Between 2013 and 2022, Lou Rubino inspected 10 homes in Bushwick. Much of Bushwick is older than it looks: nineteenth-century wood-frame rowhouses that were wrapped in vinyl, aluminum or stucco decades ago. The skin is from the 1970s; the house underneath can predate the light bulb — and the inspection has to be about the house.
Rated 5.0 on Google as of August 2026 · U.S. Army veteran owned · NY licence #16000039568 · 516-330-3870
Modern siding is not a defect, but it ends the conversation the facade used to have with you — you can no longer see the frame move, the sills rot or the water stain. So the evidence moves to where the wrapping stops: the flat roof, the parapets, the rear walls. That is where Lou reads a Bushwick house's real age and real condition.
Up top, these roofs carry generations of coatings and patches over the original structure. Patching is honest maintenance — the question the report answers is whether the membrane still has a working life or the patches have become the roof.
Related: Brooklyn rowhouses, explained · What an inspection costs · Schedule an inspection.
All three photographs are from Lou's own Bushwick inspection reports, chosen because they show a building component and nothing that identifies a property or an owner.
Interior finishes are read as evidence, not decoration — a crack pattern, a stain edge or a new patch of paint each say something about what the building has been doing. See how findings are documented.
Interior finishes are read as evidence, not decoration — a crack pattern, a stain edge or a new patch of paint each say something about what the building has been doing. See how findings are documented.
A boiler's data plate gives its real age; the burn chamber and the piping around it give its real condition. Both go in the report so replacement budgeting is arithmetic, not argument. What an inspection costs against what it finds.
Cracks are information: their direction, width and pattern say whether masonry has settled and stopped or is still moving. The report traces them so a later reader can see change. What a condition report does and does not rule on.
Water heaters have a known service life, and their installation — clearance, venting, the gas connection, the pan — matters as much as their age. All of it is checked where it sits. What the write-up looks like.
Drains are judged where they are visible — traps, materials, slopes and improvised repairs. An improper fitting works right up until it does not, which is why it belongs in the report while it is still cheap. See how findings are written up in a real report.
All photographs are from Lou's own inspection reports for jobs in this area, screened so nothing identifies a property or an owner.
Lou covers Long Island, the five boroughs and Westchester from his base in Wantagh, and the archive behind these pages shows where that work has actually concentrated.
Also nearby: Bedford-Stuyvesant · Greenpoint · all 26 towns.
His Bushwick file goes back to 2013. Yours would not be the first.
Not sure yet? Read what New York requires of your inspector or see a real report.