Important Lessons from Pregnant Women: Beyond the Basic Home Inspection

While many homebuyers are concerned about details like commute-time or square footage when considering where to live, my pregnant clients have other priorities.

Pregnant women have a heightened sense of danger and are fast to find potential health hazards (something their non-pregnant friends might refer to as "paranoia" or "anxiety").  But I've found the wisdom of these highly sensitive people to be extremely helpful for the rest of us that are thinking about buying a home—especially an older home.

Based on the concerns of the anxious pregnant brain, I have a simple suggestion for every buyer: go beyond the basic home inspection and find out if there are any invisible dangers in your future home. Some tests can be done on your own through inexpensive kits, while others require professionals.

Either way, knowledge is power and while the color of the house is important, whether or not it contains lead (that will be chipping off into your yard or onto your floors and eaten by your dog and kids) is even more important.

Perhaps you will find out that there are too many dangers and while disappointing, you'll be lucky you found that out before you signed on the dotted line and had nowhere to turn buy your own wallet to fix the problems.

On the other hand, maybe there will be no problem or, perhaps, a problem that you think is worth fixing. In this case I can guarantee you that knowing the facts will result in many more peaceful nights of sleep in your new house.

Inspections

The average home inspection, being just an objective visual examination of the house, does not address most of the "invisible" health hazards. Many of the real dangers of a home are hiding inside the walls, under the roof, or being blown invisibly into the air through the vents.

So what do pregnant women think of first?

Lead.

Lead paint and lead pipes.

This is a huge problem for most of the houses in our area that were built before 1978. I will write a separate blog post on identifying and remediating lead. For now I want to point out that it is something that will not be included on a typical house inspection but can be detected very simply and cheaply by purchasing a test from Lowe's or Home Depot for about $20. It may be the best $20 you ever spent. On the other hand, if you buy a house then discover you have to remove, or conceal, lead paint or redo plumbing you will be parting with thousands of dollars.

The second concern I hear about is mold.

Mold is everywhere and we are constantly breathing in spores. Some of us are more sensitive to others (i.e. allergic) but all of us can suffer serious health problems if we are exposed to high levels of common molds. More concerning, however, are the uncommon molds like stachybotrys chartarum (usually referred to as "black mold"). Even just a few spores of this mold in your house are dangerous and it needs to be cleaned professionally. Unlike testing for lead, mold requires hiring professionals who will swab different suspect areas of the house, especially attics and basements, and will also use tools to measure spore counts in the air.

Pregnant women don't stop there. Their concerns are almost endless, but a combination of specific tests or a comprehensive "environmental" inspection, in addition to the regular house inspection, can give some piece of mind.

In addition to lead and mold, I suggest finding out whether your dream home has dangerous levels of radon, asbestos, formaldehyde, or carbon monoxide. It is also important to check water quality, which can also be done for about $20 with a simple home text.

And lastly, pregnant women are rightly concerned about diseases carried by unwelcome houseguests like mice. While not very common, many mice and other vermin can carry diseases—at least six of which are potentially deadly. For instance, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome is a deadly disease that humans can get if they breathe the air near rodent urine, droppings, or saliva. According to the CDC, "Rodent control in and around the home remains the primary strategy for preventing hantavirus infection."

A licensed pest inspector is your best bet to tackle this problem and will also look for evidence of wood-boring insects like termites and flying beetles as well as dry rot and other fungal conditions.

If you have any other questions, or want to share your story, please reply to this post or contact me via my website at www.americasells.com.