6)Make sure all floors, ceilings and roof ridges are flat, and all walls plumb.

7)If there's a basement, examine baseboards, walls, and floors and carpets for any evidence of flooding.

8)check foundation for any cracking or crumbling. Check all interior and exterior walls for cracking that may indicate uneven settling. This may also show in edge-cracking of tile floors.

All good advice, but hardly practical for anyone who is not in the market for a brand-new house! Until 1998, when my husband and I purchased a hole in the ground upon which a delightful townhouse was constructed just for us, I had been living for many years in elderly houses with trapezoidal doorframes, shims under the fronts of all bookcases, and occasional trickles of groundwater across the cellar floors -- and lived happily, healthily and safely, at that.

The thing is to manage your expectations and learn how to accommodate the structural deficiencies most common in your area, because you will not find perfection on this mortal plane. And never store anything vulnerable to damp in the basement in a cardboard box -- use a plastic bin will a lid that seals.