HouseMaster Home Inspections

We had Don Melton of Housemaster Wi do an inspection of our first home purchase. Everything was "thumbs up" . We move in and I find the first thing he missed was the kitchen sink needed new plumbing as the pipes were leaking. The toilet in the basement was leaking from the base, cause yet unknown. The floor had a carpet that was not glued so a simple look see would have been no problem. Many electrical outlets were so worn out, didn't hold contact and cords fell out. Now here is where it gets costly. The foundation on one side has more than 3/4 displacement. The outfall into the crock is pitched up instead of down. Somewhere that pipe is broke and water flows from under it at a slow flow. The sump pump shoots out sparks when it is flipped on. The crock is layered with sediment. The crock was dry so it should not have been hard for him to see it. Upon notify him he returned to inspect the house himself rather than his employee. He stated to me at the time "how could he have missed this". A week later I got a his findings in a letter riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, much like his home inspections, riddled with errors. He accepted no responsibility and stated it was normal movement. In emailing him, I got flippant remarks. I told him I was having an engineer look at it. His answer was,"Good idea as we are only home inspectors". Apparently he does not even qualify as that. I filed a complaint with Wisconsin Consumer Trade which sent me his answer, a copy of their contract disavowing anything and everything if we did not jump through an endless array of "hoops". And if we did not jump through that hoop before the the next hoop, wellll, it supposedly nullifies the whole inspection and we have no recourse. Except of course to pay 20 G's to fix what he should have caught. We found out about the water infiltration when it rained a few weeks later. This problem was brought to my attention as soon as I had a contractor there to do some other work. First thing he said when he saw the wall was "you have foundation movement". My friend was the realtor at Century 21 And I asked if she wood send out an email to other realtors to avoid this PINHEAD. She stated that they often recommended him but wont anymore. Thanks HousMaster and Don Melton!! Great job! The guy could care less.

In May 2012 an inspector from Donald Melton HouseMaster Home inspection company came out to do a home inspection. The inspector never tried to turn on the outside hose bibs. 3 of the 4 were broken. The inspector did not bring a small ladder so he could do a proper inspection of areas of the house, consequently areas of the house were not inspected. The inspector never told me the two patio doors were rotten, even though a basic, cursory inspection would have shown them severely rotted The inspector noted in his report that the roof was damaged over one of the units, but never went on the roof to do a close inspection. Had he done so he would have notice that the roof was installed improperly, and the plywood was buckled and weathered. The inspector never inspected the attic under the damaged roof. Had he done so he would have found disconnected duct work, water damage, and a large portion of attic that did not have any insulation. (attic was recently re -inspected) I brought this to the attention of Mr. Melton and requested some of these items be submitted as an insurance claim to his 90 day guarantee "Error and Omission" insurance policy. In response, Mr Melton blamed me, the current renters, and the Century 21 realtor for his incompetent inspection. His 90 day guarantee disappeared and he was arrogant and abusive not only to me but to my realtor. Because of his actions Century 21 will no longer refer clients to him. Mr. Melton's HouseMaster's Inspection service has cost me thousands of dollars in unexpected repairs, and days of frustration dealing with an incompetent and unprofessional business owner. I highly recommend you do not use this company. There are a lot of qualified, professional, and honest home inspection companies out there. Mr Melton is not one of them.