Building Inspectors
Organized Labor
Dennis Carlin, General Building Inspector
We inspect things as small as bathroom remodeling and as big as a highrise.
We go out to a job, and if it's a new building, we will inspect the rebar reinforcement steel, the forms, the framing, the installation of the sheet rock, and then in the final inspection, we look at safety issues. When I was the building inspector at Hunters Point, a lot of kids died in fires, because the bars on windows prevented them from getting out. Now, whenever we go out, we check for proper exiting and egress.
Besides inspections, we respond to calls from the public regarding complaints about neighbors violating codes. They may have a complaint about a guy doing a job possibly over the scope of his permit, people doing work without a permit, or people just making too much noise. Some are legitimate and some not.
I was an inspector when a do-it-yourselfer took out a permit, which a homeowner can do on a single-family dwelling. The house was improperly shored up, and they were cited by the building department. The owner ignored the citation, and the house collapsed. The husband and wife were in the basement, and when they heard the creaking, they were able to run out. It almost pancaked on top of them. The house came off the foundation, went down the hill sideways, and crashed into a neighbor’s house. You see an awful lot out in the field.