Detecting Lies, Investigating Homes and Straight Hustling with Det Darrell Honkala

Stephen J: (00:11)
Welcome to behind the ten.com a podcast that introduces you to the H men and women who wear the 10 while protecting our community and hearing about the extraordinary things they're doing when they're badged in their locker. I'm Steven J the good Lieutenant along with Justin, the civilian producer, how's it going today? Today's sponsors are those guys print.com. Those guys print for all your customer apparel needs. Visit those guys. print.com also brought to you by fully involved training, LLC. For your fire training needs visit fully involved training.com. Today's cocktail over conversation is sponsored by Kim H of Poughkeepsie. Ooh, thank you, Kim Kim H bought around, which we always appreciate and today's round is of CTE LAAS, tequila, Blanco. Ooh,

Justin: (00:55)
And hydration is so important in this business

Stephen J: (00:58)
Little mix with this one and we are doing all right. So Kim H thank you so much for your sponsorship of cocktails over conversation. If you'd like to be a sponsor of cocktails over conversation, whether it be a drink or a bias around visit behind the ten.com. So Justin, today we have a guy who has he actually made a business while still working? Yeah, yeah. Cuz there was a hole in the market if you will. Yep. He saw the need. He saw the multiple businesses, multiple ES now, but he seized the opportunity and I love it about this guy. So detective Dhan Collins, who we're gonna speak with, he's got two different businesses. He's got a polygraph business that he continues to do very well at, which he's had for a while now. And then he recently started a home inspection business, verify home inspection, which with this booming market he's crushing it.

Justin: (01:45)
Yeah. And again, two things you think are, are completely unrelated. Right? What, what does, uh, doing a home inspection have to do with

Stephen J: (01:51)
Anything? Right. Well, I think, uh, we're gonna have conversation to find out just how the information and his work. Maybe help him start this business. He'll see

Justin: (01:58)
Through your crap. If he ask him some dumb questions he's gonna be doing, he's gonna be doing a polygraph

Stephen J: (02:03)
Tire time. I think he's putting the, the box on you Justin. So let's bring him in Darrell. Come on in. Welcome Dar, Hey guys, doing how you doing today?

Darrell: (02:16)
Excellent. No

Stephen J: (02:17)
Complaints. We are very excited to have you here because you're a guy that was in law enforcement for a long time. Uh, had an avenue, uh, after law enforcement to stay in and, and maybe increase your pension or whatever, but you started a couple businesses and, and those took off. But before we get to that, let's talk a little bit about your law enforcement career. When did you start and, and how'd that go for you?

Darrell: (02:38)
I initially got into law enforcement in state corrections, 1994, um, to definitely not something I ever thought I'd be doing. My stepfather was in it. And uh, he was like, Hey, you want a good, uh, a good job with a, you know, secure pension and some benefits. I was like, yeah, I'll do it. I was just working at, uh, Goodyear at the time and, uh, kind of the, the rest is history.

Stephen J: (03:00)
So you did state corrections, mm-hmm and obviously it's another civil service test to get into police work. Right. Uh, where did you start

Darrell: (03:08)
For police? Uh, in 97, you know, the other guys that I was working with in the prison were like, Hey, we're taking these, uh, civil service tests and you know, to be a police officer, I was like, all right, I'm gonna do it too. I ended up getting a hundred on a test. Um, I got called by the state park police in bear mountain, uh, about six months later, uh, they're the first job that came along. So they were like, Hey, we'll hire you. So I jumped on it and went to the rocking county police academy and stayed there about, uh, two years being a new copy, want to get out there and experienced things, you know, do the job got kind of slow there in the summer. It was like nuts. It was crazy, but the wintertime, it was just all vehicle and traffic stuff. Uh, so, uh, I got an opportunity to go to the town of Wallkill in 1999. Uh, about two days later, there was a lot of political strife going on over there. And, uh, it was just crazy after. So I was looking for a way out. I worked there for about a year and a half and, uh, a friend of mine went to the town of Akee and, uh, I went over there in 2001 and I stayed there until I retired last year in February of 2020.

Stephen J: (04:14)
Now you've done a lot of stuff in the town of Akee for those 20 years that you were there. So, uh, pretty patrol.

Darrell: (04:21)
Yeah, I did patrol, uh, only like two and a half years. Uh, they put an announcement up on the board, uh, to go to polygraph school only me and one other guy, actually, I think it was me, the other guy, they kind of forced to go and nobody wanted to go. And, uh, so, uh, that was probably one of the best, uh, things, choices I ever made in the job. So when I came back from polygraph school, I was just a, a road guy. Uh, they put me in the traffic division and

Stephen J: (04:46)
That's where polygrapher, is it polygrapher or polygraphs?

Darrell: (04:49)
Uh, I don't know. Polygrapher polygraph

Stephen J: (04:52)
Guy detector, man. Yeah. There's

Darrell: (04:53)
So many. Yeah. Forensic psycho physiologists. There you go. That

Stephen J: (04:59)
Not to be confused with polygamists, correct. Right. Correct. Exactly. Definitely make that distinction. Yeah. So, I mean, definitely not the place for that skillset is traffic. I mean, you're gonna pull a box out when a guy says I wasn't speeding.

Darrell: (05:11)
Yeah, exactly. Um, you know, at that time there was a, uh, you know, a minimum amount of years you had to, to do with the job to be a detective. So they kind of threw me in track traffic. So I did that. I went to collision collision reconstruction school. Uh, so I did traffic for about four years. Uh, and in the meantime I was doing, uh, polygraphs for criminal cases for detectives and all their jobs on their criminal cases. Um, police, applicants, um, you know, you name it. I did it. And 2008, I made detective and I remained, he does a detective till I left town of Poughkeepsie last year. Uh, during that time I pretty much did everything. And then some, um, you know, we started the paw shop database early on, always try to be like progressive and think about, you know, what could we do next to, to make the job better and get out of the old school, you know, just show up and, and do the job type of thing. Um, and then in 2011, I started my own polygraph business on the side. Uh, my job didn't want to gimme comp time anymore, unfortunately, uh, to do P polygraphs for other people. So I took it upon myself to do my own thing.

Stephen J: (06:20)
Now were, were jobs hiring you that way?

Darrell: (06:23)
Yeah, so I was doing at the time when I worked for the town, I was doing polygraphs for the city Kingston, new Paul SOS, uh, beacon. And then, you know, there was a change of guard at the PD and the next chief was like, yeah, we're not gonna pay you to, to do these other jobs. So they just kind of cut it off. So that was my opportunity. I, I was like, all right, you know, if they're not gonna do it, you know, these guys have been counting on us to, to do polygraph exams for their applicants. So I'm gonna fill that whole. So I started a business and I've been doing that like eight years. So it's been really good. It it's been increasing over time. And, uh, I just picked up a couple other, uh, agencies, uh, in the last couple weeks.

Stephen J: (07:04)
So just to back up a quick second, the polygraph school is not like a two week

Darrell: (07:10)
School. No, it's not your typical police school. It's uh, you actually really do work. Yeah. You had to, you had to, uh, definitely do where the first day hugely intimidating, you showed up, you sat at this desk and there was like a table length of books that like, this is what you're gonna learn while you're here. It's like, oh.

Stephen J: (07:29)
How many people walked away then?

Darrell: (07:31)
Uh, two people left. Yeah, absolutely. And you have to submit to a polygraph test in that training. Yeah, actually you did. Uh, when I worked at the town, you had to go at a polygraph exam and when he went to the school, I was more nervous about that because the person scrutinizing it was the, uh, director of the polygraph school. So I was like, oh, okay. And are they screwing with you at all? Or is it just a legit? Just, yeah, it's interesting learning what I learned over the years and understood, um, what was going on. And, you know, there, there has been a huge increase in technology and understanding of polygraph. Uh, and it's not your grandfather's polygraph basically, uh, from the time that I started, even until now, it's, uh, become so much more intricate and, uh, advanced, let's

Stephen J: (08:16)
Just say, I mean, most people outside of law for horse, when I think their first interaction with a polygraph or is the, you are not the father, you are the father, uh, Mor cheat on your wife, the Mor Povi Jerry Springer style polygraph. I mean, is that something that a lot of guys from the school you went to are doing?

Darrell: (08:33)
Um, not really. I think a lot of people are intimidated by it and they end up falling off out of it. It's if they wanna run, as soon as they can stop doing it. Um, actually I do know the, the person that's doing those polygraphs from or, and stuff like

Stephen J: (08:46)
That. So you, you, you complete the polygraph school, which is intimidating at best. Yeah. You have to do so many tests I'm sure. To, to get your certification. Right.

Darrell: (08:55)
So how did you go about that? It's about a year and a half of, uh, polygraph, uh, exams that you have to send down and they have to look at, 'em make sure you're doing the right thing. Um, so, you know, that was, that was a long process and that's kind of how we got into doing polygraphs for other agencies, because we needed like, you know, a certain amount and a, an amount of time. So,

Stephen J: (09:15)
So you, your, your chief hits the brakes. You're not doing 'em for other agencies and you're like light bulb goes off business opportunity. Right. How easy was that transition for the other jobs to come to you or I, I I'm guessing they didn't pay for those at the time. No.

Darrell: (09:31)
Before those jobs weren't paying my jobs for, we were just kinda like doing it.

Stephen J: (09:35)
And now you're like, Hey, on Daryl wants money. Yeah. Was it easy? Did you have to convince them, was that process? They,

Darrell: (09:42)
Uh, they jumped right on board. They knew how valuable it was and how much we had, uh, done for them in the past and all the things we uncovered. So, or actually, I shouldn't say way I , but, um, they saw the value in it and, you know, they were whatever you need to do. Uh, you know, we'll do it. So

Stephen J: (10:01)
That's excellent. Oh yeah. It's been great. Yeah. So, I mean, now that you're, you're outta law enforcement, technically you're still doing the polygraph thing on the side. Can you disclose one of the craziest things that you got somebody to admit? Oh man. On the box,

Darrell: (10:15)
I there's so many, um,

Stephen J: (10:18)
Like what's the craziest, not like the worst crime, but what's like the craziest thing. Like you hear all the rumors, uh, the animals and yeah. You know? Yeah. Fetishes. I'm ju I'm just curious to what somebody actually admitted to you cuz they were so nervous sitting there. Well, we have one we brought here today. We're we're gonna hook you up to Justin actually looking to do a polygraph.

Darrell: (10:39)
That's usually the, the biggest shockers is the, uh, the animal stuff. Um, you know, I had sex with my sister, you know, that, that, that kind of thing, you know, awkward. Yeah. Awkward, awkward, uh, stuff, you know, the, the things that I do out in the lake while I'm watching everybody having fun on the beach, you know, while I'm underwater, you know, that kind of weird stuff.

Stephen J: (11:02)
Just not water community. I dunno about, yeah, I

Darrell: (11:06)
Know. Hey, when people aren't looking, uh that's when people are doing some weird stuff, you

Stephen J: (11:11)
Know, what are, what are the applications for these, uh, these they're not admissible in court, right? It's not,

Darrell: (11:17)
Um, I gotta ask that question quite a bit. Uh, it is admisible in court. Um, but under the circumstances of both prosecution and defense agreeing to it, so one side of the other, somebody's not gonna agree to it because it doesn't benefit somebody. Right. You know? Right. Yeah. And actually, um, there's a four 40 hearing that you can request in New York state to have you exonerated from your crime based on a polygraph exam. So it's widely admissible in court and other states, New Mexico, Utah just changed their criminal procedure law and made it part of evidence, uh, because oh, wow. We all know that eyewitness evidence is like 30% accurate, you know, when grandma's looking out the window and she's like, oh, that's the guy that did it over there. You know? So it's, it's a long process and nobody wants to dive into and change the law. You know, they use it to their benefit, you know, the defense basically. And you mentioned it

Justin: (12:11)
As evolve a lot over, over the years. Like what, what's different between a, a polygraph in, you know, 1970 and one today.

Darrell: (12:20)
Uh, number one, the, the instrument it's totally computerized now. Um, that's the biggest thing and the computer, so no more. And I got hooking

Justin: (12:28)
A bunch of wires up

Darrell: (12:29)
To my head and yeah, no more needle and ink and, and all that crazy stuff. Um, you know, measurements and there's a, uh, a federal agency that just does polygraph research and it probably was created. And I think around 2000, maybe earlier, a little earlier than that, but that's all they do. And they come in and they analyze, uh, past polygraph exams with confessions. And so they know that's a validated polygraph as in a criminal or a pre-employment, um, polygraph, unless it's validated with some admission, it's not worth anything really, you know, because what does the job really want to know that there was some tracings on a chart? You know, they want to know, well, what, what did he lie about? You know? But ultimately that's not too hard to figure out, you know? I mean, it's very few times in, in the 18 years I've been doing it, that somebody hasn't admitted to whatever it was that, um, they failed the polygraph on, you know, so, but that's all

Stephen J: (13:21)
Skill. Now you guys do the, uh, the pre polygraph interview and, and a lot is disclosed right then and there. Correct?

Darrell: (13:28)
Yeah. It definitely people, you know, it depends on the job. Um, you know, how, if, if you're a new guy street trying to get a police job, or if you're a cop that works somewhere else, um, that's kind of knows the process, but, um, you know, I, I give a pretty lengthy, um, convincing spiel as I call it that listen, you know, because you know, you're a new guy coming off the street. You don't know what the deal is. You think you have to be, uh, the yes, sir, no, sir guy, you know, salute and I've never did anything in my life. Like, and that's when it's my time to get out to you and be like, look, we're looking for regular people. I definitely did more crazy than any of you. People have done. You know, I grew up in a kind of urban area in Middletown and you know, the stupid stuff I did as a kid beats a lot of these other kids stuff. But you just have to be honest about it. It's, it's an integrity test, not about, uh, what you did, you know, short of robbing a bank and sticking up old ladies in the street, you

Stephen J: (14:23)
Know? Well, that's what we always tell people. Just be honest. Yeah, exactly. Like you can be human, you could make mistakes. Just be honest about it. Cuz going forward, if you become the police, absolutely. Your integrity is everything. Absolutely. And once you lose that yeah,

Darrell: (14:36)
You're done. And some people still take a chance and you know, it doesn't turn out too good. You know, we look for, we look for big things, you know, we're not here to, to split hairs. We're here to find the big stuff, you know, and because we don't want those people on the street well and

Stephen J: (14:51)
Polygraph, just so people know there's only one part of the hiring process for police advocates. Oh definitely. You have the, the civil service test. There's the first step here in, in New York, you have the physical agility test. Second step mm-hmm you have the background, there may be an initial interview before, even the background. Right. Uh, after the background must be, uh, maybe another interview for you. You have the polygraph, you have the psychological examination, which is really fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, and, and then you may get the initial offer employment, you know, while your background's going on, if that hasn't been completed and then you finally get to the police academy and you gotta fulfill all those requirements. Yeah. That's all, before you even get to call yourself police. So you you've done the polygraph thing you've started and that business is called verify,

Darrell: (15:37)
Uh, verify polygraph and forensic consultants. Also the other part of my polygraph realm, uh, the biggest money maker let's say is, uh, uh, test sex offenders. Um, every month I do probably 10 or 15 a month for the county, for DUS county and

Stephen J: (15:51)
With the polygraph machine you're talking about. Right. Okay. Is that that's for like a, like a family court

Darrell: (15:56)
Thing or they're convicted sex offenders on probation or parole. They, every six months they have to get a polygraph. Wow. Yeah. To make sure they're doing the right thing. And that, that that's

Stephen J: (16:06)
Definitive. Like if they fail it, they're

Darrell: (16:08)
Going to jail or not necessarily depends what it is. Um, obviously crimes. Yes. But, um, you know, rules, they just want to know where you're going. The initial exam is a sexual history. It's we sit down and I give you a thick booklet. What have you done sexually since you're you've been born , you know, and we go through it and they want to know the treatment provider wants to know if you're honest about it so they can guide you in what, what, um, treatment you need. Like what's, what's going on with you, you know, why have you gotten to this point and what are the triggers that you can't control that are leading you to either touch kids or, you know, be sexually aggressive against people. So, um, yeah. It's just part of the,

Stephen J: (16:52)
The whole per program. That's a book all in its own. It sounds like. Yeah. Yeah.

Darrell: (16:55)
Things you hear on that one, if you wanna talk about crazy things, you ask me about applicants, this was a whole nother thing, you know? So

Stephen J: (17:01)
It's, uh, I mean, I don't even think, I want to know what the craziest thing one of those people have said quite

Darrell: (17:06)
Honestly. Yeah. I don't think you do. Yeah. You gotta have a poker face that's for sure. You know, when they tell you something and you know, you know, you just gotta, gotta cover your mouth out. Like you wanna laugh, but you know, just gotta get back in, laugh, cry, or

Stephen J: (17:17)
Beat the hell out. Right. I don't, I don't know which one you wanna do here in some of those. All three. Yeah. Yeah. My goodness. So you, you get ready to retire. You already have the, the business going mm-hmm , uh, you've done your time town. Poughkeepsie says, thank you very much, detective, what do you do next? Yeah.

Darrell: (17:34)
So, you know, I'm prepared for my exit. I ended up going to the county drug task force, which, you know, ended up, uh, being lucrative for me. Um, and you know, just like any law enforcement officer, what's next, you know? Yeah. I'm gonna collect that pension. Is it gonna be enough in 10 or 20 years? You know, I left in February of 2020, COVID hit like two weeks later and I was like, wow, this is like the best possible time, you know, overtime dried up and everything. Then, um, I had just finished up my bachelor's degree in emergency management. At that point I had just been working on for the last five years just to finish it up. And I was like, do I go to, to Mar college and get my masters in emergency management or do something else? I, uh, actually signed up to go back to school at Marist.

Darrell: (18:17)
And, uh, in the meantime, a friend of mine was buying a house and he was like, Hey, you know, I just paid this guy, like 1200 bucks and like two days. So I was like, what? I was like, like what's this home of inspection thing. And years ago I went to school for like two years for plumbing and heating. And I grew up on a dairy farm and you know, so I always liked being outside, working with my hands, being active building stuff. So I was like, oh, let me check into it. I was like, wow, this might be something I really wanna do. I gave up Mars college. I dropped out before, even starting in August last year and started my business us and did the training. It was like a hundred hours of, uh, online training. And I had to do 10 mock inspections over a period of a couple months or whatever.

Darrell: (18:59)
And, uh, in the meantime I was trying to figure out, all right, well, how am I gonna market this thing? Is it gonna be successful? What am I doing here? So I ended up really diving into the education part of, of it and going above and beyond what I needed to do. And I joined like the national organization, um, took, you know, hundreds of hours of training. Uh, then I ended up getting licensed to do termite inspection through to DC. Uh, I got nationally certified to do radar measurement, uh, and all these other things, other home inspectors aren't required to do in New York state. You know, you just have to have your license do the basic course and that's it. So me being me, I just took it to the next level because I wanted to come out, start a business and have qualifications and knowledge, you know, I just didn't want to, you know, try to figure it out as I went. So, uh,

Stephen J: (19:49)
Now for a short time you were doing another law enforcement related job.

Darrell: (19:54)
Yeah, actually it was in the meantime, uh, last summer I ended up taking a, uh, job as an investigator with the Sullivan district attorney's office as an investigator. I got, uh, cross designated as a state police investigator and I got assigned to the child abuse task force in Sullivan county. So I had been doing that and I got a two 11 waiver. So I was working full-time, uh, and going to home inspection trainings and doing polygraphs and trying to have a social life and, and everything else

Stephen J: (20:25)
Just now, what would you say that, that, I mean, obviously the polygraph school propelled the polygraph business, right. Is there anything in law enforcement or your, uh, experience that led to you to Excel in the home inspection gig?

Darrell: (20:38)
Yeah, absolutely. Um, number one, uh, being able to multitask, being proficient on computers and technology and, you know, just overall being able to relate to people. And, um, that I think has, uh, definitely taken me higher than other people in polygraph, locally or home inspectors, because customer service is everything. It doesn't matter. Law enforcement or you're in a private business. That's what puts you over the top.

Stephen J: (21:10)
So Justin's gonna love this one. I, I also think law enforcement helped you market. And when you talk about your Instagram page, I follow you on Instagram and you almost do like a find the clue page where spot the three errors that I see. And it's almost like when you were detective and you're like, look for the evidence, look for the clues, look for the fingerprints of the blood. Now you're putting these pages out, right. And you're asking us on the Instagram, uh, side of things to say, Hey, what do you see? That's wrong. Right. And

Justin: (21:41)
I'll, so you look at this wall and you see this master tape job next to you here. Yeah. And you say that's a good place to put the bar because we could get rid of that bad tape job and install a nice tap system.

Stephen J: (21:52)
Absolutely going all the way back to superior bar technology technologies that really wants to put a tap system in here for us. Thank you, Mike Citron for that. But, but I really see that where you are like, Hey, find the clue, find the evidence, find the errors and in this home. And I think you've used that and it's captured people cuz I I'll tell you right now. I look at your posts a little bit longer than the average post. Just like, Hey, can I spot it? Sure. Right. Yeah. That's, that's a great job. Great, great way to flip that.

Darrell: (22:20)
It a, I kind of equated to, uh, did you ever have a car? That was a little odd, like, you know, when I was a high school, I had like a 1982 Chevy Chavet that was like my first car. If, if I see one in, in my peripheral vision somewhere it'll spot a mile away, you know? Right. So when you walk into a house and you do that job now, like, you know, like you said with the, uh, the tape on the wall, you, you can spot those things. You know, I drive by and look at chimneys and you know, kind of like when you were a new cop and you looked at inspection stickers. Yep. You know, you'd be driving home in your personal car and you be like, oh, there goes an expired inspection sticker. And you're like, oh, that's right. I'm not working. You know, it's the same type of thing. You, uh, you pick it up, you do crime scenes, you know, you, you have a skill that you have to be observant. So you take that and you put it into your business. And I, and I, uh, think about that all the time. Definitely. So we've

Stephen J: (23:06)
Talked about the craziest things you've heard in the polygraph and in interviews, what is the craziest thing you've seen in a home inspection? It was just either grossed you out. Justin shaking has said is why Justin May walk outta the room. I can't imagine what's the craziest

Darrell: (23:20)
Thing you've seen. I mean the most disgusting, you gotta most houses. When you go in for a home inspection, people know you're coming and you wanna make it nice and clean, but there's some that I've been into. And you know, part of the inspection is, you know, especially the important areas, the bathroom, kitchen basement, attic, you go into a bathroom and make sure that, you know, there's no leaks in the, around the toilet and the sink and you lift up the, the, uh, lid to the toilet, into the big tur in there or something like, you knew we were coming, you know, didn't you, uh, didn't you take the time to, uh, to clean your place? Uh, that's probably one of the most memorable

Stephen J: (23:55)
Ones. Yeah. You have the benefit of people knowing you're coming the, uh, yeah. The experiences and, and you've had, 'em also the search warrants that we do and people have no idea we're coming and the things you've got see there. I mean, I remember one house where we, we pulled a curtain back and it was nothing but cockroaches. Yeah. The entire wall was absolutely disgusting. Yeah. You know, and the way some people live just really grosses you out. You don't understand how they, they do that, but least in the home inspection, they know you're coming. They are trying to impress you. Yeah. Yeah. Right now

Darrell: (24:24)
Monitor that toilet issue was on purpose. They wanted,

Justin: (24:27)
I'm gonna go make sure I flush the toilet bit. are, are you, uh, have you found things that you've really saved a buyer from something that really was potentially catastrophic and everything looked nice. The sellers seemed nice and then you uncover some disastrous

Darrell: (24:43)
Curb appeal, uh, sells people. So, you know, I could hear it in their voice, on the phone when they call and then you show up and then, you know, I found the perfect eyes. Yeah. Even earlier today, before I came here, you know, you're going through the basement and uh, you know, you see a whole floor Joice, that's been eaten away by some type of, uh, you know, termite or wood destroying organ is or something

Stephen J: (25:07)
It's like finding the clue when you're doing absolutely search of the house. So anything you really see people try

Darrell: (25:13)
To hide, uh, foundations. Everybody has a parge coat on it, which is at like cement coat over the, uh, disastrous, you know, 1875 brick foundation , you know, and the floors are, you know, all unlevel and everything. So, you know, people figure out how to, to, to hide things. That's

Stephen J: (25:32)
For sure. Would you say most of the times during the inspection, do you save the buyer money or you destroy the sale?

Darrell: (25:39)
Um, at the same time, you know, finding things I'm realistic about it. Um, you know, there's inspectors out there. That'll look for the tiniest little thing that really isn't that big of a deal and they'll make an issue of it. But, uh, overall, you know, you have to be realistic, you're buying a house and these are the things that happen to houses. You know, if you're buying, if you're looking at a house that's built in 1875, then be ready for 1875 issues. Yeah. It's been remodeled very, very true. You know what I'm saying? Don't think it's a 2019 house. Uh, so you know, you just gotta have the, uh, foresight to like explain that to people. And most of 'em understand it. There's very, very few times that people haven't, uh, purchased a house after an inspection, even with some things that I would say, yeah, I probably wouldn't live fear, but you know, they get sold on, uh, whatever idea they had leading up to that, you know,

Stephen J: (26:34)
Big boom in the housing market right now. Oh yeah.

Darrell: (26:35)
Huge. Yeah. Good for you. Huge. Yeah. Really good

Justin: (26:38)
For me. Yeah. Yeah. Probably no better time ever

Darrell: (26:41)
Housing to be in the, uh, 10 years ago, I've eaten soup, bone soup in my, uh, my dining room, you know, but, uh, yeah, this is, it's been really good.

Stephen J: (26:50)
Well, you had a little insight. You had a little forethought yeah. To say, Hey, there is life after the job. Oh, absolutely. And set yourself up and I venture to guess you make your own schedule. Yeah,

Darrell: (27:00)
I do. Um, you know the thing about the market right now, everybody wants it tomorrow. And the, the contingencies and the contracts are five day windows. Normally it wouldn't be so stressful, but now, you know, every call I get, can you do it tomorrow? It's like, well, can you wait two or three days? But uh, you

Justin: (27:15)
Describe, I bought my house to this house in 2008. And, uh, back then it was, you know, easily six to eight months to close on a house. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. By the time you inspections and lawyers trying to, it was, you know, now I see people like three, four weeks. Yeah. Two weeks three. Oh

Darrell: (27:29)
My gosh. That's crazy. And the sellers aren't working with the buyers either. They're just like, well, sorry, you know, too bad. You take it or leave it. Cuz there's 15 other people behind, that's the truth. It's hot. And they're paying 20, 30, sometimes $60,000 over sticker price, you know, and

Stephen J: (27:45)
Cash. Yeah. In cash. These people are coming in cash without even seeing the house actually, you know, amazing. So Darrell, if you could go back and talk to 21 year old Darrell or somebody who's 21 years old now who wants to get to where you've been and attain the, the accolades that you have and accomplishments, what would you tell em? I actually tell

Darrell: (28:00)
This to a lot of the applicants that I do for other agencies on I is, um, don't take anything too serious out there. Be yourself and prepare for your time after the job, cuz you don't want to do this job for 30, 40 years policing. You want to do it for 20. Get out. Don't look at that extra percentage after 20 years or anything you want to get out and save yourself and you know, go back to being a family man and, and making some money cuz you're gonna make some serious money out there outside of policing.

Stephen J: (28:34)
That's for sure. It has amazed me to the people that we've talked to about what the value of the work that's done by the people we've talked to is outside of law enforcement and the fire service. A lot of our guys and the skillsets they have and the way they've gone to the business, man, they're worth a lot of money. They're making a lot of money in the time they're putting in. Yeah. Yeah. And it was funny. I, I had a guy give me a quote, not too long ago to do some work and he had just retired and he gives me the quote and I'm like, wait a second. The price of materials. I know I can figure that one paying top dollar. That means everything over. That is what you're making on this job, which is probably gonna take you two days. Right.

Stephen J: (29:11)
And it was more than that guy would make as a cop in a month. Yeah. And it's just astonish, but you know what? He's busy every day. I was gonna be six weeks away for him. If, if you know, we did the work mm-hmm and man, we forget about what our value could be. And I think people get scared. Yeah. So dunno if I stay an extra five years. It's an extra 2%. Yeah. Yeah. Well I I'm telling you right now and, and you know, Justin and I, we talk about this a lot with people. If you got a fire in your belly mm-hmm and you got a work ethic in your bones, you can make money, man. Mm-hmm and you can make a lot of money.

Justin: (29:41)
Yeah. Undervaluing yourself is, is a really typical thing in, in the business community that a lot of people struggle with. Definitely. You know, it's like a blend of imposter syndrome and yeah. Undervaluing and, and uh, it's not

Darrell: (29:54)
Easy. Yeah. And you know, not, I'm not putting down security or anything or people that do security that that's fine. Um, you know, I get it, but strive a little farther, start your own security company. And uh, don't limit yourself. You're not limited to just doing security and standing around, you know, there's other avenues and other careers out there that you can do. That's, you know, you can make way more money. The reason I left the DA's office is because I can make in a day what I was making, been there in two weeks and in, in a four hour period and then go home and finish the report. So in a day, total it's saving my life, you know, cause I could do everything else. You know, I'm exercising, going to the gym again, out on the rail trail and you know, it's, it's amazing. It's great. Well,

Stephen J: (30:36)
It's a time with the family that you're buying. Oh yeah. It's just, it's amazing getting your wife back cause you downtime. Yeah. When you're on that job, even though when you're off, you're on, you know, it's hard to turn off, but to your point with using all the skills that you can get, mm-hmm , you know, starting your own security company. Yeah. You can take the instructor course of security guards to be able to teach that while you're a police officer in New York and that's only one of the things you need to do that. So there's so many avenues. If you just open up a little bit, think about tomorrow now, today. Right? So Darrell, the last question we have, we ask every guest is how you define a hero.

Darrell: (31:08)
I define a hero as somebody that goes out and um, helps people, you know, there's so many heroes out there, you know, we're all heroes, you know, you go out and you help the community, help your friends, help your family. And um, that that's a hero, you know, because we don't all have to do that, you know, but we decide and it's our chosen profession. And even after that, uh, it continues, you know, it's, it's ingrained in you and eventually,

Stephen J: (31:36)
Well, detective Darryl, , I've known you for a long time. Yeah. Probably your almost your whole career here in, uh, Poughkeepsie. Yeah. I know that you're a hero for a lot of things that you've done. Uh, and you continue to do, you know, doing those polygraphs with those sex offenders and continue to keep them on the straight now as much as possible that's hero's work for our community. So thank you. No doubt.

Darrell: (31:56)
Thank you guys. Thank you.

Stephen J: (32:03)
I think the theme is don't lie to Darrell.

Justin: (32:05)
Yeah. I don't want to, I don't want to have to do a polygraph

Stephen J: (32:08)
Again again. Yeah. I mean the experiences he's had doing that and the little nuances that he sees when he goes to do it in home inspection now from the information he learned as a detective. Right. And being able to spot those things right away is speak volumes.

Justin: (32:25)
Yeah. Yeah. Not, not to mention the fact that when you have a, uh, a polygraph expert doing your home inspection, they're gonna see through someone else. Who's trying to get one over on

Stephen J: (32:34)
You. Yeah. I mean, to find the, uh, the, the ticks that people have when they're lying, he's already got 'em. Yeah. little different than your tick you're doing right now, but it's, it's really a two for one business. It, it actually really is the way you think about it. Well, once again, thank you for listening behind the tin and hearing about how our heroes are heroes with the tin on and off, please be sure to follow us like us share and subscribe to@behindtheten.com. Follow us on Facebook, leave us reviews. We appreciate everybody's been following us on listening and subscribing. It means so much to us and share with a friend. Of course, if you're hanging out, you're gonna have a few drinks tonight. You're at the bar say, Hey, check out the podcasts. And don't forget about us. Become a sponsorship, uh, or sponsor for cocktails over conversation. You can buy a drink or as we like to say, bye surround. Yeah. We'll drink with you once again. Thank you so much. Look out for one another and stay safe.