So, while listening to House, I heard him saying he'd spent decades hiring salvagers to have the Platinum Chip brought to him, but House (and by proxy) the Strip have only been around for seven years. Before this time, The Lucky 38 was sealed and he had no real source of income to hire these salvagers, so how could this be? This isn't the first hole in the writing of New Vegas I've found though, so is this another hole in writing or am I perhaps missing something?

Maybe only awake for 7 years. He was awake for some time after the bombs fell but had to go into hibernation after a power failure so he could have had his securitrons out dealing with scavengers and whoever else during that time.

I'm aware of that. He's been awake longer, just sitting idle in the Lucky 38.The question still remains on how he could have hired salvagers when House wasn't doing business until he emerged from the Lucky 38.

House may be embellishing. There is no rule in Fallout that NPCs can't embellish or even outright lie to you. Not like it is in The Elder Scrolls.

True, but House never lies to you the whole game through, so it's kind of illogical to lie about something not worth lying about in passing. Not saying House is incapable of lying, it's just that there's no real reason to saying you'd spent decades looking for it. I suppose he could have had his robots scavenge weapons and tech maybe.

He specifically mentions salvagers. He doesn't mention the extent to which he paid them. He may have upped the amount of money spent on it once he got New Vegas up and running. He may have dealt through intermediaries before.