PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

ian R: Welcome back to Inspector Toolbelt. Today we have a special guest with us we have Bob Madewell. How are you today, Bob?

Bob Madewell: 5’9 and full wonderful as always.

Ian R:  Perfect. I’m really looking forward to having Bob on the show because Bob was just telling me he used to be on the radio before his home inspection career. Right, Bob?

Bob Madewell: So yes, right after I got out of the Navy, I went to college for communications and at Lewis and Clark Community College, and part of their program is radio broadcasting. So I was on the radio for a couple of years there at the college station 89.9 College Radio’s Best.

Ian R: Awesome. So in addition to your illustrious career in radio, you’ve also been a home inspector for quite some time and you do real estate as well. Correct?

Bob Madewell: Correct. So I have been a home inspector for six years. And this last year, during the pandemic, I got my license to be a real estate agent. 

Ian R: Great. We had you on the show today for a very specific reason, though, Bob, because you have a cautionary tale for us. Before we get into that, really this whole podcast comes down to safety for home inspectors. I was recently reading actually in Working RE magazine that I contribute to. They had a great article, a write-up about home inspector safety. It’s really critical for us as home inspectors to be safe because the world is, anything can happen nowadays. For instance, the article talked about Michael Alderson. very sadly, he was killed at the home inspection. He was working his way around the exterior and he was shot from within the home. And it’s really sad, a home inspector of 20 years, just doing his job as a family all of sudden, isn’t there. There’s somebody out of your way too right Bob.

Bob Madewell: Correct. He wasn’t a home inspector. He was a real estate agent. In 2018 Eldon ‘twirp’ Williams was shot in front of a house that he had listed by a gentleman. The guy did get convicted and charged but yeah, he was just a real estate agent doing his job. I don’t know if he was there to check on the house or what he was doing. But this guy decided to walk up to Eldon and take his life. So yeah, it’s dangerous on both sides in the real estate world inspector and real estate agent.

Ian R: Yeah, we’re entering dangerous situations. When we go into people’s homes. It’s when people are most themselves. They have the least amount of inhibition. Anything can be happening there. We’re going to talk about it, later on, you know, dogs, people taking illicit drugs, alcohol abuse, all sorts of things that can be going on in there that we’re not aware of. There could be family disputes, there could be hostile tenants who were really put into some dangerous situations. In a couple of other horrific circumstances, Lindsay Buziak was a real estate agent who was killed. So is Sara Trost, it’s becoming commonplace to hear these stories, unfortunately,

Bob Madewell: in my six years as a home inspector, this wasn’t my first event. Very early in my career. I went into a house, I knew it was occupied. I thought the agent had let the owner know that I was there. He was actually in the shower. I knocked I announced myself, I went in, I started doing my inspection. He gets out of the shower. I didn’t hear him. He was a different part of the house. He didn’t hear me, and he finds me in his house and pulls a gun on me. Luckily, I was like, “Hey, home inspector”, and he didn’t shoot. But this wasn’t the first time that I’ve had something happen. And we can go into that later. But yeah, it is dangerous no matter what.

Ian R: I think most of us as home inspectors have had instances, where it’s kind of, shook us a little bit. But I also think as an industry, we can kind of get a little complacent and take chances. I know, for myself, I’ve done that before. I remember one time I was inspecting a house. And nobody was home and I start climbing the roof. A guy comes out with a gun. You know, he’s like, What are you doing here? He wasn’t even told about the inspection. I just thought I was okay. I was getting complacent. So we don’t want to be complacent, especially as this world kind of changes. Because, you know, 30 40 years ago, that didn’t really happen. In recent times, it’s kind of a little bit more commonplace. So we want to make sure that we’re safe in what we do, and we can go home to our families. So that really leads me to your cautionary tale, Bob, tell us what happened, how things came about, and what advice you can give us from what happened to you.

Bob Madewell: Absolutely. So this is actually a listing appointment. So the home inspector hat wasn’t on. I went to the house, to take pictures of it to list it. The owner of the house had moved out of state and mailed me the key. So I had the key to the house. I go into the house. I’m getting ready to take pictures of the house and I happened to notice that the electrical panel was completely missing. So they had ripped it out. The cautionary part of this is, if I would have taken the time to walk around the house, I would have seen that they broke in through a bedroom window, but I didn’t. As you said, complacent. I had been to the property once before and had seen it and it needed to be cleaned up after the tenants moved out. So I came back. And this happened. So I noticed that the electrical panel was missing, was going to go outside to call the cops. As I was walking outside, I walked past an open doorway, which led to a laundry room. And unknown to me, there were people inside of there. One of them grabbed me from behind as I was walking past the doorway, put his arms completely around me to try to wrestle me to the ground. He was a lot smaller than me, so he could not. I’m a bigger dude. So I couldn’t break his grip, though. So I started elbowing him till he let go, he let go. But he grabbed my head and he started smashing it against the wall, which gave me a concussion, I fell to the ground. He tried getting on top of me and what the cops think is that he was trying to pin me down. They think they were trying to rob me. So at that moment in time, every bit of adrenaline and rage kicked in, and I threw him off of me. I stood up, I turned around, and clocked him in the neck. I was aiming for his job, but I hit him in the neck. He runs off and I’m like, Yeah, you better run punk. Get on out of here. And I thought it was over with and as I’m yelling at him, and I’m watching him run out the back door and watch him run across the yard. I get hit in the back with a metal bar. So the other kid that was in and when I say kid, they were 20 something years old. The other kid grabbed a metal bar out of the closet and started swinging on me with that. So I turned around to see what was going on. I got blood and sweat in my eyes. I can’t really see him that well. I see that it’s a long object that he has I tried to get in close. And I swear the matrix jumped into the air like just a monkey springs up in the air and then swung and hit my knee. I don’t know exactly what happened, like I said blood and sweat in the eyes. He jumped back, swung on my knee, and hit it. I landed on the ground again, hands and knees. And he just started to wail on my back and the back of my head. I’m a man of God. So I prayed. I was like, God, this is gonna be it. You know, just go ahead and make it quick. I’m ready to come home to you. But I can’t handle this anymore, do something to intervene. And at that time, he stopped swinging at my back and he was swinging at my face. So I look up during that pause to see the bar coming up my face. I grabbed it. I got to hold it with both hands. I pulled and kind of slung him across the room. I jumped up but I said your next mother trucker, but I didn’t say Mother trucker. And I chased him as best I could. I was limping. He ran off. And I guess when I realized I was finally safe, I passed out because, from the time I dialed 911, to the time I actually talked to the cops, there’s about a half-hour pause. But they were already on their way because I’d already started dialing 911. They’ve heard the ruckus on the phone. They did not catch them. They got fingerprints off the metal bar for one of them and my description of the first one. But yeah, it was intense. And by the grace of God, I’m still here, I had a broken rib. I had a lot of bruising on my back, bruising so bad that they bruised my kidneys because I was peeing blood for a couple of weeks. A concussion but the worst part was my knee. So when they hit me, between hitting me and my knee and me landing on my knee, there were two tears on my meniscus and a couple of bone fragments. They had to do surgery there to repair the tears and to scoop out the debris as they called it. I am able to walk again. I’ve been walking, but I can’t do squats. I can’t really climb a ladder. There’s no way I’m going to be able to crawl in the crawlspace. So since the attack at the very end of July of last year, I haven’t been able to do a home inspection. At least not a full one. My guys, I have two guys that work for me. They’ve been doing the inspections.

Ian R: Wow. So that actually, I mean, it’s an incredible description of that entire event. But that whole event kind of changed your life from that point forward to an extent.

Bob Madewell: Absolutely! I do not go into any house unless I’ve walked around the whole property. Make sure that nothing’s going on. I try really hard not to go by myself if I can. My wife sometimes comes with me, or I have clients with me. I always now call my wife if I’m going to be by myself and have her on the phone. I do a lot of things differently. And being an inspector for six years, there have been times that I’ve gone into a house that there’s been a vagrant there like wintertime. A couple of years ago, I went into a house. I went through the house like I normally do. And I go into the attached garage, and there’s this guy. He’s like, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know this was your place” and he ran out the back door. It was no threat whatsoever. So it’s not the first time I ran into people in a house. It’s just the first time I ran into people in the house that were violent. And the cops found empty beer bottles, they found drug paraphernalia, they were tearing out the copper, the wiring the pipes, that electrical panel. So, I mean, it was just a squatting situation where they were just criminals in general.

Ian R: You know, it’s interesting after hearing about your account on actually one of the Facebook groups, I thought about many of the different experiences where I’ve done something similar, but it didn’t end up badly. And I guess that was what makes us complacent, like we pushed the envelope, push the envelope, hey, nothing bad happened. It’s that one time that something does, I can think of this one time, this giant vacant house, I go to inspect it, and the front door is broken open. And I could tell there were needles everywhere. And I’m like, okay, and I could see squatters, kind of like hiding in the background. So I just yell, and I’m like, “I’m just the home inspector, you guys go run out the back door, I’m gonna go sit in my jeep. And we won’t have a problem.” So I sat in my jeep, I could see them run out the back door. And then at least I waited till the agent was there. And then we went in and inspected it. Thinking back on it, that was the stupidest possible thing I could have done. That was just, I mean, it didn’t end too bad. So it gave me false confidence. Your story brings us back down to reality. So I like some of the points that you said you do things differently now.

Bob Madewell: Amen

Ian R: We don’t want to have an account like that. To do things differently. So you mentioned some things like making sure someone’s with you. Why is this so important, even if it is your wife, it’s not like maybe your wife is going to karate chop a guy into submission. But why is it important to have more than one person there?

Bob Madewell: So again, with the home inspection company, I’ve always had an apprentice with me, and I didn’t think anything of it as a realtor. So I’ve always had it in my head since that first guy that I found the homeless guy in the garage, like, it’s a good idea to have two people with you. But even in this day and age, I realized, like, if some young lady is there, you know, and she says this, that or the other and we don’t wear body cameras. it’s your word against her. So it’s always good to have a buddy. I mean, it’s always good to have a buddy, if you can. if you don’t have someone there, that’s fine. But one of the main reasons that I decided for the home inspection committee to have two people was a house I was in, it was an older, you know, 200-year-old house like the 1800s. I’m trying to get a picture of some knob and tube wiring in the attic. It’s got a floor, and I’m walking across it and my foot goes through the floor right through the ceiling. And I’m all the way up to the middle of my body, it did rack me. And I’m trying to get my leg out. I’m trying not to dig myself on all these like huge splinters. What had happened is a raccoon got in between the ceiling of the hallway down below, and the flooring that they put up in the attic, and then made a nest so it all just rotted out right there. And it took me every bit of an hour to get my leg out. And it was, you know, cut up to heck. And I was just lucky that I didn’t nick anything and bleed out. But if I would have had somebody there to help me, it would have been a lot easier. And so that’s why I started taking apprentices with me and making sure I had somebody there with me and never did an inspection alone. As a real estate agent, again, it goes back to complacency. I’m not doing anything I didn’t think was dangerous. I was just going to a house to take some pictures. So I didn’t even think about it. Until that happened. And now I’m like, nope, not again, I’m, again, I’m gonna have somebody either with me or I’m gonna have somebody on the phone. So somebody knows what’s going on.

Ian R: I like how you bring that out too. Because we can all have the luxury of having someone with us. Sometimes we’re just going to be alone. It’s not an ideal situation but it’s often where we’re at. Get somebody on the phone, that that’s a great thing to do a matter of fact, there’s a couple of inspectors in my area when we’re headed into a situation like, Hey, I’m alone in the house, I’m going in this crawlspace we’ll send a text message, hey, can you text me back in an hour, and if I don’t respond, Here’s my address that I’m stuck in. And it’s just a layer of security. Also, have more people with you too. Even if it is someone that maybe can’t help you quote-unquote, fight off the bad guy. Just a little bit of safety in numbers, someone’s gonna think twice when there are two people in a room versus one. It doesn’t matter who sometimes that other person is. It’s just somebody else there. I also, like the suggestion, somebody told me one time to be on the phone when you walk in the house. And I like that suggestion and often muddle it. They’re talking to somebody on the phone, if I attack him, the other person on the other end of the phone is gonna know this is not going to bode well for me, it at least makes them think twice. So that was a great cautionary tale. And I mean, you kind of worked on some points here to share with everybody, from our experiences and from the experiences of others. There are actually a couple of organizations out there that help real estate professionals to be safe. And these are taken from some of theirs and some of our experiences. And we’d like to share them with everybody. So maybe we could go ahead and do that. The first one is to trust your gut. If it doesn’t feel right, then don’t do it. Why do you think that’s so important, Bob?

Bob Madewell: So part of the tale that I should have listened to is my wife. My wife, I told her that I was going to this house. And she was like, you know, it’s Friday night. I just don’t feel good about that house. Because she’d been there with me the first time we visited it. She’s like, “you know, how about you wait till some other time to go there? You know, not Friday night, later.” I’m like, you know, I’m gonna go, I’m gonna take some pictures. I wish I would have listened to her instincts, it might not have happened. But yeah, trusting your gut. You just have instincts. You have that spidey sense. And mine didn’t kick off until I saw the electrical panel when I saw the electrical panel. That’s when my spidey sense went off because I had no other indicator. But yeah, I don’t know how to explain it. When you feel something’s wrong, it’s probably wrong. It’s that odd step on a roof. You know what I mean. As inspectors, we all know that one, we take that little tiny step on the roof. And we’re like, Oh, nope, not step in there and back off, and probably save ourselves from falling through a roof or falling off of a roof. So that makes sense right there. Pay attention to it, hone it, believe in it, because it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Ian R: Yeah, there’s a home inspector that I know. And I’m good friends with Jay, I remember one time he walked up to a house, this guy came out, and instantly as the seller came out he said he didn’t feel right. He’s like, something was off. I totally respect the guy. He actually stopped the inspection. He said this is not happening today. I think I need to come back. When things are worked out. Just then the seller went off on him. Went inside what we assumed to go get something and Jay just drove off. Come to find out there was a lot going on and if he had stayed, it would have been a dangerous situation. I remember him always saying that. Trust your gut, because your gut is typically your subconscious picking up on things.

Bob Madewell: Oh, absolutely.

Ian R: Like, why isn’t the situation right? What’s not right about this? If it doesn’t feel right, at least listen to it. Okay,

Bob Madewell: Probably isn’t right.

Ian R: Yeah, it probably isn’t right. Like something just feels off, step back and say what’s going on? I use that same principle in inspections. When I’m looking at something and somebody says something doesn’t feel right. I’m like, then call it out. If it doesn’t feel right, call it out. Same thing with being safe. If it doesn’t feel right, step back. Because something’s probably not right that we’re picking up on, you know, just kind of subconsciously. The second point was not to be overconfident. We already talked about that. What’s the danger of being overconfident?

Bob Madewell: Walking into a house with two guys inside of it? Thinking that you’re 10 feet tall and bulletproof? Be careful when you think you’re standing too firm because that’s when you’re gonna fall. You know you get complacent. It’s like I explained to one of my guys almost got electrocuted with a panel. You know, be careful taking that cover off. You know, you should be wearing your goggles, you should be trying to be as safe as possible. It’s not like we can put on a whole suit to protect ourselves. But you know, you have a screw that touches a wire somewhere and you can get electrocuted. He was unscrewing the panel. And as he was unscrewing it, the screw was a bit just a little bit. And it touched a wire inside of there and can spark everywhere. He was very lucky. But, you know, we get so complacent because we do the same things over and over and over again. We forget those little tiny safety things that they’re the difference between life and death.

Ian R: Yeah, exactly. There’s a lot of crossover between just being safe by electrical panels that we’re working that we’re opening and looking at, or being careful on a roof and being careful around people. And to be honest with you people sometimes are more dangerous than being an electric panel.

Bob Madewell: Six years of doing home inspections. I used to say that the worst enemy of the home was water, but I’ve learned over the six years that the worst enemy of the home is the homeowner, you know that deferred maintenance. So yeah, people are a liability, whether it comes to our job or whether it comes to the house.

Ian R: Yeah, it’s sad but true. And it goes right back down to overconfidence. We may think I know how to handle people. Or we may think, Hey, I’m a tough guy, you know, I have this stick I carry around like a baton. I know all sorts of jujitsu or I can handle anybody. Life changes a little bit differently when a naked crackhead jumps out of a closet trying to bite your face off. There’s a little bit of a surprise factor there. Bob is laughing at me now because that’s not a made-up story. It wasn’t a closet. Stuff has happened. There was a home inspector that I know that walked into a house one time and we were talking about this before we started recording, walked into a house and he messaged me and he said, Hey, I think someone’s in the house with me. And I’m like, then leave. It’s a vacant house. There should be nobody there. I can handle them. Don’t worry, I’ll be safe. I’ll record the whole thing. I messaged him, I’m like, so you’re gonna record yourself dying. Just get out of the house, wait, just call the police, somebody. He didn’t. He walked around the house. He’s a tough guy., like he’s formidable. But again, make a crackhead jump out of the ceiling, you’re going to be off your balance. That turns out there was somebody hiding in the house, and he found him. And it turned out okay. But it could have turned out more like your experience. It’s overconfidence.

Bob Madewell: That’s the thing. You know, a lot of people mentioned to me, you know, after this has happened, do you consider carrying and it doesn’t matter. When a guy comes up from behind and grabs you, you have no ability to make a rational decision. You’re in the moment like it’s already happened. Like, there’s no decision to be made, you’ve got a guy who’s trying to take you to the ground. And I was very fortunate the guy was smaller than me. As I said, I’m a bigger guy. I’m 5’9 but I’m also like 280 pounds. I’m a big dude. And I know how to handle myself. But it doesn’t matter when somebody grabs you from behind, there’s that element of surprise that you said somebody jumping out of a closet. It’s at that moment in time that life and death decisions have to be made. I am fortunate and blessed that I’m here to tell you the story. But it could have been a whole different way say I would have been carrying and he grabbed me and it fell out of my waistband or out of my holster or out of my hand even, it’s a lot easier to shoot me with my own gun than to take that metal bar and beat the crap out of me until I die. I don’t want anyone to ever be in that situation. And the reason I don’t mind talking about how I got my butt kicked over and over again is that I’m doing it now on your podcast, I’ve talked to a group of Realtors, I’ve talked to Maris I’ve talked to other MLS is if anyone takes anything away from this, and is a little bit more cautious because of it, and they go home safely to their family. That’s all that matters to me because it can change in a heartbeat. That element of surprise.

Ian R: And that’s a beautiful sentiment, you want to be able to go to work, do your job, and come home to your family. Nobody should have to make life and death decisions while you’re inspecting a house or while you’re just looking at it, in your case as a realtor. So that’s where overconfidence comes in. That’s what will put us in those situations in the first place where we have to make a life and death decision. Can we just step back and say, Okay, this isn’t happening right now. There are a couple of points here too, that apply directly to what you’re talking about. Watch for squatters, this is probably going to be coming up here soon. You know, the markets are kind of changing, at least in my area, there are a few more foreclosures than there used to be. I remember back in the Great Recession, there were tons of foreclosures. So there were a lot of squatters, if the market goes back to that, those are people that we have to watch out for because they’re desperate. Oftentimes, it’s the old homeowner or an old tenant, they have nothing to lose sometimes.

Bob Madewell: Again, if I would have just taken the time to walk around the house, I would have seen the broken window and I would have seen like the trash that was right around that window, they’d been going in and out of that window for a while. Inside of the house, at least the main part of the house, I didn’t see anything. But later on. I went back to the house after everything happened. And there were beer cans, and there was drug paraphernalia, and you know, the holes in the wall. So there are usually signs like, if you see a lot of trash around an entrance or around a window, I’d be more cautious there. They’re not people that are trying to be super, you know, sneaky about this in any way, shape, or form. I mean, a little bit, but not, they’re not the smartest and brightest of the bunch. Right? So look for those signs. Look for those little things. You know, maybe it might be just a curtain. That’s wrong, or a set of blinds. It’s messed up, you walk up to it, and the blinds are all cockeyed because they climbed into that window you know, look for those little things. Those little details will help save you and again I wish that I wasn’t telling you this from experience but I am

Ian R: Yeah, and I really feel for you because every time I hear your story it says several times now it just still strikes me because I’m like how many situations have I been in that was just like that. That didn’t end up like that goes back to overconfidence on my part anyway. I think something important too. I don’t know what time of day it was for you. But not inspecting at night is as important and I remember I think this was realtor.com also said this for their agents. Don’t show houses at night. Don’t meet people at night. And by night we mean after dark. I remember but one time I was inspecting the bad part of one of the cities that is close to me. And I’m doing it and it gets done probably an hour after dark. I’m like, Okay, I have a good hour and a half of sunlight before and then I’ll finish up the inside. That was not a great decision. I remember driving a little bit quicker out of there because there were a couple of guys waiting for me to come back because I could see the tools on my truck. I didn’t know what they were trying to do. I remember the agent was just like, oh, yeah, I’m gonna hang out here for a little while. Like, that’s not really. That’s not really what you need to do to want to come out with me. So not inspecting at night is important to me anyways, because especially too, what are you going to see at night, you know, you’re going to miss something on the inspection anyway, but it’s also not safe.

Bob Madewell: One of the things that we’ve been talking about a lot in the real estate world, and I’ve also said to the inspectors, you have a vehicle that has a target on it, you’re a business, so naturally, they’re gonna assume that you might have some money on you, or you might have something valuable on you. They don’t know the difference, you know, those tools to them. It’s just a $10-dollar outlet tester to them, they don’t know what you have in your car or in your truck. They don’t know what you have on your person, you could have just collected money from your last job. That’s what I think in my situation. They thought I had some money on me because, you know, my car has realtor Bob all over it. And so they think, oh, real estate agent, and I don’t even know if they saw my car, they might have seen a guy coming in the house. And I look like an easy target. Oh, he’s a, you know, a chubby guy, and we can take him and I turned out to be a little bit more than they can handle. Which Lucky for me, right. Anyway, we have targets for ourselves. Yes.

Ian R: And it’s true. And I like how you brought out, we may actually have something on us. I actually made it a policy not to collect cash for my clients at one point because we’d be standing out in the road. I mean, like, how much was the inspection? 750 Okay, and it’d be pulling out a wide and I’m looking around, I’m like, Yeah, either it looks like we’re dealing drugs.

Bob Madewell: And felt a little uncomfortable.

Ian R: I’m not good with this at this point. So we actually made a policy, we’re not taking cash, it’s a credit card or checks, that’s all we do. So consider not taking cash. That is a great policy. Yeah. Well, especially too sometimes I found investors would often pay us with cash and oftentimes, investment houses were, you know, you get a five family and that’s 

Bob Madewell: The worst one. Sometimes.

Ian R: Yeah, well, they’re going to be the ones that maybe have some like, a little rougher some tenants in there that maybe are watching, and they’re like, Oh, that guy has a lot of money. You know, at first, we started taking payment, right at the end of the inspection, we would take it like slightly before. And then after that, I’m like no cash at the end of the inspection. So that way, I’m driving away before anybody realizes that I have anything of value. So just these are some good tips, just so that if they do try to go after you give them less of a reason for nighttime and cash, those are two things we should probably avoid.

Bob Madewell: is pretty sad, because all I had in my wallet was 20 bucks, and I would have gladly given it to him, instead of getting my butt kicked. If they would have just said give me all your money. I’m like, hey, look, it’s only $20 You can have it go away. That’s all it was and they didn’t even get my wallet. But if that’s what they were going for. All this stuff happened to me over $20

Ian R: There was a young gentleman actually in this county next to mine, that he was killed over. It was like $40 that he had sitting on his countertop or in a safe or something like that. It’s really sad. They don’t know, they’re just going in. So we made it again, going back to overconfidence, I only have 20 bucks in my wallet or I’m not carrying anything. They don’t know that. All they know is its target. Actually, I have a tale about dogs. I’m not saying we should be afraid of dogs. But we’re basically the modern-day mailman to dogs. I love dogs. I have a dog. I grew up my mother owned a kennel. So I’m very familiar with dogs, but I have a friend who’s not afraid of them at all. And he scares the tar out of me. Because I’ve seen him approach dogs that should not be approached. And I’m pretty sure it’s for lack of a better term nip them in the bud. More than once in his lifetime. But I remember walking up to a house just because of my knowledge of dogs. I’m like, I have a rule like okay, I’ll sit in my vehicle. And then I kind of whistle out the window and call them and if none of them approach my vehicle, I give it five to 10 minutes, then I’ll go out and at least do the exterior. And I’ll watch for dog doors and things like that. I followed my rule. Okay, I think I’m all good. walked over to the hose bib to start a good flow test. All of a sudden four Dobermans come out first to come out and face me and start barking. So I pulled a screwdriver out of my tool pouch kind of like I was like, Oh, hey, this isn’t gonna save me. So I start inching towards my truck. And all of a sudden the third one comes out and jumps right in my face and starts barking and biting at me jumping right up in my face. So now I’m going a little bit faster. The fourth one comes out, charges me, gets me right on the ankle, and I had to drag him to the truck. Another dog is on my back scratching at my back, I had a thick coat on, fortunately. And long story short, I’m laying in this person’s driveway bleeding with a bunch of medics and I still can’t feel part of my left foot. So it was nine years ago. Again, it didn’t feel right but I did it anyway because I wanted to get ahead, you know, okay, I’ll start the good flow test, I’ll do the exterior, I should have just waited. The lady actually let the dogs out on me. So again, it really didn’t come back down to the dogs. It was actually the lady that had let the dogs out. I guess she had the seller’s remorse. (Why?) I don’t know. The dog warden said these dogs had a lot of history. And apparently, she was not happy about selling the house at that point. So I guess if he killed a home inspector, I guess to say I won’t go through I’m not sure

Bob Madewell: I haven’t had any bad experiences with dogs, the worst that we’ve had is a dog in a kennel that barked the entire inspection and would not stop. And I don’t know about you, but just having a dog incessantly barking at you the whole time you’re trying to work really drives you a little nuts. And so we put a policy in place where we send out not only to the listing agent, and the seller’s agent and to the client. If you have dogs, try not to have them on the property at the time of inspection. If you can, you know, just address it in some way, shape, or form, take them to the groomers that day, or somewhere, take them to a neighbor or something. Because like I said, We’ve never had a bad experience with them but it’s hard to work when you got, you to know, just bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark bark, I mean the entire inspection. That’s the worst we’ve had with dogs, so I feel bad for you brother.

Ian R: It is pretty mind-numbing when they’re barking. I think my biggest issue was the mauling and the bleeding and you know, almost dying part. 

Bob Madewell: That’s worse. Yeah, I feel bad for you, brother. That’s worse. Knock on wood. We haven’t had that bad.

Ian R: It’s not as bad as your experience but it’s just another cautionary tale. Not every dog is trained to be a good dog. And then not saying that these dogs are trained to be attack dogs. I think they were just untrained maybe. But there are dogs out there that people have trained to be attack dogs. A good example is a tenant with a dog that they’re not supposed to have and the landlord doesn’t know about it. We’ve run into instances where we have an area with a lot of colleges, so people will have dogs that they’re not supposed to have. So the landlord is like oh, yeah, we don’t love dogs, you are good to go. And you try to open that door and the thing is not happy to see you.

Bob Madewell: Oh, the ferret room.

Ian R: I need to hear about the ferret room.

Bob Madewell: If you don’t add this in, I completely understand. But the weirdest thing I’ve had happened with an animal was the ferret room. Now mind you, I’ve been bitten by a cat. I’ve been, you know, attacked by a bird one time I’ve been bitten by a bat. But the ferret room went into this house to do the inspection and I opened a door and it’s nothing but those little tubes, right, those little hamster looking tubes, the whole room. And I closed the door and the seller was there. So I said, Hey, what’s up with the room with all the tubes? And oh, there’s a ferret in there. I said, Well, is it locked up? I don’t want to let whatever’s in there out. Oh, no, that’s their room, they just go wherever I said, Well, I’ve got to go in there and test some things. And I should have just taken a picture and put, you know, not able to inspect. I really should have done that. Looking back, I should have done it. So I went there. And I just go in really quickly. I closed the door behind me. I don’t know where this ferret is. I’m going to test an outlet and he came out from behind the dresser and bit my hand while I was doing it. So I’ve been bitten by a ferret because of that, but it’s one of those times like you said.

Ian R: I didn’t think you were gonna say your hand.

Bob Madewell: Oh, no, it was my hand. So I was, you know, sticking out the tester in and it bit me right here. I don’t know if you can see, it bit me right here on my finger. It wasn’t horrible. But anyway, it’s one of those times where, you know, this room’s full of tubes. It was hard. I only tested two outlets that I can get to. I can’t even get to the window to open and close it to test the window. I actually would’ve just taken one picture of the room and said “unable to inspect it”. You know, sometimes it’s better to do that than the alternative and not know, you know what’s going to happen next. Anyway, another cautionary tale.

Ian R: I think you might be the first home inspector to be mauled by a ferret. We should have a completely separate podcast on ferret attacks.

Bob Madewell: Have you been bitten by a bat?

Ian R: Oh, no, but almost.

Bob Madewell: Okay. Up in an attic?

Ian R: Well, it’s actually coming out of a chimney, but I was actually worried because if you get bit by a bat, then you end up in the hospital getting rabies shots.

Bob M: I did and it’s not one shot, it’s several shots.

Ian R: Oh man. Boy, you’ve had a rough go of it. Ferrets and bats and squatters.

Bob Madewell: So where we live we live close to the river, Mississippi River. There’s the Grafton, which has the bluffs and there are caves and stuff well, they also get into the attics of these houses. So I’m in Grafton, I’m in this attic. It’s one of those ones where I can duck walk through the attic. And I’m trying to get to an air handler on the other side of the attic so I can take pictures of it. So I’m duck walking through this attic and all of sudden, I’m shining the flashlight around and there are all these bats so I turn around and I go straight out to the hatch. I dropped down the hatch and landed on the ground, superhero pose, if you will, like Bam! My apprentice Anthony was with me “hold still” and he grabbed it off the back of my neck and before I could say “don’t let it go” he let it go and it flew off. So I got a bite here on the back of my neck. And yeah, because we let it go ahead and get rabies shots.

Ian R: Ladies and gentlemen, the next podcast is going to be how Bob Maidwell got attacked by a group of clowns pondering the sites and also a pterodactyl.

Bob Madewell: Hey, animals, they’re a thing.

Ian R: Pterodactyls. You got to watch out for that. While we laugh about it. I mean, those are serious things. It all comes down to being careful and reading the situation. Bob had talked about making sure you have somebody with you, keeping somebody on the phone. If we’re going to go into a situation, if there’s nobody around, send out a text message. I even think about things like confined spaces. You know, I went through a lot of confined space training crawlspaces. Oh, yeah, I mentioned getting stuck in one of those, I’ve almost gotten stuck in a couple of them, you know, wondering, oh, boy, hope somebody can pull me out. This is going to make the nine o’clock news. But working hard to be safe, because we want to go to work, do our job and come home and see our family. Nobody wants to have to make a life or death decision. So keeping ourselves out of those situations first is most critical. To take us out Bob, do you have anything else that you’d like to say? Any bits of advice?

Bob Madewell: Just be careful out there, you know, a lot of inspectors are single, you know, single man units. And so if you happen to fall off a roof or if you happen to fall down a ladder, if you happen to, you know, get stuck in a crawlspace or have something you know, you don’t want to get any broken bones, you don’t want to put yourself out of commission. It’s not worth it. It’s like you said, the ability to go home and be with your family after a hard day’s work is the greatest blessing of all, to instead go to the hospital because you got bit by something there, you got something broke or you know, or you got really badly hurt or you don’t come home at all. It’s not worth it. Just take your time, be patient. Pay attention to your senses and your surroundings. So you can make it home safe. There’s nothing in this world that’s worth your life or your health.

Ian R: Bob, I can’t thank you enough for being on here willing to put yourself out there and tell your story because I think this will help a lot of guys. I know it’s helped me and I really appreciate you being on the show today.

Bob Madewell: I appreciate you inviting me. Thank you very much.

Ian R: All right, we’ll talk soon Bob, thanks.

Outro: On behalf of myself, Ian, and the entire ITB team, thank you for listening to this episode of inspector toolbelt talk. We also love hearing your feedback, so please drop us a line at [email protected].

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