Baum Inspection Services

Highly recommended. Jim helped us with inspections with our house purchase over a decade ago, and we called him again when we decided to sell our house and buy another in February of this year. He came to our old home and did an inspection to help identify everything that could potentially be wrong so we could make informed decisions on what we should or would fix before listing the house. He also went to the new property on which we made an offer to inspect the new place. He provided us a detailed report, came out to do follow-​ups and answer our questions when we were negotiating with the seller, and in general was our go-​to resource for all things House. I appreciate his work ethic, his attention to detail and his candor. I can’t recommend Baum Inspection Services highly enough, and have referred Jim to many friends – all of whom have become fans.

We bought a 1950s house in North Beach in 2004 & our realtor, Wendy Saddler from Windermere Realty, suggested we use Jim Baum for our house inspection.
Jim came out to our house & did an ok inspection on the state of the house’s power panels, roof, deck but when it came to inspecting the 70’s remodeled basement kitchen, he failed to note that the kitchen included one entire structural wall on north side of house that contained rats (note: giant wharf rats :) They were accessing the house, possibly by a duct hose to a stove attached inside that wall. A piece of chewed up chicken wire attached to the wall outside the house was visible and was failing to block the rats’ entrance (note: this was discovered by rat exterminator, not Jim Baum.)
The whole downstairs reeked of mothballs & being naïve/​new home buyer myself, I thought it was due to the fondness for mothballs these retired Missionaries had who were selling the house. Nope, this is an old trick to cover up the highly potent smell of rat urine (note: rat urine odor is extra strong to attract more rats to attend the ²⁴⁄₇ rat party in your house.)
Jim’s inspection notes on basement kitchen in total:
«There are no GFI protected outlets, negative slope on rt side of sink drain lines, and there is no air-​gap on the dishwasher drain line.» (Uhhmm, the rats Jim?)
AND how about doing a video inspection of the sewer lines? Something we did after we purchased the house. That might have saved us a few headaches.
And for the NE basement bedrm: «There is cracked glass in the northern most window» & «there is no door stop.» And for the NE main flr bedrm: «There is no door stop.» And, wait for it, for the main floor east bedrm: «There is no doorstop.» Hmmm.
REALLY, it’s the owners of the house along with Wendy Saddler & a realtor representing the sellers of the house whom I don’t remember, who are also to blame. The seller’s realtor did tell me that the owner asked him for a donation to his Christian Charity as part of the real estate deal. Niiice. So I’ll pay your commission but you have to «donate» part of it right back to me. Owners also had multiple renters living downstairs in the house & I know this by the stream of mail that was sent to our address for years, and these renters would have definitely noticed the rat activity. They were loudly thumping and running around inside this whole wall, mostly at night.
My husband, myself & a construction friend demoed the downstairs kitchen and walls ourselves after trying to get the old guy owner and/​or Wendy Saddler & other agent to help us pay for this surprise expense. Nope. Nada. And suing Windermere we were told by another lawyer would be an exercise in futility; very small chance we could win.
So we plunged ahead and had to replace all of our electrical & plumbing & basically tore down all the interior walls and did a giant costly remodel in this North Beach Charmer (note: I guess rats that live in a house for 30 plus years will pee and chew thru electrical wiring, which may cause a giant problem.).(but seriously, I still love our house.)