The House

 I have been trying to get this story out for now coming on 2 years and I've run out of time. I need to share it with you all in hope of finding some help.

 Our house story begins June of 2021, after a visit from our friend Dennis, who had come from Ohio to go to the beach for his birthday with us. It was clear to us after our weekend away that he was starting to need help. He was forgetting things and getting confused very easily. He had been diagnosed with dementia and it was setting in. We decided to move in together and we would become his caretakers. We found a house in northeast Baltimore after a few weeks of searching, It was perfect. It's a huge house with lots of property. We called our realtor and let him know we wanted to look at it. While waiting we had seen another house we wanted to look at. We called the realtor for that property. He steered us away from that house because it needed lots of work. He asked if there was another house we were interested in. I told him yes, but we had a realtor that we were waiting to hear back from. He was able to get us an appointment right away for the next day. So, he became our new realtor. 

 He was coming from Inspectology, the inspection company that he recommended, and we used for the home inspection. We did a walk through with glitter in our eyes. We had already fallen in love with the house before seeing it in person. Our biggest concern was the supports in the basement and he said the inspection will let us know if they are OK. The inspection went well. Inspectology told us that those supports were temporary(1950s?) and should be replaced. We found that it would be about $1000 a piece for the 3 supports. The other thing I noticed in the walk through was the wooden post at the bottom of the stairs in the basement did not touch the ceiling and wobbled. After moving in I put shims in it, to secure it to the ceiling. What I later realized is that did not touch the ceiling because the floor of the basement had dropped. That is why the support poles have been put in. When you are standing against the north wall, you are on the high point as you walk towards support 1, you go lower. Support 1 is in front of the chimney and next to the boiler. I assumed that this slant of the floor was done in case water came in. There is a drain on the other side of the room where the water flows when it comes in. When I said this to inspector 1 he told me that basements are not built that way and that it should be level. I felt dumb because of course that makes sense or you would have a crooked house, like us. Why didn't Inspectology note this? The previous owner told me that sometimes there is a little water in the basement when it rains. We later learned that there are small rivers that run through creating a lake around pole 1 that is at the lowest point and center of the house. The base of pole 1 is eroding because of the years of water and that was not noted in the inspection. Support 3 is “fine” and support 2 we will talk about later.

 All the way to the other side of the basement is a workroom. The legs on the bench in there are rotten from the water that comes in there at the northeast corner and sits in the middle of the room. This is not something that just started when we moved in and she said, “a little water comes in.”

 There are several areas of the basement floor that sound hollow. All three inspectors I hired after Inspectology and others(family, friends, neighbors and new acquaintances) that I have spoken to says the ground has probably washed out under us. Inspector 3 said I should drill holes throughout the basement floor to see how much land has washed away. We are just in the basement and not even done here and I feel Inspectology has already failed us.

 Back in the workroom, there is a corner in the southeast side of the room that is under the front door. It too has been reinforced but with a permanent wooden post. Inspectology noted it but noted they didn't know why it was there. After moving-in I looked closer at it and I think it looks like the original floor support was cut too short and does not reach the corner. Inspecter 1 said that there should be connecting beams all around the room as well. In that corner is a paint can. Inspectology photographed and noted the can had a snakeskin on it. What they did not mention is that that can is holding the corner of the floor up under the front door. While at the house before the sale, I went to open the front door and the previous owner told me that it sticks because of the slant of the room being an old porch. I believe that, but I'll post photos on our Instagram that proves that not to be, and it's the can. Now they said that post was 2 inches short, I don't know where they got that. Later we learn the house is sinking 2.7 inches to that point.

 Going up to the first floor, next to the wooden post at the bottom of the stairs that I shimmed is temporary support 2. What Inspectology didn't mention about this support is the top of it is giving out. It looks like it is about to go between boards into the wall, inspector 3 agreed with me. Support 2 is the one supporting the wall to the stairs which is the load bearing wall at the center of the house. 

 Now in the dining room directly above support 1 and 3. This room leans towards support 2(the basement stairs). The basement door on that wall often slams at you because of the tilt. I can’t tell you how many times we have smashed our fingers in the door. When our kittens were babies, we were so scared they were going to be hurt by that door because of their curiosity of the basement. The two door frames on the wall above support 2 bow towards the center of the wall. Our furniture is all off kilter in most rooms of the house but here you can see how the table is unlevel. Depending on which side of the table you are on gives you a high or low perspective of the room. The China cabinets lean and rattle. Dennis was known for his Thanksgiving parties with 11 to 15 people. When getting this house, we were excited to continue that tradition and have other parties. Our first two Thanksgivings in the house we had people over but our third we kept it to just us because we cannot have that many people in that dining room with the fear of too much weight in that room. We don’t even use the room as much as we want because of the slant. It kind of makes me crazy. I feel the incline as I walk across the room. The floor beams are separating and uneven. There is a huge difference in feeling this with or without your shoes on. I am one (like her son) not to wear shoes. I feel this incline and decline every time I go through this room. She had a rug and nothing else in this room at the time of the sale. The rug covered most floor beams and giving a center focus to the room.

 The stairs going to the second floor are creaky. The previous owner covered them with carpet. She said she had fostered children, and one didn't like the squeak. We have not removed it yet but can assume that we will find sunken stairs like the attic stairs.  

 The first room on the second floor at the top of the stairs to the right is the guest room. This room was Dennis's temporary bedroom when we first moved in before his room was refinished. We had to shim the dresser to stop the drawers from opening on him and the dresser from leaning. This room also tilts towards the stairs. The bottom right of the bed in that room has a few shims and paint stir sticks under it to level it out. We had this room painted and we gave it an overhaul in preparation for Dennis’s family to visit. The man we hired to paint the room had to fix some crumbling plaster. That is to be expected in a old home with plaster, but he spent most of his time in the closet, which is at the center point of the house sinking. So it would go to stand that the closet would be worse off with its sinking walls. Dennis's sister and brother-in-law. are in their late 60s/early 70s and said they had a problem getting in and out of the bed because of the room. After their visit, we have only used the room for storge. Our intent was to use it for sewing but can not deal with the room tilt.

  Across the hall is what was going to be our art/craft workroom/office but is actually a storage room for our art supplies and the litter boxes. We don't do any work in there because the room is so off balance that we cannot spend more than a few minutes cleaning the litter boxes or finding what we need to do our project elsewhere. We put a desk by the window to look out over the back yard. However, we cannot sit at the desk even with the small wooden blocks I put under the desk legs to level it, the chair doesn’t have blocks so you sit tilting back. It is very unnerving. After being here a few months, I noticed the corners looked like the paper on the wall was sliding and not something that could have just happened. This would take years. Inspector 1 removed the paper and plaster to see the damage further and agreed the room is sinking. The room is above the dining room. Looking around the room I noticed the ceiling is cracking and there are more cracks on the walls and doorframe. The room literally looks like it is sinking into one corner which is directly above support 1.

 Next to that room is Dennis's bathroom. That room is also slanted. The whole room leans towards the door. This slant gives Dennis problems because as he is 80 and things are getting harder for him. He has to grab onto the sink and pull himself off of the toilet and use his hand on the wall to support him while standing because of the angle the room is on. There was a small corner shower that we had replaced immediately upon moving in. It was the first thing we did because it is Dennis’s bathroom and it needed to be complete and convenient for him. Well, it wasn’t so convenient. Bad company choice and maybe also the tilt of the room had a factor(They did not mention it) as to why it wouldn’t drain. In the end the $17k shower was put in twice and finally works but is slippery and dangerous for Dennis because they had to use a different type of basin to insure drainage. The walls in that bathroom are cracking. You can see where the previous owner plastered the crack when they were smaller. The door frame is sunken towards the same corner as the workroom. when standing in the hall looking at the two rooms the door frames look like you are in Wonka's house. They bow inward towards each other. You can see the angled gap at the top of the doors.

 Dennis's bedroom is next to the bathroom. In his room, you can also see where the paper on the wall has also moved in corners. The ceiling is uneven, and I attributed that to being a plaster ceiling that is 100 years old but it leaks during storms. Now I know it is age and years of water damage. The section above his windows has begun to fall apart. This section is a small overhang, it is that 2ft roof that leaks.

 The stairs going up to the attic have separated from the wall. The first step is sunken down. I step on this every time I go to the attic, and it is another reminder the house is sinking. Once in the attic standing facing the chimney (that has revealed a crack) you are above the workroom (support 1). Here a small sink has been put in and a shower on the other side. I use this sink and have to lean towards the mirror with my waist on the sink to keep my balance because the floor leans backwards towards support 1 causing that part of the attic to leans like all the other rooms under it. She had a bed there so in the walk through it was virtually unnoticeable. The ceiling has begun to separate on both sides of the peak. I have even noticed cracks along the lower walls. I first noticed small pieces of plaster on the floor and then looked up. Inspector 3 asked if I did the ceiling? I said no, the previous owner did. He replied he believes that things were hidden. Inspector 1 pulled part of the ceiling out at the chimney above the sink to see what he was calling any deviations. Water has dripped from there down the mirror and down the ceiling from two other sides of the chimney, which means it was already dripping under the drywall. I keep my NKOTB collection with some rare items almost impossible to repurchase in the attic. Because of this, my mother has bought me large plastic storage bins to transfer my collection into. So that is another concern besides a new roof and ceiling and wall damage do to water.  

 Okay, so now we're going to go back downstairs and into the kitchen. The kitchen and the main bedroom above it are add-ons to the house. Weirdly I looked at the ceiling in there when we were hanging out here before the sale and remember thinking how smooth it was. Well in the first year it started to crack alone the seams and the patch over the stove became very obvious, cracking all around it. There is only one person using the room above the kitchen, so it is not like is heavily trafficked. The first thing we noticed in the kitchen after moving in is that the sink is not level. We then realize that the whole room is sinking towards the island the previous owner put in. When you go into the crawl space under the kitchen where the island is there is no support for the added weight. There is a 8x6x3 board on its side on the top of a jack on the other side of the sinkhole in the center of the crawlspace(YES there is a sinkhole) that is the only support for the addition.

 Back in the house next to the kitchen is a bathroom. About 2 months after we were here I saw a bubble in the paint on the ceiling in the bathroom. I got up there and opened it to find it was dry and no current water. Then about a year and half later upstairs directly above is the main bedroom’s bathroom. One day in April of 2023 water was dripping from the ceiling in that room. We opened the door to the crawl space in that ceiling and found two bowls. Our assumption is those bowls were put there to catch water by the previous owner but why didn't Inspectology see it? When I later contacted the owner of Inspectology. He said “they did notice it but they were dry so they pushed them to the side.” It was August of course they were dry but also should have been a red flag. I mentioned it to the previous owner and that's when our friendship ended. She told me not to blame her for problems that she didn't have and she know nothing of those bowls. (“The lady doth protest too much” a Shakespeare line quoted to me by a friend’s mother when I was telling her and her husband of the house.) The following day she sent me a text saying "welcome to homeownership and I did do anything nefarious" among other stuff. I will post these texts but I told her not to contact me again. You see I have not mentioned any of the other things that I had discovered. So I thought it best to end communication after her reacting to the bowls. Now the ceiling in both bathrooms needs redone. We believe the water ran done the wall into the first floor bathroom. The roof obviously needs to be patched/redone it leaks in three spots that we know of, the attic, above the bathroom and in the living room in front of the door. 

 There is so much going on here we need help. In November of 2022 I contacted The Bar Association of Baltimore for an attorney recommendation. I had to get a couple recommendations. The attorneys didn't seem to be able to help or want to, finally one did. He said that I needed to get the house inspected by a structural engineer.

 I called a company named Licensed Structural Engineers Inc. This is inspector 1. He laser measured and basically told me that my house was sinking from back to front by 2.7 inches. The kitchen is sinking to the center. He said I need to get supports under it. He also talked about having pillars put in all around the house to level it. He said once the house was leveled, then could assess on how to straighten the interior and leveling it. I will post his report.

 I contacted the lawyer after getting the report. He then told me I needed to contact an expert witness inspector. I am starting to feel like this is not going anywhere and just bogged with life. I lackadaisically looked here and there for a few months and finally found an Expert Witness Inspector. Unfortunately; I forgot about our April appointment. That Monday and the weekend before was a really rough weekend for me. When inspector 2 arrived, I was surprised and apologized for forgetting. We did a walk through starting in the basement and he pointed out that the sheet of drywall above the support 1&3 was probably asbestos. Turns out he was right. I had it tested on 5/4/23 by Kapak Inc. Now one of my concerns goes back to the beginning when I cleaned the basement and all of that dust and debris that was everywhere. I probably breathed in asbestos. We continued through the house. He's asking me questions that I don't have answers for such as what is my ultimate result? Do I have the money? Who am I going to sue? How am I going to do this? I was just trying to get everything out as fast and efficiently as I could because he was over talking me and I was getting frustrated trying to remain calm and respectful.

 As we talked, he told me he was not going to charge me for the hour he was there and that this was going to be a very expensive endeavor. He gave me example figures from past clients of his that were million dollar estates. I told him I didn't have the money but would find it cause something needs to happen. He said he didn't want to hear that. He said I should contact Inspectology and their insurance company. If I get nowhere, then I should go to the news. "Because this house would look crazy on TV." Well as I said, I was becoming agitated because of everything going on inside of me. We had made it back downstairs and I asked him to let himself out because I was going to have a breakdown, which I did. I went into another room and all out bawled as he left the house. I sent him an email the following day apologizing. I never heard back. I reached out to him to do the inspection and never heard back. While he was here, he told me that I needed to not show emotions if this went to court. He said because once you get emotional. People lose interest. Well; that's clear, cause he won't return my messages.

 I had been unable to contact Inspectology because it the time I did not know their name. I thought they were Brickkickers because that is what is on the original inspection. But after many phone calls and searching I went back to my bill and saw is said Inspectology. I called and left a message for Jordan the owner to get back to me. I don’t know maybe the next day Jordan calls. Again can’t recall the conversation but I am sure it went well and I told him what is going on. Then we emailed. I will post them but he basically tried to say, well what about? And I would say No because. Then he stopped replying. I figured he was just expecting to get a call from my lawyer but after talking to my realtor maybe it was because I mentioned his name. 

 After speaking with Jordan I contacted my realtor. He said to contact Inspectology. I told him I did and Jordan will not answer my call or emails. He said he couldn’t help because he had a bad falling out with them and does not speak to them. He then told me that the equity in my home had grown and maybe I should take that out and fix it. I told him I didn't pay $325k for a fixer upper(If that where the case I would have gotten the one I contacted him about to begin with). He said he had an inspector that he knows and trusts and would have him come over. 

 Inspector 3 comes over and we start outback. He is fixated on this area by the cellar doors for over 20 minutes he talked about how water gets trapped in the corner then seeps into the stairs. I kept trying to get him to move on because I know that that is a dry corner and the water is on the other side coming through the cracks in the sidewalk. We were there so long The realtor showed up and he went over his hypothesis again with him. Weeks later we had a huge storm with thunder, lightning, wind and downpours of rain. I videoed that corner dry and he said “I can see the area I was concerned with at the basement hatch way is not impacted by this storm. The area as presently configured forms a "sump condition" and is potentially susceptible to stormwater run-on, which may be impacted by larger storms. It can also be impacted from snow and ice build-up”. See he still wants that to be a wet corner that never gets rain or snow only leaves and just received a short video of the biggest storm we have had in this house. Shortly after that we sealed the cracks in the sidewalk there at the cellar doors and water no longer comes in at that corner. We went inside. He did a walk around visual inspection. As we walked and talked. I told him things the other inspectors said. Such as inspector 2 said, the house might be a balloon style. I did see that used in his report. After the inspection I got a bill for which I did not expect since the realtor said that he had somebody he would be bringing over. So, since I am going to be paying him, I asked for a report. He quoted me $400-$500 and charged me $600+$250 for the inspection with a total of $850. when I received the report and the bill, the wording in the report said things that were happening after we moved in. So, I asked him if he could change that because these are not things that happened after. They are things that I noticed pretty much immediately while we moved in. I had not paid him yet because of the wording and I wanted to use a credit card, but he didn’t take them. It took me a month to figure it out and, in the meantime, after asking several times about the wording it seemed he was more concerned about getting paid than providing me with an accurate report. So, I paid him with PayPal and moved on. At this point I had only read page one.

 This is so overwhelming and with the combination of life I had to go on antidepressants, but they were not the right ones. I became lethargic and uninterested to motivate myself to do anything I didn’t need to. Months go by I contacted my realtor explained at this point I don't know what to do. I have nowhere to go because now his inspector wants me to put 2 trenches in my backyard and do all of these other things. (I could not get through his report. I got confused by his educated grammar. It’s confusing) There is hundreds and thousands of dollars of work to be done in this house that I can't do or want to do. I told him that I was going to go public, and he told me that defamation of character is a real thing and that I should leave his name and his company's name out of this. Not only have I been swindled into buying a sinking house. I have now been threatened by my realtor with defamation of character if I use his name.

 Now completely alone in this situation. I can't even contact the realtor who I had thought really cared about us with the way he handled the sale of this house and helping us get Dennis's house in Ohio sold(which he said he monetarily benefited from). It really seemed like we had found the right person and the right house. We were like best friends with the owner. We even gave her a key to the house after the 2-week grace period we gave her and said you are welcome back any time. Now I sit and wonder how it is even possible that she and her son spent 16 years in this house and didn't know these things were happening; impossible.

 I was given an attorney referral from a friend's father (who is a retired attorney) his referral asked me for a damage estimate total. I was unable to give that to him. The first attorney who I have been speaking of and working with also asked for it. With the amount of damage in this house, who do I call? When I asked him how much he would charge to take the case, he said that it would be a lot. I then said the first lawyer said $3,000. He said he doesn't know how he could possibly do it that cheap, a friend of mine, is also a retired lawyer, said the same thing. My mother now retired, has seen our battle and offer to use her 401k because she doesn't want us to lose our chance at making this right. I do not want this, but I am so appreciative of her offer. 

 Understand how hard this has been for me to write. It is a personal story and one I fear backlash from. I have already been threatened by my realtor. I can only imagine what the previous owner is going to say and do. Because of our initial connection with the previous owner, we felt there's no way she did us wrong or anything "Nefarious". So when the lawyer asked who we are going to sue, the inspection company, the seller or both? I said it couldn't be both, but now I see there's no way she didn't know. To be honest (as I have been), every single person I have told our story to have said the same thing. 

 All of the hopes and dreams we had for our future in this house have been put on hold. We have not even moved all of our things for our last home. We still have stuff in the attic, one room and the garage there. We just don't want to bring anything else into this house because we are unsure of it. There is even a hot tub at our old house that we were to bring but now it sits there unused because we don't want to put the weight on the foundation outside of this house. We cannot have exercise equipment in this house because of the impact on the floor. We can't run, play or jump. The idea of parties is gone. We don't want that much weight, movement or people drinking while walking on these floors. We walk soft footed because of the vibrations and fear of too much heavy movement. When you are sitting and somebody walks through the room, the entire floor and the furniture you are sitting on shakes. We have put a halt on what we do to the property because putting money into the property and the house seems pointless when it may fall down on us. We are an urban farm that cannot expand and is just maintained.

 There's so much more to say and even some new discoveries that just can't get it all in do to my lack of time left because of my perfectionist OCD ADHD idiosyncrasies, also the another reason it has taken me so long. This is why we are starting an Instagram OurBadApple follow us there to see pictures and get more to our house story. Thank you for taking the time to read this and we hope you will stay with us as we figure this out.