That's almost definitely just a sewer inspection van; I found videos that company has of "multi-sensor pipeline inspections" with the same van, open, with the same equipment visible, and a bunch of people following a bunch of equipment down into a manhole.
As an aside, if you are purchasing an older home make sure you pay for a sewer line inspection. I had no idea this was a thing until a few years later when I had to replace mine and it cost ~$25,000.
I also have an older home and we had to repair our sewer line. It was clay pipe which had broken in a few spots and had major root intrusion. Thankfully there's some newer technology that makes it significantly cheaper in the right circumstances -- instead of digging up your street connection and laying in new pipe they can blow an epoxy-soaked liner into your existing pipe, then run a curing light through it. It ended up being less than 40% of the cost of replacement and works just as well.
We had ours done when we moved in a couple years ago and it was a cool snakey camera thing; they only got us out to the service line; past that would have been a lot more elaborate. Also: that video feed? Pretty gross.
As an aside: I think a lot of people here would be surprised at the amount of technology (and surveillance) that goes into setting speed limits and placing stop signs in residential areas.
A lot of people might also be surprised how frequently traffic engineers will OK unnecessary and less safe four way stops in order to get the annoying citizen pestering them to just leave them alone.
The neighborhood that I have to drive through to get from where I live to where I work hates that their precious little neighborhood is used as a commuter route by a lot of people, so they stuck stop signs EVERY. SINGLE. BLOCK.
I make sure to come to a complete fucking stop at every one of those signs. Partially because I hate the feeling of rolling through stop signs, but partially out of spite lol.
how far is that sewer line run, 6 miles? they usually just bore it out and put a PVC sleeve inside. This is done with the cast iron sewer lines, because if they're not properly taken care of, they will rust into nothing and then you just have a suggestion of a hole through the dirt to the sewer line.
my lines are 4" PVC, if we somehow clog those, someone call me an ambulance.
The old shitty clay lines are what you find in most rentals in SoCal. Then one day none of your toilets flushes and the landlord says you flush too many wipes down the toilet. You argue and they make you pay for a plumber who's like "yea they all do that DONT USE WIPES!!!!!One!!!" And then finally after getting to know every other plumber in town, one offers to run a camera for free and shows you that the main line is fucking falling apart and that's why it keeps plugging up.
TBH sewer main inspections should be required any time someone wants to rent a house out.
I don't think it's very plausible. The subtext of the photo is "that looks comically unlike what you'd inspect from a sewer inspection van". Well, I can tell you pretty much for sure: thats' what the inside of a sewer inspection van from that company looks like.
It took just a couple minutes (less than 5) to go look this up and find the video, for what it's worth.
Maybe it's an NSA wet team! Wet, because they do sewer inspection work. :)
I think if they're buying a fake sewer inspection van they're probably smart enough to find one that doesn't look to people on the Internet like it's a prop out of the movie Enemy of the State.
I hope the owner of the company doesn't read this. They probably like their designs! :)
I just went to Google maps to the address written on the van's passenger door and lo and behold, Google did drive down the alley behind and while this is a larger vehicle and not just a van, that's their look (they also have black versions if you look around): https://www.google.com/maps/@33.7851188,-118.211276,3a,67.3y...
