It's a thankless job. Who'd want to be a building inspector when people talk about you like the messages posted above? No wonder they can't get decent people in the job.

There are a number of factors involved. Planning departments are torn by an number of conflicting factors and political influences, and governments aren't always wise and fair and practical in the building ordinances they enact. There are incompetent and mediocre employees everywhere, and the world survives; but if you put authority in the hands of the mediocre and the incompetent, all hell can break loose.

That being said, I've had contact with a number of building inspectors who WERE competent and fair, who really believed in making sure a builder did a good job for the customer. Many had worked in construction for a career, until the physical strain got too much for their bodies.

Trouble is, nost of the good inspectors I met had gone on to FEMA to do disaster reconstruction inspection, where people didn't hate them so much.

-Joe Offer-

I have to say, I sure hate Mudcat when threads are chiefly rash, hateful, biased generalities. I didn't see a fair post in the lot, until Deckman posted his.