The Inspector

Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. A home inspector arrives at a job site with zero expectations that leaves with much more than he bargained for. My name is Edwin, and here's a scary story. The alarm woke me up in an instant after falling asleep. Thinking I had set it up wrong, I turned it off and dozed off, only to wake up to a call with a very specific ring tone. It was my boss. I felt my arms dropped like stones deeper into the mattress when I realized what time it was. Less than thirty seconds later, I was fired. The llergy pills had worked a little too well, and I was still in a drowsy state when I got a call from Ilda, a girl I liked and had a crush on since high school. The dream girl. I would often wonder what it would be like if I had the guts to ask out. So far, I had gone as far as taking care of her two cats, hence the allergy pills pay sleep ahead. She started, how are my babies we're doing? I started quickly catching what I had just said. I mean, wait, she laughed on the other end, and I felt that smile curve on my face as I listened to her, I'll come pick them up later. When are you getting off work? I told her I would be at home the whole day, which then turned into telling her that I had just been fired. She was shocked at the news, saying that my job was so cool and that she was wondering how anybody could fire me, especially since I was so good at it. She said she would try to come by my house earlier than expected, but that if I needed anything, to give her a call. But then everything came rushing at me in a blur. Honestly, adding the distraction of Ilda's voice made it harder to concentrate. I did catch what she said at the end, though, we'll find you another job. Forget those guys. That's what I meant. It was hard not to fall in love with her. She didn't even know what I did for a living. She just knew that I had a bunch of gadgets and carried around a lot of printed manuals with me. I would sometimes tell her about the houses I visited for work and the many things that construction companies and builders tried to hide discoveries I made completely on my own. To her, this was the coolest thing ever, and of course I would be fit up a little making night inspections seem like such a cool part of my job, when in reality they were only for the cooler temperatures of mainly buildings with the steel structure. I loved my job, obviously. There were a lot of things to do, things to learn and to stay up to date with. The coolest part about it, though, was that I got to work by myself. I was a home inspector for a small agency that had been expanding recently with lots of other inspectors as they started taking on bigger and big clients, larger houses, mansions, and even new constructions out of the newly developed areas by the woods and foothills. My job was to go through checklists, to take video or photographs, measure take temperatures, and meticulously review building codes and manuals basically rules for how houses were supposed to be built. If there were cracks on the wall, for example, I would take a note of it. Anything from leaky pipes to missing shingles on the roof, I would take a note of it. And that was good at it too. Ilda always told me that I should try to find my own clients whenever I complained about work, mainly when I told her about the managers who wanted work done quickly instead of accurately. But that was far too awkward to reach out to people on my own. It was hard to stand up for myself in a lot of these situations, but I try to make the most of it, but something would come up, especially with Ilda on my side. Somehow, her call was all I could think about that morning, and I felt all right. I got got ready as if I was going to go to work, and instead started fixing things around the house. The lawnmower had gotten rained on in the previous week and needed a part replacement. The thermometer on my oven was off by a few degrees. Projects I could finally work on. But I had just gotten outside by the shed when I got a call. It was Ilda. Hey, she said, I have a job for you for tonight. It's one for my friends managers. I told them that you're the best at it, and that you also do night inspections. But they're in a hurry and they need you to be there tonight. Can you go? How could I say no? Yes, I said, scrambling over my own words to find something else to say, but I didn't have to. Great, I'll let them know and then text you the address and everything gotta go when she hung up, Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. I would ask them to share around a business card, maybe get more calls and go easy, two easy. I caught myself thinking, suspicious of what was to come, considering this was exactly what I would say whenever a major issue started at a job site, I did my best to let it go and continue onto the shed and start one of these projects. Alda was at my house a little after six in the evening, just as I had started eating a sandwich by the front porch. I never knew how to say hi to her, despite us seeing each other a few times a week. A hug, a handshake, a casual hello, but she sometimes surprised me with a hug or a high five before coming into my house as if it were her own, and this time it was no different. The cats knew exactly when she was around the corner and waited for her with me, making the greeting part of the conversation a little less uncomfortable. She started telling me about the job right away. The plan was simple. Everyone would be home at ten p m. She said, but they were willing to step out and spend the night at a hotel for the night. The address was written down and texted to me already. It was on a road I hadn't heard of before, likely one of the new constructions out by the edge of the forest. A few of the other contractors had also worked out there. I asked for more details about the age of the house, reasons for the inspection, insurance, and warranties on it. But as I saw her eyes widen at the thought that I had needed so many details, I stopped, smiled and thanked her for what she was doing for me. She still apologized for not asking, but I reminded her that it was all right that I needed this and was going to figure it out on the spot. There was something strange about the drive there. The whole time I kept watching the bars of signal on my cel phone dropping the farther I went into the woods. I had looked at the signal data strength in the area beforehand, and it seemed fine, But later I would find out that it wouldn't be the only unexpected event of the night. As I drove through the woods, the trees zooming past me in odd patterns, similar to what you would see in an old animated video with the moonlight creeping through the trees at certain points. I kept thinking about what I would say or what type of inspection I would conduct. Thankfully, I had brought everything, including strong reflectors, lights and stands to light up the roof if needed. But when I pulled up, I realized that this would be something completely different. There was no one home. There was no specific protocol, no plan, no signal. Was it a general inspection. Had never been in this situation before. With a budget of eleven hundred dollars, it was too much for a simple inspection, but it was my best guess as to what they wanted me to do, and so I made up a plan in my mind. I pulled off, knocked on the door, and saw as a case sparkled on the doorknob. I stepped inside, greeted by a staircase right in front of the front door area, a large chimney to the left, and a separate living room on the right. This was not a new construction. The bases of the walls were made of stone and the stairs were made of old wood like a cabin, I would say. Immediately, I thought about the piping layout of such an old house, electricity, the rules that would apply it to such a build, because some had exceptions due to how old they were and were unable to be renovated like modern houses were. And just as I was looking for the light switches, I caught from the corner of my eye how a young woman came out from total darkness from the left area of the house by the chimney, and she just stood there the darkness. Hello, I said, awkward as always, I'm here for a home inspection. Is this a good time? Man got in there a little bit early, after all, But she just stood there with a light white dress and no shoes, staring at me blinkly. Her dark hair was tied up behind her, with enough light from the window that was enough for me to see the birthmark on her neck. I turned back towards the wall and found the light switches, four of them, and flicked them on all at once. When I turned around again toward the woman, she was gone. I smiled to myself, nervously, wondering if she would come out again, laughing at the whole thing and explaining a few things to me about the inspection, But as I stepped toward the room, shouting hello and trying to make a conversation with this person who wasn't there, I was met with silence, the kind of silence you only feel when the power goes out at home. Completely dead. I walked back toward my truck to grab my camera and light equipment to begin with the layout of the house. Rolling the case through the carefully laid out stone walkway up to the porch, I opened up a work table, put my materials there, and grabbed the camera to head back inside. I took pictures of the rooms on the first floor, the staircase and windows, corners of everything, the flooring, the exterior of the property, which if it hadn't been for my reflectors, I would have never found out how large it was. It took me about an hour to find the property line in another twenty minutes to walk it. Everything looked to be in order from the outside, no signs of flooding, no erosion, or anything that would show me that the house was built on bad grounds, But I couldn't be too certain, especially after thinking of who or what I had just seen inside the house. I continued taking pictures until finally ending up back at the front of the house, taking out my thermometer measuring tape in the video camera. That's when I heard the sound coming from the staircase. I quickly turned around and instinctively snapped a picture of it for later. Every once in a while I catched droplets or dust falling from a certain area of the house, very valuable to show active faults of buildings. These were not your typical sounds. As I listened more closely, I heard the sounds turn to footsteps and then rush up the stairs, sounds that didn't match anything I could see. I could feel that smile creeping into my face again. I was nervous now, especially considering that I would have to be heading up to that second floor to continue the inspection, and I didn't want to be the subject of a joke. The best I could do was pretend I never heard it and just go up there. And so I grabbed the camera and started recording as I walked up the stairs, and with every creak, I grew more and more nervous scared. I can be honest with you, the upstairs area was as I was expecting. Four bedrooms lined up down a dark hallway with a window at the end of it. Floors were firm from what I could see with the lights on the camera, but I stopped the recording for a bit while I got ready to take some pictures, and I was there in complete darkness for several seconds. I had no idea where the light switch was, and it took my eyes a little bit to a just before I realized I was standing right in front of it, and so I took pictures of the rooms, everything decorated in a simple manner. I could tell one was a children's room and the other was a teenager's one, with posters on the wall and everything, while the remaining two were similar, large rooms, both with enough space for a couch and bookshelves as well as a bed. One had a bathroom, while the second bathroom on the upstairs area was a fifth door at the end of the hallway. Everything from the floorboard to the paint on the ceiling looked fine, no signs of humidity or termites from what I could see, and so I stepped out into the hallway, flicked off the light, and was getting ready to find my footing to get downstairs when I saw a long shadow and a beam of light stretch from the window all the way to where I was, and then it floated away from door to door until it reached the window again, a frozen place, waiting for something else to happen. I turned on the light and rushed toward the window to see what it had been. And from up there I could see a car pulling up to the property and parking next to my truck. A small group of people, maybe five of them, was stepping out of it, the owners, I thought to myself. I walked through the hallway and down the stairs when I spotted them, the family that lived in the house. The inspector, the older man of the group said, as he saw me walking up to shake my hand, thinks a lot for making the time to come out here, a worried look on his face. No problem, I said, as the rest of his family stepped into the house and shook my hand. One by one, all four of them had miscounted the first time. This included a little girl of a about five years old or so. Everything looks good so far. I just have to finish off with a basement, which should take me a couple of hours. I looked down at my watch. It was a little past midnight already. They all looked at each other. The man, whose name I later found out was John, asked if I needed him to go there with me, but there was no reason to. I told him that if you could just point me toward the breakers and the water heating units, we would be all right. He looked confused, but agreed, and then he put his jacket away on the hangar by the front door and ushered me toward the living room on the right side of the house. This way, he said. I looked at the old door for the second time that night, already knowing where it would lead me to from my earlier walkthrough of the place. I heard you needed this done as soon as possible, I said, while he nodded. I can get you the report by the end of the day tomorrow if you need it by then, without a problem, I explained, but he stayed silent. Is it for a property sale? Again, no answer. I can climb up on the roof tonight as well. I brought my equipment for night time, I continued, but he interrupted, there's nothing on the roof. Most of the activity happens at the basement, although today's a special day, so it might be all around the house. We wanted to stay somewhere else, but my wife Sandra didn't want to miss it. I hope that's all right for an instant there. I thought that his wife wanted to see or learn about inspections like Ilda did. But as he continued to tell me about the things that happened around the house, the sounds, the chair in the last room of the hallway, the cries from the basement, and the apparition by the chimney, I realized that he had been mistaken. Him and his family had been looking for a paranormal investigator and had hired a home inspector instead. Each step creaked even more the deeper we got into the basement before he turned on the light bulb that was hanging from the ceiling at the base of the stairs. What did you need again the breakers? I knew it wouldn't matter anymore, but I said yes. It reminded him of the water heater. He pointed to the corner of the basement, which had another opening, a room without a door segmented as part of it. The floor was raw concrete except for that area. It appeared to be a hole in the ground. Even more frightened now, I asked him about what happened in the basement, and what he explained still sens shivers down my spine. Screams, he said, cries and pain come from down here almost every night since we moved in many years ago. Not all of them are loud. If you're listening carefully, they're there. He also explained that the family quickly learned that the heavy door that led them into the basement held noise inside pretty well, so all they did was to keep it shut except for when they needed to grab something from there. It was now a place for cleaning supplies and storage for old toys. He told me that the house had belonged to an old friend of his, a man who died of old age and had inherited the property from his grandparents who had it before them, and so on. When his old friend learned that John was about to have a child with his young wife and that he had no one to pass down the house to, he sold it to him for the best price possible, without giving any suspicion to the county, under the condition that he would take over the house once he died, which would only be less than two years later. He stayed quiet for a bit. I don't think they want us here, he said, just as the sudden growl emanated from the dark area of the basement. We both looked at each other see I smiled nervously as I wiped the sweat from my hand against the camera I was holding. You won't stay here by yourself, he said, to my relief, I'll hang out here, and if you want to go record over there, you can. I was in it now, I thought to myself, too deep to say that I wasn't who he was looking for, but dumb or brave enough to continue. I walked out over the dark room in the basement, camera in hand as I stepped inside, quietly trying to ask questions to these spirits, just as I had seen long ago on a DVD we got from Netflix back in the day with Ilda. But all that would come out were whispers from under my breath. Suddenly a growl turned into the laughter of children that surrounded me. I ran out of the room and followed John up the stairs, leaving the light on until finally we made it out over the first level of the house. John Sandra and their older son were all looking at me. I reassured them that I was all right, that I simply had never experienced something like that before, that there was definitely something lurking around that place. They all looked at each other, seemingly relieved. Thank you. The wife, Sandra said, we have no idea how much this means to us? Is it Amy? John's expression changed and he looked upset, speaking low enough so that their youngest wouldn't wake up from sleeping on the couch. Do you think Amy would be down here growling and scaring everyone? Give me a break? Sandra looked disappointed, so I decided to intervene and ask her more about Amy. Amy was her daughter. She had just started to learn how to drive, so the lack of experience, the weather, and the car's failure combined to end in her tragic death in the dark woods by the property. After a few minutes of silence, Sandra went upstairs, her footsteps running down the hallway non stop until she came all the way back to the staircase and walked down slowly. There was a picture frame held tightly against her chest. She flipped it over as I watched the same young woman from before from the chimney in the photograph. She was worrying her Sunday best, but I recognized her birthmark, the one on her neck. It was her that was sure of it. Sandra, I saw your daughter, I told her, and then tears slowly started to fill her eyes. She asked me about what she looked like, tricks, and if she was all right about what she was wearing, and if she had said anything. But everything I explained to her seemed to match of what her daughter had been like in life. I explained to them that I would find them some help, that I had gotten everything I needed that night, that I would be in touch. They agreed, and I put my stuff away and went home. I didn't know much about this the topics of paranormal investigations, but lots of things have changed since then. Ilda helped me find them someone who could provide some closure for them. Life wasn't as simple as in many manuals and rule books said. I discovered that night that there was much more out there than we know, things that ban the rules of what's possible. Ilda and I have been together for almost twenty years now, and we still talk about that first night that changed everything. My mistake, she says, and she admits it every time to think that from then on, I once lost just fired man with loads of gadgets, as Ilda calls them. Somehow turn this into services that find different types of answers for people. But the name the inspector somehow stuck. And when we meet again, perhaps I'll tell you about Amy and the basement and the many secrets that were uncovered that night. Scary Story Podcast is written and produced by me Edwin Kobarujas. I want to thank you the new supporters on Scary Plus and everyone for your messages. I'm just figuring out how to use the behind the scenes channel on Instagram in case you want to check it out, I'll link to everything in the description of this episode. Remember that you can find out more about me and of the channel if you go to Scary Story podcast dot com. Thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary everyone, See you soon.