The worst home inspector(1)

I have hired Maureen Wood of Town & Country Home Inspections to inspector my semi-detached house this summer. I interviewed her over the phone, and specially asked if she climbs up to the roof to check roofing. She answered positively.


But she just looked the roof from ground level, and she didn’t discover a hole on the side of the chimney which is a hole torn by raccoon. In the first day I moved in to that house, I discovered a family of raccoon lived in the attic.


If she looked the roof from eaves, she should be able to discover that hole. Or if she was a person who is attention to detail, she should be able to find the mess left by raccoon.   She didn’t enter the attic, just raised her hand into the attic and took a couple of pictures from the attic entrance hole. Even that, she refused to admit she did a poor job and refuse to admit any liability.


If a home inspector didn’t have home construction experience, he or she should at least very handy. After I read the home inspection report thoroughly, I realize this home inspector did nothing for me.


Anything is not visible to me; she has no idea as well. She doesn’t have any device can detect the hazard material, such as asbestos, radon, lead and UFFI.


Something like faucet drips, sink drain clogged… oh, come on, I can see it myself. And home inspector is supposed to give home buyer some advices to fix those problems. Those are all minor problems; anybody who is a little bit handy can fix those themselves.


For example, the clogged drain, there’s a cap on the drain pipe under the sink, if you remove that cap, you can take out the drainage blocker, and clean it regularly. But I believe not everyone knows that, at least the former home owner didn’t know that. And my home inspector probably didn’t know that as well. Because she just told me the drain is clogged, didn’t say anything that is an easy fix.


I have owned my first house for a month. One advice to new home owner is that never hire a home inspector who doesn’t have home construction experience and not able to check roof and attic.

Recover MySQL root password

You can recover MySQL database server password with following five easy steps.

Step # 1: Stop the MySQL server process.

Step # 2: Start the MySQL (mysqld) server/daemon process with the --skip-grant-tables option so that it will not prompt for password

Step # 3: Connect to mysql server as the root user

Step # 4: Setup new root password

Step # 5: Exit and restart MySQL server

Here are commands you need to type for each step (login as the root user):

Step # 1 : Stop mysql service

# /etc/init.d/mysql stop
Output:

Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld.

Step # 2: Start to MySQL server w/o password:

# mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &
Output:

[1] 5988
Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /var/lib/mysql
mysqld_safe[6025]: started

Step # 3: Connect to mysql server using mysql client:

# mysql -u root
Output:

Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 1 to server version: 4.1.15-Debian_1-log

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.
 
mysql>

Step # 4: Setup new MySQL root user password

mysql> use mysql;
mysql> update user set password=PASSWORD("NEW-ROOT-PASSWORD") where User='root';
mysql> flush privileges;
mysql> quit

Step # 5: Stop MySQL Server:

# /etc/init.d/mysql stop
Output:

Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld
STOPPING server from pid file /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid
mysqld_safe[6186]: ended

[1]+  Done                    mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables

Step # 6: Start MySQL server and test it

# /etc/init.d/mysql start
# mysql -u root -p