I'd thought that I share a really ridiculous thing that happened on an inspection that I did about a year ago.

I was scheduled to inspect an installation of a hot water heater in a residential single family home (some one's house). This house was also on the market and apparently the house wasn't selling and the owners believed that replacing the hot water heater would help sell it.

The real estate agent let me in to inspect. When I walked in I noticed the kitchen was completely covered (or wall papered) in aluminum foil. Okay, odd decorating statement. Going to the basement, I walked through a foil covered hall. I have been in 1000s of houses and what people decorated with really didn't make any type of impression. I have seen it all. Now I couldn't resist, I had to see what the rest of the interior was covered in.  So I peaked in the living room and it was also covered with foil as well. (The house also had loads of junk, newspapers, etc piled up everywhere...but I had seen pack rats before so that wasn't really anything new.) The agent noticed my interest and said, "Yes the entire house is wall papered in tin foil." So, down to the basement and every wall, corridor, and stair well was covered in foil.

I inspected the gas burning appliance and it was installed properly by a licensed plumber and I signed off on the permit.

As I was leaving I wondered what kind of a fashion statement these people were trying to make. I thought, hummm...wonder if there's any type of violation with the entire interior being covered in conductive materials...hummm...I wondered if it was cheaper to cover the place in common supermarket foil than wall paper...what were they trying to cover?..What kind of cracks are in these walls that foil would cover? Were there structural problems? What type of adhesive did they use to attach foil to their walls?..etc, etc...finally I couldn't resist...I asked the real estate agent.

"Why did the owners cover the walls in foil?" I asked the agent. "They covered the walls in tin foil to keep space aliens out," she replied sheepishly.

Well, to the credit of the owners, it must of worked. I didn't see any aliens.