Family Escapes Toxic Mold

By: Stephen Andrews

Judy Harrison's story is one of physical, emotional, and financial tragedy. What began as a sound investment, soon turned into a nightmare as Judy and her family began to suffer from the consequences of poor building practices. When Judy first called me, she was very distressed. Her initial responses to my questions were disjointed and even nonsensical. After a few minutes, she settled down and told me her home was making her family sick. Over the last year, she and both her sons had been extremely ill. Her oldest son, Jason, had frequent nose bleeds and had passed out in their home several times. At one point his tongue had even turned black. Her youngest son was also sick all the time. Judy said she had chronic headaches, joint pain, pain in her internal organs, fatigue, and had also passed out in their home on two occasions. She could not concentrate and her memory was so bad she had to quit working.

After hearing Judy's story, we agreed that I would come out immediately and perform an air quality evaluation and take some samples for mold tests. When I arrived, I noticed that the home was situated on a sloping lot with portions of the first floor below grade, where water could easily settle up against the house. The exterior was framed with hardy board and the house and lawn were well maintained.

This new home was only two years old. I could not’t imagine how the environment inside a home could become so bad in such a short period of time that it could affect a family’s health so severely. But after my investigation I was convinced the house was responsible for their illness. It was the only time I ever advised someone to move out of their home immediately.

On one front corner it was apparent water was settling against the exterior wall of a ground level bedroom. The grade was above the floor slab covering a portion of a framed wall that was not designed as a retaining or foundation wall – an obvious red flag for conditions that sustain mold growth. This turned out to be Jason’s bedroom.

I walked up the flight of stairs outside and entered the home. When I first stepped inside, it appeared to be dry and no visible mold was immediately apparent on the main floor. I set up my equipment in the dinning room to begin taking air samples, but within minutes my chest began to tighten and my head began to hurt. I told Judy that I could not stay inside without wearing my respirator. After putting on my respirator I took two air samples inside, one in the dinning room and one downstairs in Jason’s bedroom. I also took one outside sample for comparison.

In Jason’s bedroom there was black mold growing on the inside of the exterior wall where water had settled outside. The moisture in the exterior wall measured eighteen percent. Moisture in the concrete slab measured a whopping thirty-five percent – well into the range where mold growth occurs. The elevated moisture in this concrete slab was probably an indication that the builder did a poor job of waterproofing, handling water drainage, installing a vapor barrier, or some combination of these three things. But whatever the reason, the high moisture level in the slab was definitely contributing to the conditions that were sustaining mold growth throughout the home.

Stachybotrys Chartarum is the official name for what most people refer to as toxic black mold. It requires an almost saturation point to sustain growth, and I find it in only about one in ten homes I sample. Bear in mind, however, that most of the homes I sample for mold have a family member or members suffering from allergies or some other illness. Judy’s home had the highest level of Stachybotrys of any home I have ever tested - and I’ve tested hundreds of homes.

As soon as I received the results, I recommended to Judy that she move her family out of the house immediately. It is difficult to make such a drastic recommendation, and it was a difficult decision for Judy to pay to live elsewhere while still making mortgage payments on an uninhabitable home.

I talked to Judy on March 6, 2008, twelve months after my initial visit. Judy told me her family was still not living in the house. Most of her furniture and family’s clothing had been covered with mold and had to be discarded, and the empty house continued to deteriorate. The family gave up everything including their beds, and had received no help from their insurance company. Judy had reached the point where she could no longer make two house payments – she could not afford two places to live. She didn't have the resources to pay for the mold clean-up, and her insurance would not pay for it, either. Her builder refused to take any responsibility or do anything to fix the problem.

When Judy originally bought the house, she wanted to keep the payments as affordable as possible. She cashed in her 401K and paid seventy thousand dollars down so her payments would be lower. Now because of an incompetent builder and no money for a lawsuit, Judy has lost her entire retirement and is losing her home to the bank.

The Harrison family’s health has slowly improved since moving out of their home. But I doubt the emotional scars and anger toward their builder will heal very soon. This story is similar to stories of thousands of other people suffering from illnesses caused by mold around the country that are helpless to do anything about it. Many don’t even know their home is the cause of their poor health. It is Judy's hope that publishing this story on our website will help others be more aware of both the physical risks of living with mold and the financial risks of purchasing a home that has not been properly built.

It will take a very long time for Judy and her family to completely recover from this situation. In the meantime, her builder has not paid one nickel and could possibly continue to use the same building practices in future homes. Regulations governing codes, inspections and testing prior to the sale of homes need to be in place to help ensure the quality of homes on the market. Consumers like Judy Harrison do not need to buy homes that act like incubators supporting mold, virus, and bacteria growth. Just testing for mold, however, is not adequate. Buildings should be carefully inspected from the construction point of view, with a scientific perspective to determine if they have been built in a way that is likely to sustain mold growth. Until more regulations are put in place, it will ultimately be up to the consumer to ensure that the home they are buying is healthy.