SCAM!! DO NOT USE FOR INSPECTIONS…read more You'd be better off saving your money and doing no inspection than throwing it away with these guys David/Matt did a pre purchase inspection on our home in Lynden, or at least they pretended to do an inspection and charged us for an inspection. 2 years later we are selling the same home and had an inspection done to find out a bathtub drain had never been plumbed since the house was built, the drain had a cap and no p trap coming off the tub. Gross negligence by David/Matt. A child would have caught this mistake but not David/Matt because they didn't go further than the entrance of the crawl space to take a picture for the report and to collect their fee.

I chose Pillar to Post based on stellar reviews from a realtor. I paid for the premium service plus…read morea lead paint and mold test -- over $1100, which is pretty insane for the small 252 sq ft structure I was planning to purchase. Since I was not able to attend in person, I asked that the inspector FaceTime or call towards the end of the inspection so I could ask questions. Despite these requests, nobody called and I had several texts and calls trying to track down folks. I spoke with the inspector later that evening and was assured that other than some minor details, everything looked great and that he'd been doing this for 18 years and felt this was a solid place. We'd just need to wait 1-2 days for test results. I did receive a 360-degree view of the inside and outside with highlighted problems -- very helpful. The premium service also included generated floorplans that were not the best detail (as I learned later). The lead paint results were returned promptly and interpreted as exceeding federal limits. I read the actual numbers and that did not appear to be the case, and upon asking the employee who tested, he apologized for misreading the numbers and that there was not evidence of lead paint. That was quite a bit of unnecessary stress on my end for a while. Five days pass and I have to ask to the employee who ran the tests when I would get the mold test results. He apologized again, saying results were delayed due to the Labor Day holiday weekend -- and then sent me a report for another house in another city. When he finally got the correct report to me, I was shocked to see that there were elevated levels of almost every mold type tested, and in particular types of mold that could indicate water damage. At this point, it's past the inspection contingency deadline and now I'm scrambling. That was September 7. I read the report and it's dated September 1. I was blown away that someone had been sitting on this for so long, when I was under pressure to sign off of the inspection going well the week prior. The email said to ask anytime for assistance, but I start getting the runaround. I needed to know what this data means and how serious the issue was, but only got a "I'll forward your number to the lab and hopefully they'll call you soon" bit -- no, the clock is ticking. That's not OK. Thankfully, I still had the main inspector's cell. It wasn't until I texted him directly before I got an immediate callback. The inspector swore that he didn't smell anything and he has a good nose, and again that he had been doing this for 18 years, and mold is always an issue in the PNW. I pointed out that I received another house report in error, and had something to contrast with. Mold tests are based on the difference between mold present outside vs. inside. I would have loved to have had the test result of the other house compared to my own. There were strains of mold present that would not come in from the outdoors and could be indicators of water damage. This was serious. He apologized for his colleague's delays, but I still didn't have answers and was utterly frustrated. I then had to locate a mold inspector/remediation service who said that the air sample test Pillar to Post used is not enough to indicate the severity of the problem. I had to pay another $780 out of pocket to hire this service to do surface testing and fully measure the space. (The remediation service had to thoroughly measure the space to create a floorplan, which did not match Pillar to Post's measurements.) It took nearly a week to receive results, and that also confirmed mold, with a 12-16K estimate to remediate, which would involve removing all pieces of the floor and all pieces of the subwall to find and remove the source before cleaning the space. What concerned me more was the deeper issue of evidence of the property flooding "on one corner," but the results indicate there was more going on than meets the eye. And the mold inspector detected a musty scent in the home... Because of Pillar to Post's delays, denials, and incompetence, I was now well beyond the inspection contingency and today I had to walk away -- and lose my escrow and a wonderful location -- and really, most important, a home of my own. My first home, actually, in an insanely expensive housing market where it's very hard to find anything affordable. My friend joked that the $2000 escrow, $1100 Pillar to Post, and $780 mold inspection fees were the "stupid tax" and it's a "live-and-learn" experience... ...that I hope nobody else has to go through. The inspector was David, and the employee who ran the lead paint/mold tests was Aldo. Work with them if you want, but purchaser beware.