We often think of the basement or cellar as a damp, dark, dirty place that s useful only for hiding the furnace, Dad s electric train set, the Y2K rations we didn t get to eat, or a place to run to in the event of nuclear holocaust.
People stupidly go down there to investigate a suspicious sound and they don t come back alive.
Sometimes we clean out the subterranean horrors and add a few amenities to make it more comfortable so that we might hide a less-fortunate relative down there. Or we might decide to rent it out to a university student or struggling artist. This is where the building inspector steps in to save the day. If anybody s going to live down there, say the code enforcement officers, the situation s going to be safe and those people will have a chance at fresh air and sunlight. The problem is that a lot of basement remodeling work can go undetected and some of it s good and some bad.