Squirrels in attic, sellers didn't disclose
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Anonymous
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S/o a previous post regarding seller not disclosing...
Upon moving into a new home, we quickly noticed noises coming from the attic of the home when spending time on the second floor of the house. Contacted a pest company and found out squirrels were living in the attic, and had been for some time. The rep from the company also found dead animals and poison pellets in the attic (and took pictures). The previous owner had lived in the home for the last 20 years, so obviously knew about and tried to kill the squirrels, but did not disclose. It cost 6k to remove the animals and replace damaged insulation. We did have the home inspected, but the squirrels were found in a part of the attic not accessible to our inspector at time of inspection. Should the seller have disclosed? Do we have a chance of winning if we were to sue, or are we out of luck? |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
| No. My god. You own the home now. You are responsible for upkeep. Grow up and deal with it. Maybe the seller thought the problem was solved, maybe not. Who knows. |
Anonymous
| How long ago did you buy your home? |
Anonymous
| No. You were responsible for inspecting the house for any issues that you might have had. Unfortunately, your inspector did not catch this problem in an area that was not accessible to him and he didn't note to you that he did not get access. You had a chance after you got the inspection report to reopen negotiations. That your inspector did not find and report this issue to you is not the sellers problem. Unfortunately, it is yours when you agreed that you had no additional issues after inspection. |
Anonymous
| So I assume you did an inspection, yes? If so, did this person actually go up in the attic and if so did he not inform you of these vermin living in your house? If not, that is the person you might want to look into getting some satisfaction from |
Anonymous
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Chances of winning a dollar?
Zero. And, what other PP's said, house is yours now, your inspector missed it, you can't prove the sellers knew anything despite the presence of poison pellets or not. There could have been a problem at one time, they hired pest control and believed it to be resolved. But I'm sure a lawyer on this board will chime in with all sorts of insanity. |
Anonymous
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Op here. You all have confirmed what we expected. Just thought I'd get a few other opinions. Oh well, fortunately it was a relatively minor expense.
For what it's worth I forgot to mention before that there was an obvious smell of decaying animal, so the poisoned animals were recent to the date when we moved in (pest control rep estimated a few weeks). The guy clearly knew about the animals and tried to cover up the issue by killing them rather than removing them and blocking their point of entry. |
Anonymous
| The pest control inspection you would have had performed before closing should have discovered this, but you're smoking peyote if you think you're going to hold the previous owner responsible. |
Anonymous
| Not OP, but just a question. When is it the responsibility of the owner to disclose? I mean dead animals and denying access is obviously dishonest. Buyer beware, but when does it rise to the level of illegal? |
Anonymous
| How was this part of the attic not accessible? Are you saying it was in the eaves behind walls? Or that they blocked the access panel with heavy furniture or something? |
Anonymous
It seems pretty obvious that if the seller knew there were dead animals up there then they would have removed them prior to sale. If the inspector missed dead animals, why would you think the homeowner would know they were there? |
Anonymous
You know this just makes you come off like a witch, right? |
Anonymous
There were poison pellets up there. |
Anonymous
| Every old house will have something like this. We moved in only to find mice we kill them they come back entry points fixed, they make new ones. Unless your house is an enormous mansion I dont see how isulation will cost 6K. We put in blown in insulation into the attic for $1800 brought it up to R40 I think. Our house is 2500 sqft |