Living in a Habitat for Humanity Home Ruined my families health

[Guest guest]

and Wassel

726 Maple Street

Scranton, Pa 18505

wassel5@...

6/6/04

We are writing to you today because we need to tell you our story so

that maybe this problem won't happen to another innocent family like ours.

In 1993 we applied to Habitat for Humanity of Lackawanna County

Pennsylvania so we could achieve our dream of owning our own home and

providing our children with a safe and healthy environment to live in

.. We were so excited to receive notification that we were accepted

because we were struggling to save for a home . Our three children

, Mathew and Cami had been all diagnosed with asthma and we

found it difficult to save enough money to buy our own home. In 1995

Habitat for Humanity told us that they had located a property in our

neighborhood that would fit the needs our family. The property was a

two bedroom home that had been vacant and run down and needed plenty

of work . We loved the location of the home because of the close

proximity to our children's school. We questioned Habitat about the

extent of work that needed to be done to the house, , including the

basement which had a dirt floor covered with stagnant water. We were

assured that the house would be renovated ,inspected, and tested

before we moved in . We felt confident that everything would be fine

after we discussed the problems with the project manager.

In April 1996 we started to work on the house with members of

Habitat and numerous volunteers . We were excited to see all of the

work that was accomplished in just one day . Shortly afterwards we hit

a roadblock, the city put a stop to the project because no one filed

the necessary permits to do any work. Weeks went by and there was no

progress. Finally we got the o.k. to start again but this time there

were no volunteers and there was no plan on how the project was to

proceed.

We continued to work on the home many times with only one member of

Habitat for Humanity around . We stopped keeping track of our Sweat

Equity Hours after seven hundred hours. We felt like there would never

be an end to the project . Finally after 12 months of work Habitat

convinced us to take occupancy even though the house was not finished

.. did not want to move in because she felt that Habitat would

never finish the house properly or sign it over to us. The house still

needed plenty of work , which included rain gutters, a window in the

laundry room , the basement door wasn't in place and a retaining wall

needed to be built to divert rain water from entering the basement.

After many promises from Habitat to finish the house we agreed to

move in .

Shortly after we moved in we started having problems with rain water

flooding our basement. After many calls to Habitat from us and our

physician they agreed to come over and look at the problem . They

decided to install a sump pump in one corner of the basement to drain

the water after it entered the house. We asked when the rain gutters

would be in place and we were told that they decided not to install

them because they would cause ice damage to the roof in the winter

time, and they also said that they were illegal . We were also

reminded that the cost of rehabbing our house was over budget and they

were not sure when they would be able to purchase them . After a few

more rainstorms and many phone calls Habitat agreed to have gutters

installed only on one side of the house . When the gutter company

installed the rain gutters they installed them on the wrong side of

the house . So Habitat had no choice but to pay to have the other half

installed . With no surprise to us, most of the water stopped coming

into the basement . We decided to build the retaining wall in front of

the basement door ourselves and replace the basement door so no more

rainwater would enter the basement. Finally, we no longer had trouble

with water in the basement , unfortunately we had to throw away many

boxes with our belongings in the trash. We continued to finish the

projects left behind while dealing with what seemed to be a sudden

increase in illnesses with our young children.

In December 1996 while working on the house our oldest son

was rushed to the hospital with chest pains . The doctor told us he

needed to be transported to a different hospital because he had a

collapsed lung and was in danger of cardiac arrest. After many tests

at Geisinger hospital in Danville, Pa we were told that he had strep

throat and a sinus and ear infections that triggered his lung to

collapse which included a pneumothorax. After months of medication

and rest, he seemed to recover . Shortly after moving into our home we

noticed our children were always sick and at the doctors with one

infection after another. In 1998 our son Mathew needed to have his

adnoids removed because he had continuous sinus and throat infections

that were affecting his diabetes. After returning home he started to

get sick again and was readmitted to the hospital because he slipped

into Keto-Acidosis due to his illness and being an insulin dependent

diabetic. He also took months to recover from the complications after

the surgery. It seemed that we spent most of our time either at the

doctors office or the pharmacy getting antibiotics for our children.

Time went by and we figured that our family was having bad luck with

our health and there was many families who had it worse so we should

just deal with it as best as we could .

We continued to enjoy the fact that we were in our own home but we

could not understand why we never received a Mortgage Agreement from

Habitat but continued to make our monthly payments . After asking many

times when we would be signing a mortgage agreement we were told that

the lawyers for Habitat were getting around to it . We were told that

their attorney works on a Pro-Bono level and that we would need to be

patient. It later came to our knowledge that there was at least a half

a dozen families waiting just as long as we were and still no mortgage

agreement .

In October 2001after numerous illnesses and diagnoses our children's

pediatrician suggested that we have our house tested for environmental

allergies and irritants . We didn't feel that it was necessary but he

insisted because of the continuous need for antibiotics and various

medical problems since moving into the house. He felt it was not

normal and he felt something was causing all of this trouble . We

contacted Habitat for the testing because we still didn't own the home

and felt it was there responsibility. After much resistance they

finally agree to limited testing due to the expense of the tests that

needed to be performed . In November 2001 Habitat hired Coccardi and

Associates to do minimal testing in a few spots in the house . They

HEPA vacuumed and cleaned suspected spots in the attic and basement

with a Clorox based cleanser . When the results from the tests were

shown to us in Feb 2001 we were told that there was six different

types of mold present and that the previous remediation process was

sufficient in cleansing the affected areas. We accepted their

explanation and believed what we were told . In April 2001 we read an

article in the Sunday paper showing a family that had lost their home

and health to exposure to Toxic Molds. We were shocked to see the

names of the molds that were defined as Toxic in this families home

because two of these mold were found in our home . Without further

hesitation we immediately contacted Habitat for Humanity about what we

had read and they agreed to have a second opinion by another

environmental company . Shortly afterwards Habitat for Humanity hired

Tech Clean Co to take more samples and after a few weeks the results

came back from the lab. A rep from Tech Clean explain that they found

even higher levels of mold present in the house . They said that our

family was probably hyper- sensitive to the molds from living in a

mold environment and that they would remediate the house with a

peroxide based solution that would seal in the mold rather than trying

to remove it .They said they would warranty their work but could not

guarantee our children's health. Our physician did not agree and

suggested that we should vacate the house immediately . We left the

house with only our children's medicines and clothing .

Habitat agreed that we should leave and they offered to provide us

with a hotel room to live while they worked out the details of

removing the home and putting up a modular home . They agreed with our

physician that the home was not safe to live in and it would need to

be destroyed and rebuilt . Living in that house was no longer an

option . After three weeks in a motel room we received a call from the

manager of the motel that Habitat would no longer pay for our room and

that we need to leave by Sunday. This only gave us two days to find a

place to stay. Now we found ourselves with no place to live. Habitat

requested to meet with us and presented us with two options. (1) Move

back into the house after Tech -Clean remediates the house.(2) They

will build a new house in a different neighborhood for us where they

had block grant money in place to build more homes. Our physician

didn't agree with option one for obvious reasons and didn't agree with

option two because it is located in a commercial environment next to

an active railway which would only add to their medical problems after

living in a Toxic Mold environment. When we explained our doctors

decision to them they said they had no other options for us and said

to take it or leave it.

We emailed a letter to the Regional Manager for Habitat for

Humanity Mr. Hoffman explaining the problems that we were

experiencing but he only responded to us by saying he would see what

he could do. He spoke to the president of Habitat for Humanity of

Lackawanna County and he requested that she should meet with us so we

could find a resolution to our problem. We met with Sister

Persico and found out that she had no idea of the extent of the

damages from Toxic Mold and the expenses that were involved in

repairing the property . When she heard the details of the work that

needed to be done she agreed that remediation wasn't an option because

of the expense. She explained to us that the money that was already

spent on the house was way over budget. We feel that we are being

penalized for Habitat's poor judgment .

In September 2002 the executive director for Habitat for Humanity

Mr. Ozzie Quinn requested for to meet him at the house

because he needed yet another mold company (Datom Products ) to take

samples of the house so he could file a claim with an insurance

company. We come to find out later by a represenative from Travelers

Insurance that Mr. Quinn was submitting claims in our name without our

consent. The last we heard Travelers Insurance Co was investigating

insurance fraud against Habitat for Humanity. Datom Inc. opened a

large portion of our sons bedroom wall and found black mold traveling

up along the wall and suspected that it may be Stachybotrus - a

extremely dangerous Toxic Mold . Afterwards our physician requested

that we contact Habitat's attorney Mrs. Naro requesting a copy

of the test results from Datoms samples and she replied by saying

" They would not give any information about the testing because what

was in that house was irrelevant to our children's health since we no

longer lived there " . explained that our physician wanted them

so that maybe there would be information that might help him resolve

some of our children`s medical problems .Ms Naro still said no.

called Datom Products and asked if we could pay to have the

home tested since Habitat would not let our physician see any results

from the testing. We borrowed $3500.00 to finally find out what was in

our home and after the test results came back we were shocked at what

we were told . Not only was there Stochbotyrus in the wall it was also

found in the air which indicates extremely high levels of Toxic Mold.

A few months later we received a call from Habitat requesting the

house should be winterized . We assured them that it was because we

requested for the utility companies to turn of all of the services

in the summer. On January 28, 2003 we received a phone call from our

neighbor telling us that a water pipe had burst and both of our

basements were flooded. When Mr. Quinn found out about the water

damage he accused both of us of forgetting to have the house

winterized . We explained to him that we requested to have the water

turned off months earlier and tried to show him the copy of our water

bill stating that we requested to have the water service turned off

but he continued to yell at us and walked away. We contacted the water

company and they admitted that their technician failed to turn off the

water and apologized for the error. The following day we receive a

call from Mr. Quinn requesting that we returned the keys to the house

that still had all of our belongings in it by 1:30 that day . We told

him we would try our best because we were already on the way to the

doctors office with our oldest son because we was feeling ill .

Mr. Quinn said if we didn't show up they would have to break the locks

to get in.

We made it to the house at exactly 1:15 but Habitat's project

manager Bill Musgrave had already broken in by busting the locks on

the front door. When we asked him why he didn't wait he said it didn't

matter the house didn't belong to us anymore. Mr. Quinn ordered Mr.

Muskgrave to padlock the doors and left us standing there with the

keys in our hands. A few days later we received a registered letter

from Mr. Quinn informing us we had two weeks to remove all of our

belongings or they would dispose of them . When we explained to Mr.

Quinn that T.J. Jimmie from Datom Products said our belongs were not

safe to remove without proper steps being taken, Mr. Quinn said we had

no choice but to comply to the letter or they would have to remove all

of our belongings themselves and dispose of them as they seen fit. We

were told by experts that the house and the belongings were

contaminated and that no one should be in the house or to remove the

belongings. True to his word Mr. Quinn hired a moving and storage

company, exposing innocent people, to remove all of our furniture and

all of other belongs as they seen fit. We could not believe an

organization such as Habitat for Humanity could let things get so out

of control like this . We were devastated to see everything we worked

so hard to achieve being throw away and afraid that what may have been

given away had exposed innocent people .

Through this whole ordeal we had contacted numerous attorneys only

to get the same response, they felt bad for us and that we did have a

case but they would not be able to help us . Many would not even

review our case once they found out it was Habitat for Humanity that

was involved in this matter.

We have taken our children to see a mold allergist in Bridgeport

Connecticut and he explained to us that some of the damages to our

immune systems and medical conditions caused from living in the home

will be permanent and we will never recover completely .Our oldest

son has been diagnosed with an I.G.A. immunity deficiency and

also suffers from neurological damage . He has suffered from gastro

intestinal reflux disease ,irritable bowel syndrome and recurrent

infections . Our son Mathew has dealt with numerous infections ,

gastro intestinal reflux , irritable bowel syndrome and also suffers

from diabetes. Our daughter Cami has been diagnose with Fibro Myalgia

and an elevated A.N.A level which can lead to Rheumatoid Arthritis or

even Lupis . Cami is also a diabetic. As you can see we have had more

than our share of medical problems since living in that house and we

would never want to see anyone go through what our family has in the

past few years . To add insult to injury Habitat has since sold the

house to a private buyer and now we are afraid that the new owner is

not fully aware of all of the problems that have been found with the

house . We just cant imagine some other family suffering the way our

family has .

We honestly believe in the great work that Habitat for Humanity

International has accomplished and still believe in its mission of

providing decent , affordable house to hard working families . Somehow

our family has fallen through the cracks and has suffered great

consequences for other peoples mistakes . We hope that you receive

this letter and read it with an open mind and believe what we have

told you. We have documentation on all of the facts that we have

stated in this letter. We have learned to deal with all of our

financial loses and we are still struggling with all of our health

problems but we hope that by writing to you today we can help prevent

another family from suffering the way our family has .

We would like to thank you for your time and understanding in this

matter .

Sincerely ,

and Wassel