the power of the pen.....and termites

So.....we are in the process of closing on our record breaking 3 week closing. (They want to be in on Aug 12th).
Inspection - Done - all came out okay and we can fix the four things they want for $25 bucks (Thanks Bob!!)
Appraisal - Done- Have not heard anything yet so hopefully that means good
Termite inspection - Stupid bug shelters - Here is the story

When we bought the house 4 years ago, a man named John P inspected our house and commented on his form that "OLD termite shelters had been found on the S.W wall of the N. Crawl space." His recommendation was "No treatment needed" because there was "Evidence that treatment had been given by holes drilled in floor on front stoop".
Our realtor made no big deal out of it and neither did we - No bugs found -the inspector said you're good to go.

Flash forward to yesterday. A gentleman came to inspect our house and found 'Termite Shelters" on the South West Floor joist in our crawl space. No bugs were found, just 'evidence' that bugs were there, and 'evidence of damage'. NO big deal right? That is the same thing the last guy found. Well, this guy is recommending treatment to the tune of $1600. And....it's the same guy who owns the same company who inspected four years ago!!!!

What floors me is that when we re-did our kitchen and knocked a wall out, the sub floor was pretty badly damaged and so we replaced it all. Now we have new joists and sub floor. The stuff before - the stuff he inspected and was damage 4 years ago which he did not write in his report - is now all nice and new.

Bob and I have been down there looking and all we can find is one shelter that is about 1.5 inches long. (He marked on his sheet the entire wall area had shelters) Now don't get me wrong, if there are termites there, we need to pay to have it cleaned up. I am not trying to get out of that. What upsets me is that a few months ago a house was bought in a neighboring town and it passed home inspection and termite inspection. A month or so later Termites were found and the house had to be knocked down because of the damage. Needless to say there are a lot of lawsuits going on for that one and everyone is worried and now recommending treatment.

We don't think this is going to scare the buyers away, but you never know! UGGGh It's amazing how powerful the inspectors pen can be just by what he writes....he can stop this deal dead in it's track by a careless lack of explanation. So.....if you bought your house, and had old shelters when you bought it, get down there and knock them off now so you don't forget before you sell it. FRUSTRATION!!!!!!