I went to a house in the Huddersfield area this morning, quite near to home, which was fortunate as it happens, on an appointment booked for me by the love of my life.  The only information she gave me was that the client wanted a damp and timber survey carried out in a three bedroom house.

I arrived at the appointed hour and knocked on the door; and then I knocked again; and again.  Eventually, a sleepy-eyed young lady peeped around the door at me and asked me what I wanted. And before your mind wanders too far down that path, I’m much too old to give the sort of snappy answer that would end up in serious delays to my schedule.

You wanna survey what?

Somewhat more prosaically, I explained I was there to carry out the requested survey and apologised for waking her (well, it was eleven o’clock). She didn’t seem to know what I was talking about, and so I told her to wait while I contacted the client, which I did on my phobile moan.

He asked to talk to the lady and within ten seconds she was smiling at me and ushering me into the parlour.  I have no idea what he said to her but it turns out she was one of three ‘tenants’ living in the house: perhaps he was particularly persuasive.

Anyhow, I had a look around the house, checked the loft, first floor beds and ground floor rooms, as you do.  There weren’t any timber problems but those with dampness were acute, and the source of the moisture was a complete no-brainer. 

The house itself was a 1930’s, stone and brick, ex-local authority mid terrace; and it had PVCu double-glazing installed.  Both of the fireplaces had been sealed; all of the air-vents in the walls were blocked; and water was literally running down the windows.

The central heating was on, washing was drying over the radiators, three firemen were practising hosepipe drill (actually, I made that bit up) and the relative humidity was at least forty points higher inside the house than it was outside.  To complete the picture, there were tropical-like colonies of black mould on every external wall, particularly in the corners. 

As I said: a no-brainer.  The house was suffering from condensation and just needed a bit of a life-style alteration on the part of the tenants.  That, and the inclusion of a couple of extractor fans were all that was needed.  Cost? About three hundred pounds.

Half way through my survey, the doorbell rang and in walked another chap, who announced himself as a ‘surveyor’ from a local remedial treatments company.  However, the moisture meter, notepad and tape measure he brought with him as his only diagnostic equipment rather belied the title he’d adopted!

Blow me, five minutes later, another one turned up; and I began to think something wasn’t quite right here.  It isn’t often that I’m appointed at the same time as two contractors, and I began to think, “this client thinks I’m a contractor too, and he’s probably just fishing around for the best quotation for any work required”.

Finding amusement in this situation, I kept shtum as to my purpose in the pantomime, although the equipment I had laid out must have made these guys think I was a bit of a weirdo(?), and I listened as they both concluded that the property needed an injection damp proofing course and some tanking.

Neither of them had looked at the outside of the house nor commented on the conditions the tenants were living in. However, they both opined the costs would be in the region of £2,500 - £3,000. Then, looking expectantly at me, they asked: what did I think?  Hmm…not a lot really; so I kept even shtummer.

When I arrived back at base, I thought about this and decided to phone up the client, just to confirm he knew I wasn’t a contractor and that he knew he would have to pay for my services.  Surprise, surprise, he was surprised!  No No No, he said, a little too hysterically to my mind, I thought you were a contractor and I was getting a ‘free’ survey.

Well, that put me in a bit of a bind.  I knew that if he paid me for my services, he’d be saving himself at least £2,000, and if he didn’t, and employed the cheapest contractor, he’d pay out a lot of money for a pile of unnecessary and disruptive work; and still have the same problems this time next year.

So, mixing my metaphors with the best of them, I told him specifically, but without any specifics, that the contractors were barking down the wrong path, as it were (there must be a Freudian allusion to Barking Mad in there somewhere); and even though I would expect to be paid for my services, if I wrote him a report, it would save him heaps of cash in the long run.

He thought about this for at least ten milliseconds, and then said “No thanks, why should I pay for something that the others do for free.” Yes, I thought. Why should you. Answers on a postcard please.

As Inspector Gadget often says: ‘You couldn’t make it up’!