to repair the work with an UPGRADE for under 5k! So lucky that we got additional bids. read more

Charles J. Mayer's company was hired to perform an Inspection. We had previously had 2 reports done already by other companies. Charles J Mayer's report seemed thorough, yet the part that floored me was the amount of their bid. It was $30,000 OVER, the previous quote. I would not recommend using them for this reason alone! read more

My experience with Charles and his company was great his experience in the field completely carries over to the work that he accomplishes . There is absolutely no one that I would trust more when it comes down to foundation repairs or termination of pests . He and his crew are very thorough and although you may be able to save a little money using friends or someone less experienced that's not really something I want to save money on. You absolutely get what you pay for . read more