How we found construction defects in our new apartment

By: Michal Turkia

Do you know people who always find fault, who see the bad in everything? When they see a beautiful new car, they say, "look how much gas that thing must burn." When they see an adorable puppy, they say, "wait till you see how ugly it gets."

When they see a stately new tower going up, they mutter that the foundations must be rotten. In short, people who see construction defects everywhere. I recently discovered that my husband is one of them.

The man who has lived beside me for so many years has turned into someone who sees construction defects at every turn. And where do you think it started? In our old, musty apartment, crawling with them? Not at all. It is our brand-new, gleaming home where all he sees is defects.

It started, as I said, when we moved. We spent our hard-earned savings on a small, beautiful gem in the center of the country: new and spotless, straight out of the wrapping, as people say. While I was picking wall colors, spotlights for the living room, and tiles for the bathroom, my dear husband was wandering the apartment looking for defects.

If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed he could walk around with that worried face, checking the window hinges, the slope of the shower floor, how the doors opened, hunting hard for something wrong.

Why does he have to make everything complicated, I asked him. Where would construction defects even come from in a new apartment? We have barely lived here a month, I said. That has nothing to do with it, he argued.

Construction defects are not created by living in an apartment: as the name says, they are problems created during construction. But look around, I said, everything here is so beautiful and perfect. Sometimes, he said, you have to look past the shiny finish and straight at the problems underneath, and he gave me a long, serious look. Defects or not, I thought, a shiny finish on the walls would look nice regardless.

So, in short, my husband asked to hire a building inspection, or home inspection, company to find the elusive faults he was so sure were there, and I jumped at the chance, certain they would finally tell him our new apartment was perfect just as it was.

The company we hired was professional and courteous. The engineer found plenty of construction defects in our beautiful apartment and gave us an estimate of the compensation owed by the contractor. The contractor even replaced the bathroom tiles along the way, while fixing sealing problems around the sinks.

So how did you know, I asked my husband, how did you know there really were defects here? It's simple, sweetheart, he laughed: there are always some. The trick is finding them and getting them all fixed from the start. Now I can relax, knowing our home is perfect inside and out. Zero construction defects.

So here we are: a lovely new apartment in the center of the country, walls with a glossy finish and especially fine tiles, my dear husband and me.

Zero construction defects. Coming soon to a home near you.