Talk Mold

My wife and I purchased our first home August 31, 2007, 2 weeks before I deployed to Iraq and this is our story.

After moving into our 3100 SqFt two story dream home, I deployed to Iraq for 7 months while my Wife and 2yr old son awaited my return. Not long after I had left, things started to go wrong at our house. The water cooled A/C unit quit blowing cold and hot air. We did purchase a 1yr home owners warranty that in black in white stated our A/C unit would be covered if it goes out. We will get to that later in this story. My wife called an A/C tech who worked solely with water cooled systems, who swore up and down it was fixed. It was fixed alright, for the time he was there, after he left the thing broke again. She had them come out about 3 times to fix it, with no luck. November came around and the temp dropped, and my wife and son were in a very large home with no central heat, so they had no choice but to vacate the home and live with other family until my return.

I returned home early April 2008 only to be burdened by bill collectors who claimed they fixed our A/C unit. I told them they aren’t getting there money until they fix my unit. We then called our home owners warranty company, and they agreed it would be covered by them to have it fixed, until they found out it was a water cooled source. They then denied our claim and said we must pay to have it fixed. Our 5th attempt to have it fixed, the repair man came out and pretty much said there is no fixing this dinosaur, it must be replaced by a whole new unit. Price range for proper BTU’s and installation was a whopping $11,000. Not like I have that just lying around. So for cool A/C, we used 3 window units which worked ok until our power bill arrived. We had to “suck it up” due to Jacksonville, NC humidity and heat. We planned on using our tax returns for a new unit.

May 2008 came around, grass started growing again, and outside work commenced. Upon discovering the million coaxial cables running under the bottom of the vinyl siding, we disconnected the ones that were not used, which happen to be all of them. We pulled some cable down, and along with the cable came some of the wood that previously been attached to our house. Apparently the wood had been getting wet for some time and to top it all, there was no water or moisture barrier under the vinyl siding. The “particle board” (Bear Hyde, fiber board, formaldehyde) that was under the vinyl had been completely saturated with water and expanded from what used to be ¾” to about 3” no lie. The wood completely separated from the studs of the exterior wall, and you could see the pink insulation and inside drywall from the outside. The first instinct was to call our Homeowners Insurance, which we did. They sent an adjuster out to the house who took a look at it. She noted that it looks like water from rain was bouncing off the concrete porch and going under the “bottom” piece of the siding. She stated that she believes we caught it early enough and that the front bottom sections should only have to be replaced. She also said unfortunately, it is not covered under our policy. So we were stuck with the damages that seemed to be pretty minor from what she said. Before I go on I want to talk a little bit about the house.

Our house was built in 1976 and the previous owners lived here for about 12 years. They got it as a VA Repo really cheap. They did some modifications to the house, and made it look beautiful for their sale. They even paid to have a new roof put on the house, and they mentioned that the roof has “never” leaked before. We paid for a home inspector that was set up by our Real Estate Agent, to inspect the home, and our decision would come from that report. He did what we thought was a complete and very thorough inspection, most everything seemed to be cosmetic and the house was in good working order. His report never included any structural damage, water damage, improper electrical wiring, improper plumbing, or any type of mold growth. The sellers were in a real hurry to hand this house over, they left 2weeks before closing and didn’t even show up at closing. Anyways, lets get back to the story.

June 2008 came along with the many pop up thunderstorms and wind. Also, our toilet started leaking so we called again our home owners warranty, who surprisingly covered the expenses to have it fixed. Plumbers came to the house and noted that the flooring under the toilet had been water damaged due to the leak and left it at that. Right after that our A/C unit stopped working all together, wouldn’t even turn on. So I ripped it out of the stairway closet, opened it up and found nothing but rust, rot, and mold on the inside. This thing was not repairable at all. I stripped it down and took the copper, aluminum, and metal and cashed it in at the scrap yard. I hoped to have a new unit by fall, so we had a heat source for the winter of 2008, well we didn’t quite make it that far.

July 2008, I received a frantic phone call from my wife that one of the electrical outlets upstairs started on fire and nothing was plugged into it. I advised her to cut the main power off and call 911, she did and the result of the fire still unknown at the time. The fire dept advised us not to turn the power on until an electrician fixes and looked at the wiring. Well, we had no power for 24 hours, all our food in our fridge and freezer went bad, and we had to pay to stay in a hotel room. Prior to checking into the hotel, I called my insurance company who told me not to worry, that the hotel cost would be reimbursed and the all the food lost would be reimbursable, but they would not pay to have the electrical wiring fixed or looked at. So we called our homeowners warranty and to our surprise they sent an electrician to the house and paid for the labor and parts. His assessment of the reason the fire started was due to the wire had been loosened around the screw. I asked if maybe it had been getting moisture in it and he said absolutely not, this house is pretty solid and water proofed, and I said ok sir. That was fixed and we moved on. Our insurance adjuster came out after the outlet and wiring had been fixed, and told us to make a grocery list with prices and send them the hotel receipt and she would send us a check in the mail. We did just that and her words were in writing, “After careful review of your policy, I noticed this would not be covered under your policy.” So, I started to get puzzled and thought, “what do you cover.” They said most policies come with food and hotel reimbursement, but ours didn’t because we didn’t elect to have it from the beginning. Well I called them to check what was on my policy, and they mentioned that our policy was for an amount which was half of what we paid for the house. I asked if our house had to be rebuilt, you would only pay half, so I raised it to the amount of replacement cost in the event we had a total lost, and refinanced with another bank.

July - August 2008, we had more storms and more wind. Upon following up on our policy and talking about the fire instance, the agent asked why we didn’t run our first claim about the water damage through our wind and hail policy? We told him we didn’t know it was a separate entity and our homeowners never mentioned it to us. We put it in through our wind and hail policy as wind driven rain getting in under the vinyl siding. An adjuster came out to the house, took pictures, and that was it, we heard nothing back from him and the agent in the claims dept told us to go ahead and make necessary repairs until they figure out if it would be covered. Well in the mean time we had a faux above the front door that fell down. When it came off, it pulled a mass of vinyl siding off of the house revealing the bear hyde, which had been severely water damaged. We called our agent again and she told us to make repairs and she would be sending an engineer out to the home. While waiting on him, we had more storms and wind, and more pieces of siding came off the house. I had pulled some back in order to try to fit some of siding back in, but had no luck. The engineer came out and pretty much said that this had not been caused by the perils of wind or wind driving rain, that the wood would get wet during any rain storm regardless of wind. They denied our claim and pretty much said thanks for the call and have fun fixing this. It took us a couple of weeks to hear back from the insurance company and another week to get a copy of the engineers report. But in his report he mentioned that due to the improper construction of the vinyl siding and installation of the windows, water had been able to flow behind the siding and down the house. We have approx 3500SqFt worth of exterior walls. He didn’t mention anything about the structure being severely water damaged or the possibility of mold growing in our walls, in fact no one mentioned it to us at all. The sellers of the house told us the windows were put in about 2yrs before we purchased and the siding had been put on around that time too. So whoever had completed these tasks, knew about the wood have severe water damage because there was new wood nailed to the old rotted wood.

I finally accepted the fact that they wouldn’t pay for any of this, so I planned on replacing the vinyl myself along with any damaged exterior wood. Upon tearing about an 8 foot section from ground up of vinyl siding, I noticed that all the bear hyde had be saturated with water and had grey mold and fungus growing on it. So instead of just having to pay for siding, I now had to buy all new ply wood that would cover the 3500SqFt. After removing a section of the damaged bear hyde, the insulation that is normally pink, had been turned black, green, and purple, and was saturated with water and had a God awful smell to it. Now we knew where the musty odors came from, the mold in between the walls. Now I have to replace all the vinyl siding, all the exterior bear hyde and all the insulation around the house. After removing some of the black insulation, I noticed the dry was wet, and had black stacked mold covering the bottom to mid portion of the dry wall. I became sick after that night which made my throat itch and I had some minor chest pains, we’ll get to that later. So now the siding, bear hyde, insulation, and dry wall has to be replaced. The studs that the exterior wood and interior dry-wall attach to, had been completely rotted through, and had enormous amounts of black mold covering it. Now I have to replace the siding, bear hyde, insulation, dry wall, and studs around various places of the house, at least I thought. I became very curious to other portions of the home that may have damage to it, and every where I checked, the same story applied. The entire house had such bad water damage, that I could take my hands and crush through the 2X6’s that structured the house. Not good at all. I called many contractors, and home inspectors to look at my house, and they all said this house is in very very bad condition. We went into the attic after hearing boards fall to the ground, and noticed that the attic rafters were bowing, the roof is sinking, and there had been towels stapled to the rafters. We have only been up there a few times before, but for a short time, this is a place that isn’t traveled too much. Upon spending 20mins up there, I became very sick, my throat was killing me, my chest started hurting, I became very confused, dizzy and disoriented, my head felt like I just ate ice as fast as I could to get a brain freeze, it hurt so bad. I used a pole to pull away the blown in insulation and to my surprise, the bottom half was dry, but covered with a dark blackish greenish mold. We spent another 30mins up there trying to put the insulation into industrial sized trash bags until we both became extremely sickened. We quit and left everything up there. I got to thinking, the previous owners never mentioned the roof ever leaking before, but from the mold and water stains on the wood under the tar mat, it was obvious. This has been leaking for some time. Looking at other places of the home, we noticed drywall on the ceiling that had been water damaged one point and time, but newer popcorn had been put over it. The tape was coming off of the cracks and started to reveal evidential water problems. From here, my life went further down the drain.

I got my command involved with this issue and they directed me to vacate the house because of the extensive mold and structural damage, so we checked into the hotel on base. I now am paying for a mortgage and a hotel which is really starting to dip into my pockets. We have been living in different hotels around the area for about 3 weeks now, and the funds are starting to wither away rapidly. Also we hired another home inspector and he could not believe that this house had passed the first home inspection. My wife and I started doing research online about different types of house hold molds, and it was suggested to buy a few mold test kits and see what they bring. Well, we did just that so we set a test kit in the kitchen, the upstairs loft, and the attic. We also took two samples from the drywall and the attic insulation and waited for growth. Usually it takes 48-72 hours before the first sign of mold growth, but after just 24 hours, first signs of this viscous life started. We waited another 24 and than another 24, so after 72 hours, our test kits were full of colorful mold, including dark black spots. We knew our mold problem was bad, but what we discovered over the next few days was even worse. We researched online about water damaged homes, and possible mold growth and types. Every search came back with, “Black Mold”, “Toxic Mold”, “Toxic Black Mold”, Stachybotrys.
All the signs and symptoms pointed to this particular toxic mold along with a few others, but this was the most abundant in our search. The places where it was growing, the color, the texture, the circumstances, temp, humidity, and other factors all lead to Stachybotrys. We had been experiencing the symptoms of: Nose bleeds, severe headaches, chronic cough, shortness of breath, itchy throat, chronic soar throats, flu-like symptoms, stomach pains, confusion, loss of memory, discomfort in the lungs, and coughing up the nastiest looking junk. We called an mold abatement team who looked at our “Mold problems” and he told us we have a severe mold problem and if it is Stachybotrys, we need to stay away especially our 3yr old son. He recommend us have a hygienist come out and take air samples as well as physical samples, and to inspect our mold problem. The minute he walked into the home, he experienced discomfort. He looked at our walls and guaranteed that the black mold through out the house had been in fact stachybotrys Toxic Mold. We asked him what we needed to do and he said get an attorney and keep away from the house. He also said that our house is as good as gone and don’t be surprised if our belongings go with it. Stachybotrys is a very potent toxic mold, and while it does give off toxic spores containing mycotoxins, they burrow deep into porous materials and its next to impossible to remove them. All our close, beds, papers, pictures, couches, carpets, wood, drywall, insulation, everything is ruined.

It is now middle of September 2008 and we are still stuck in a rut. We are still paying on a mortgage on a 3,100 SqFt home that we can no longer and never again live in. We have contacted our investor, our lender, the VA office, Erin Brochavich, the Maury Show, the Dr. Phil show, news channels, the American Red Cross, Habitat for Humane, Social Services, the NC Attorney General, the NC Governor, most of the NC Government offices, the list goes on and on. We are unable to find an attorney who will take our case, we’ve exhausted our resources and are on the verge of a meltdown. The most common advice we are getting from people is to foreclose on the house and just move on. Why should my credit have to suffer. My family and I have been deceived by these sellers who did a great job to cover this up. We have lost everything we have worked for, all of our belongings, all of our investment, but most of all, our American Dream. Is this what America is about now and days, just out for the dollar. Where is the “Kind word from a stranger” or the “Give me your tired, your hungry, your poor and huddled masses”. It is my family who is tired, who is hungry, who is poor. We have a complete loss and all we are supposed to do is foreclose. There must be other ways of doing this.

The way my family and I look at it is this:
-We could foreclose on our house and ruin our credit and chances of getting another VA loan or any mortgage in that matter.
-We could put a camper on the property and live there until this all get sorted out,
-We could move into base housing, in return will take away my housing allowance and still have to foreclose on the house.
-I could move my wife and son back home with family and move into the barracks, lose my food allowance, struggle with a mortgage, their utilities, get another vehicle, pay for high gas to travel back and forth every weekend, when its hard enough I deploy to Iraq 7 months out of the year so there goes our “family time”.

We have narrowed it down to this plan:
-Hire an Attorney.
-Buy a camper to pull up on the property so we can pay the mortgage and live with no additional housing expenses.
-Have another pole put in the ground for electricity, and have a pipe ran for water and septic.
-Buy protective clothing and masks to completely demolish the house, salvage anything that can be of value IE.. Copper wire, Aluminum, brass etc…
-Rebuild our house over a period of years until it’s complete.
-Don’t give up on our American dream.
It would solve some of the most important problems like:
-We will still be together as a family,
-We will have a place to live and afford it,
-Allow us to save money
-And keep our house from going into foreclosure.
All we need is some help from the American people, the one’s who still care about their brother’s and sister’s during times of hardship. I am down on my knees begging for help, help us keep our dream, help us get our feet back on the ground, help us get what’s right.