Family's mold nightmare inspiring legislation

[Guest guest]

Family's mold nightmare inspiring legislation

March 28, 2011 7:46 AM

By JILL MOON

http://www.thetelegraph.com/articles/house-52070-mold-farrises.html

BETHALTO - Holly and Farris' nightmare at 111 S. Kingdom St. started more

than a year ago when they bought their first house, which turned out to be

infested with what they say is toxic mold.

After a series of oversights, the Farrises now say they own a house that they

cannot live in; have a First Time Home Buyers tax credit they probably have to

pay back; and have a daughter still recovering from severe sinus infections

suspected as a result of living in the house.

State Rep. Dan Beiser, D-Alton, said he plans to introduce legislation, inspired

by the Farrises' situation, that would require real estate agents to disclose

when toxic mold exists in saleable real estate structures.

" I don't want this to happen to anybody else, " said Holly Farris, who is living

with her family in another Bethalto house provided by the Madison County Urban

League.

Although they didn't know it at the time, the house was being sold as part of an

estate.

" I thought the people living (at Kingdom Street) owned it; it wasn't listed as

an estate, which means the owner is dead, and it should have been listed as an

estate, because the owner is dead. "

Had the house been listed as an estate, which means " as is, " the Farrises would

not have looked at it at all, she said.

" Because it means no one could help you if there was a problem, " she explained.

Beiser is sympathetic to the Farris' situation.

" She is in contact with me and my staff, and I'm glad she has been; it's a

terrible situation, " he said. " I'm introducing legislation that will, at this

point, get something on the books, and knowing this would be a work in progress,

so to speak, dealing with the issue. It will deal with proper disclosure at the

time of sale of toxic mold being present in the structure. "

The Farrises filed a civil lawsuit April 20, 2010, in Madison County Circuit

Court against multiple defendants: Tonya Dugan (the seller) and the estate of

Carl Dugan; Absolute Property Inspection d/b/a National Property

Inspections; Brett Ahring of National Property Inspections; Landmark

Realty-Bethalto; and L. Dona, the listing agent. The litigation is

ongoing.

The Farrises closed on the house Feb. 26, 2010, moved in and then moved out

within months after their daughter developed severely impacted sinuses and

swelling in her face, from which she still is recovering, Farris said. The

family also has two sons who had asthma before the family moved in and who

developed nosebleeds while living there.

In a separate legal action, the Farrises filed a case with the United States

Arbitration and Mediation service. A professional arbitrator awarded a judgment

in the Farrises' favor on Feb. 22 against Brett Ahring and Absolute Inspections

d/b/a National Property Inspections in the sum of $35,572.

The arbitrator said the award was to cover water damages caused by Brett

Ahring's failure to address the leaking roof on the home. However, the

arbitration also noted in his ruling that the award did not take into account

any mold remediation because mold inspection was not part of the inspector's

contract.

" We deny any wrongdoing in the matter; we're not mold inspectors, and we never

proposed to be, " said Ahring's father, Jim, speaking for both him and his son.

" We never said we were. " Jim Ahring does radon testing for the business while

Brett Ahring does home inspections.

The Farrises bought the house on South Kingdom Street after their offer of

$83,000 was accepted, knowing they would put a lot of money into the house to

fix what they considered cosmetic flaws. When the Farrises originally went to

look at the house, Holly Farris said it was full of people, dogs and smoke from

cigarettes and had scented oil burners in every room. They did not notice the

smell of mold.

" We went and looked at it, and they all lived there; it was dirty and outdated,

but it all was cosmetic as far as I could see, " she said. " I'm good with

cosmetic; I can fix that. "

She said she hired a home inspector after the agent and seller accepted the

contract.

Brett Ahring inspected the home Jan. 26, 2010, she said.

" He came out, did the inspection and said the roof needed to be vented, and in

his report said vague things about lead paint in a closet, " Farris said. " But it

wasn't paint, it was water damage. "

The inspector told her the roof was sound and only about six or eight years old,

she said.

" He put in his inspection that he walked the roof, but the roof is rotted

through and leaking for upwards of a decade. "

Farris said the water has been coming in on both sides of valleys in the roof.

" The water rotted out the entire common wall and the north wall, " which includes

a closet wall where the worst mold was found, she said. " The mold and water

damage in the house came to $90,000 to fix it; you don't get that in a house

unless water had been coming in for a real long time. "

Ahring's report did note a breaker box needed to be exchanged, there needed to

be a shut-off at the air conditioning unit, and there needed to be an exhaust

fan in the bathroom, she said.

Holly said when the Farrises did their final walk-through, someone was standing

in front of the closet where the most severe, visible mold was growing inside,

and that person was vacuuming. Holly said she did not ask the person to move or

stop, because she had paid an inspector to inspect the house.

The Farrises discovered the mold infestation only after they began to move into

the house and rip out carpeting.

" Inside the closet, the drywall was split from floor to ceiling, separated three

inches, and the closet floor was rotted and falling through, " Holly said. " And

there was a basketball-size circle of toxic mold on the drywall. I can say that

with confidence, because I had a $2,500 mold specialist come out and say it was

'Stachybotrys toxic mold.' "

Farris said she specifically asked Ahring to look in the closets.

" Because all those people lived there, I specifically asked him to look in the

closets, because those people were using those closets, " she said.

The Farrises contacted several agencies when they discovered they were stuck

with the house. Holly said she sought help from the Federal Housing Authority,

the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, the Illinois Department of Public

Housing, the Centers for Disease Control, HUD, Illinois Attorney General

Madigan's office, the Madison County State's Attorney's Office, Land of Lincoln

Law Offices and Madison County Health Department, but no one at the agencies or

offices was able to help at the time.

She finally wrote to the Obama administration and showed a reply letter to the

Urban League, which helped her family find a home, on which the Urban League

pays the rent.

" We didn't have money for legal fees; if you don't have money, you can't

recover, " she said. " The only person willing to help us was the president (of

the United States). "

This month, the Federal Housing Authority assigned an investigator to the

situation with the South Kingdom Street house, Farris said.

" We went to the closing with over $5,000 in stuff in our van, tons of paint,

bleach, toilets, all kinds of new stuff like faucets to fix the house before the

boys (with asthma) could live there, " she said. " We go to start removing carpet

and see all of (the mold) in the closet. I called my real estate agent and

started screaming; she came out and said somebody should have caught that. "

The Farrises went ahead and ripped out the carpet, put in a new sink and

barricaded the bedroom with the infested closet with plastic tarp. They closed

the door and allowed no one to go into the room, because they had to move in by

March 1, 2010, when the lease on their rental was up.

" On March 1, I called US Bank, the loan owner, and told them what happened and

asked them to contact the estate they put the money in, and we would move

somewhere else, " she recalled. " They said they couldn't help because they didn't

have a loan number yet. "

She began calling around to find an attorney who would take their case, because

most real estate attorneys wanted a retainer fee of $5,000 to $10,000, which the

Farrises did not have.

She tried throughout March 2010 to find an attorney. She eventually did find one

who took the case on contingency.

Her daughter, who was 12 years old at the time, slept in a room next to the

closed-off bedroom with the moldy closet. She started having severe migraines,

running fevers, and on the morning of April 11, 2010, woke up with her eye

swollen shut, protruding from her face the size of a softball, Holly Farris

said.

" We took her to the emergency room that day, " she said. " They thought something

was in her eye. They ran all these tests, a CAT scan, and found out her sinus

cavity was completely impacted with infection, " Holly said. " They put her on

steroids and two different antibiotics. "

The primary care physician put the Farrises' daughter on more antibiotics, but

nothing worked, Holly said.

At the beginning of August 2010, her daughter had to have surgery to clean out

the infection, and her physician told them to move out of the house.

" In Illinois, there still are no laws (about mold), because I've been told they

say the science isn't in, " said Holly, who contacted Beiser and began to work

with him about legislation. Beiser and Farris have worked together the last six

months on the subject.

The family moved out and stayed with either Holly's or 's mother. Holly

wrote to President Barack Obama on Aug 17. In October, she received a reply from

his office. By Nov. 20, the Urban League found the Farrises a house in which to

live.

Now, the Farrises still own the Kingdom Street house, owe the mortgage, as well

as the First Time Home Buyers tax credit, because they moved out of the house.

" When we moved out, we voided the homeowners insurance simply by not living

there, " Holly Farris said.

Allstate dropped them from their home insurance, she said. On Feb. 22, 2011, the

arbitrator informed Holly he couldn't make the inspector be responsible for the

mold damage, because he is not a mold inspector, she said. The Farrises owe

$83,000 on the house to U.S. Bank.

" At the very end of the hearing, the arbitrator goes off and says the house

never should have been sold, " she said.

jmoon@...

[Guest guest]

Interesting.

Illinois doesn't have real estate disclosure laws?

Good for this woman for being persistent until she found some help.

: " The family moved out and stayed with either Holly's or 's mother.

Holly wrote to President Barack Obama on Aug 17. In October, she received a

reply from his office. By Nov. 20, the Urban League found the Farrises a

house in which to live.

In a message dated 4/2/2011 5:45:59 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,

tigerpaw2c@... writes:

Family's mold nightmare inspiring legislation

March 28, 2011 7:46 AM

By JILL MOON

_http://www.thetelegraph.com/articles/house-52070-mold-farrises.html_

(http://www.thetelegraph.com/articles/house-52070-mold-farrises.html)

BETHALTO - Holly and Farris' nightmare at 111 S. Kingdom St. started

more than a year ago when they bought their first house, which turned out

to be infested with what they say is toxic mold.

After a series of oversights, the Farrises now say they own a house that

they cannot live in; have a First Time Home Buyers tax credit they probably

have to pay back; and have a daughter still recovering from severe sinus

infections suspected as a result of living in the house.

State Rep. Dan Beiser, D-Alton, said he plans to introduce legislation,

inspired by the Farrises' situation, that would require real estate agents to

disclose when toxic mold exists in saleable real estate structures.

" I don't want this to happen to anybody else, " said Holly Farris, who is

[Guest guest]

I curious as to what President Obama's response was.

>

> Interesting.

>

> Illinois doesn't have real estate disclosure laws?

>

> Good for this woman for being persistent until she found some help.

>

> : " The family moved out and stayed with either Holly's or 's mother.

> Holly wrote to President Barack Obama on Aug 17. In October, she received a

> reply from his office. By Nov. 20, the Urban League found the Farrises a

> house in which to live.

>

>

>

> In a message dated 4/2/2011 5:45:59 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,

> tigerpaw2c@... writes:

>

> Family's mold nightmare inspiring legislation

>

> March 28, 2011 7:46 AM

> By JILL MOON

>

> _http://www.thetelegraph.com/articles/house-52070-mold-farrises.html_

> (http://www.thetelegraph.com/articles/house-52070-mold-farrises.html)

>

> BETHALTO - Holly and Farris' nightmare at 111 S. Kingdom St. started

> more than a year ago when they bought their first house, which turned out

> to be infested with what they say is toxic mold.

>

> After a series of oversights, the Farrises now say they own a house that

> they cannot live in; have a First Time Home Buyers tax credit they probably

> have to pay back; and have a daughter still recovering from severe sinus

> infections suspected as a result of living in the house.

>

> State Rep. Dan Beiser, D-Alton, said he plans to introduce legislation,

> inspired by the Farrises' situation, that would require real estate agents to

> disclose when toxic mold exists in saleable real estate structures.

>

> " I don't want this to happen to anybody else, " said Holly Farris, who is

>