Question..new to group (long and sorry about that!) House of Mold

[Guest guest]

Hello All..I hope everyone is having a good week. I am new to the group and

guess I am grasping at straws. I thought some of you on here may have some

information I could find useful. My husband thinks I am crazy and overreacting

and I don't know much about mold, etc. but just call it a " feeling " that

something is not right. No one will listen to me and it is driving me mad! I

am a stay at home mom of two and do not have a lot of income to waste by calling

a mold specialist, etc. so my options are not great. We bought our current

house three years ago. We didn't know much about buying a house obviously.

This is our second money pit. But the house is in a subdivision that has a

large pond and it seems to be murky around here...mold on side of houses, mold

smell in air, etc. Our house didn't have gutters and we paid an inspector to

check it out for us at a cost of $1,000 (we already tried to hold him and the

previous owneer accountable to no avail..you have to have money to hire and

attorney to sue people and we spent all of our savings on our down payment and

inspection fees) The inspector at the time told us our house was fine and it

had a sump pump. I know, red flag but we just had no knowledge of mold or

anything and never had a water problem before. The carpets were " new " , etc.

There were tons of air fresheners in the outlets when we saw the house and it

smelled fine. When we moved in (I am trying to not drag this out!) we took the

fresheners out of the walls because it was overpowering. About 3 days later I

started smelling a strong musty odor. I have very good smell and it seemed no

one else but me smelled it. My friends who came to visit smelled something but

not sure what it was. Then I started smelling cat. To make a long story short

about 2 weeks after we moved into the house turns out these big stains started

appearing on the carpet. They were pee and poop stains coming up from whomever

owned the house before us. I tried to ignore it thinking it would go away but

it got worse and after a month in the house I had to do something...it smelled

like a cat box. My husband kept saying he didn't smell anything and I don't get

it because everyone else did. It was embarassing. I was afraid my kids would

get sick. We were dead broke and I called my attorney for the closing who told

me since the person who sold us the house was a flipper and didn't live in the

house then we could not sue her because she would claim she didn't know and all

the disclosures we got did not apply now. We called our inspector who claimed

ignorance. Basically, it was tough on us. I felt hopeless. The best we could

do is pull the carpet up which brought us to ply wood floors. The floors had

big stains on them and the areas along the walls was all wet looking. Like it

had been wet but dried. Just horrible. We put KILZ to try and get some of the

stench down and it worked. My husband took plywood and stained it and put it

down like a regular wood floor and polyurathaned it in the boys rooms. It does

not smell like cat in there anymore but it still smells musty as heck and I have

damp rids all over that get filled up in two weeks in their rooms. I cought a

lot in there and I noticed the boys cough some at night. These " oily " spots

appear on their walls and I am not sure what that is. There is no mold visible

anywhere in the house but I know it is here. My husband keeps telling me I am

imagining things but I know I am not. I suspect he just doesn't have the money

to fix it and is trying to act like it is not happening. We have some spots on

our ceiling which leads me to believe there are small leaks in the roof coming

into our attic. We have been up there and see no mold or water. We also had

someone go under the house and says there doesn't appear to be mold and the sump

pump is working right but that we need to get it " wrapped " better and of course,

we have no money for that right now. We are trying to figure out how to finish

the floors as we have most of our carpet torn out now and it looks horrible..not

like a home. Dirty plywood floors..not what I hoped for my sons when we bought

this house. We need a new rood. I am just beside myself. Anyway, when I walk

in this house I smell mold and it smells musty everywhere. I can't find it but

I know it is here. I did a home mold test the first year and it came up with

all this mold but didn't tell me what it was or if it was dangerous, etc I did

a little research and know some mold is normal. How do you know what is normal

and what is not? How do you find out without spending the $400.00 most of the

people around here charge just to come out and test much less anything else?

What can I do? Since I have moved in here I have gained a LOT of weight from

depression and am fuzzy headed all the time, joints hurt, especially in my

elbows. Weird rash on hands and growths I never had before. Throat always sore

upon waking with junk in eyes. Kind of like having allergies but I have never

had allergies. I feel fine out of the house most of the time. I am getting to

the point that being home is making me unhappy. I worry for my kids..they cough

at night and seem to have gotten worse in school..I don't know if that is

because they are getting older and school is harder or they are having

concentration problems. I could go on and on. I have one room with carpet

still in it..it is the den. It smells so bad we don't even open the doors to it

and when we do...oh no. The weird thing is when it rains. When it rains our

house gets like a swamp. I can't explain it. We get condensation on the

windows and it gets a feeling of humidity in the house. The DEN is the worst.

If you go in there during a storn you almost feel pressure in your head. I

can't explain it and I know I sound mad. I swear, I am not imagining this!

Does this sound familiar to anyone? If anything I have always lived in houses

with dry air problems and had to always run the humidifier if the kids were

sick. I threw that out a long time ago and would not DARE run one in here! Can

anyone give me any advice or tell me where to turn to solve this problem without

having to need a huge bank account? I would sell the house but am sure with the

problems it has and the floors torn up that would not work. Besides walking

away from it and losing my house and the large downpayment, etc. I can't think

of anything to do but my kids and our health is more important that a house. I

guess what I need to know is if there IS a problem. Then I could be better

informed as to what to do next. Sorry for rambling! I hope someone here has

some insight. Thanks so much, Laurie