Inspectors must have thick skin. "We never have a homeowner ask us to come take a look at their beautiful floors," says Bill Zoetvelt of Mokena, Ill.-based All American Flooring Solutions. "We are always walking into a volatile situation." That was certainly on Zoetvelt's mind when he approached this inspection in Indiana. As he tells it: "I showed up to this inspection at a client's house and every window and every door—every possible form of light—was covered up with a blanket. I was going, 'This is not cool.' Before I went into the inspection I called my wife and said, 'If you don't hear from me in a half hour, I'm not out of this house. Seriously, this is where I am at,' and I gave her the address. I knocked on the door and this guy opened it; he had a flashlight turned on, but otherwise the house was pitch black. He grabbed me by the shoulder and said, 'Take a look at these gaps!' I was $@&^&ing my pants. Then I realized he had all the lights off for dramatic effect—if you go into a dark room and put on a flashlight, the gaps will really pop, and that's how he wanted to show me the gaps."
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