Home inspectors and other professional building diagnosticians are expected to be observant and attentive to detail. Despite these skills, accidents happen to inspectors. Ladder falls lead to injuries or death
Home inspectors and other building investigators and workers spend a lot of time on ladders. Our photographs (above and left) illustrate some of the crazy things people do to gain ladder access to areas of buildings. Above a worker attempts to steady a ladder placed on a table top. At left, a ladder catapult has been designed and placed into use in Tapalpa, Mexico.
A Canadian home inspector fell to his death during a roofing inspection. He was ascending a high ladder which he suspected was unsafe. Following a home inspection in New Paltz, NY, Ballinger, a real estate agent who was angry with the results of the inspection, attacked and attempted to kill Steve Vermilye by driving his car off of the pavement, across a sidewalk, crashing into a building wall where Vermilye was walking. Another home inspector was badly injured when an attic fold-down stair fell out of its opening as the inspector was climbing it.
Hazards that an inspector should recognize affect other people too. An aggressive tenant threatened two elderly inspection clients with a rifle and then showered them with stones. An electrical inspector was killed by an electrical arc explosion while removing the cover of an electrical panel. A plumber was killed while leaning over a water pressure tank that, lacking a pressure relief valve, exploded.
We will list some of the more egregious and more interesting of these dangerous building hazards, review accident case histories, and we will illustrate procedures of attention, observation, and hazard recognition that can reduce the chances of accidents during building inspections." ~ Inspectapedia
Irony aside, I wonder if home inspectors hung up their hats for good, along with their state systems, and thus kept their schnozes out of people's lives, there'd be less inspector, and people accidents. It seems fundamentally dangerous to be snooping around unwanted and unneeded in unfamiliar places and circumstances.