As far as I can tell, mostly insurance work of various
kinds, pre-employment checks, sweeps against bugs, although
occasionally the newspaper mentions a PI on a criminal case.
Look for yourself what they offer in a small U.S. state
capital:
Here's the three pages of
Pennsylvania state listings for a PI trade group: http://www.pimall.com/NAIS/d-pa.html.
Mostly workers' comp surveillance,
according to this local article:
http://www.centralpa.org/archives/01may3detectives.html.
Here's the website of an outfit with
a handsome street-level office on restaurant row (and near
the state capitol); check out the picture of the camera tie:
http://www.gittingspi.com/pages/1/index.htm,
so certainly they have offices, if not the stereotype.
Joy
Jacques Debierue asked:
> What exactly does the real present-day PI do? Surely
he can't be doing
> much "divorce work", or chasing the proverbial
"missing daughter"?
> Does he even drink or want to? Does he have or need
an office, or does
> he work from home and his SUV? Who hires
him?
>
> I ask these things because life has changed so much
since the classic
> era of the PI with bottle, pretty and/or motherly
secretary, hostile
> cops (except for one who remains grudgingly loyal),
etc. etc.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 11 Aug 2006 EDT