If These Walls Could Talk…
If these walls could talk, the previous homeowner wouldn’t have felt the need to leave a letter.
The secret room in the old mill home on Whitten Street in Greenville’s Dunean section contained a handwritten letter from the previous owner titled, “You Found It!”
“Hello. If you’re reading this, then you found the secret room. I owned this house for a short while and it was discovered to have a serious mold problem. One that actually made my children very sick to the point that we had to move out,” Kerri Brown read from the letter.
According to the note, there was so much mold, it made the last family who lived there sick, and they were forced to move out.
This story received quite a bit of press, but not everyone told the same story. After further research here is a brief summary:
- George and Tricia Leventis purchased a home at Number 6 Whitten Street in Greenville, South Carolina. After living in the home, several members of the family became very ill. Mold was found in the home, and doctors blamed the mold on the medical conditions.
- The family could not afford to remediate the mold condition, so they walked away from the home. Foreclosure ensued.
- Before leaving, George Leventis left a note in a concealed area describing the condition. His reasoning: once the house went back on the market, the bank/realtor/other interested parties would not want such a serious mold problem readily visible, so leaving the note in the open would have been fruitless.
- Jason and Kerri Brown later bought the home. As Mr. Leventis suspected, the Browns never received disclosure regarding any mold condition. The pre-purchase inspection likewise did not turn up any mold concerns, as the problem was somewhat concealed. (Don’t take the word of a pre-purchase home inspector as final!)
- The Browns, upon discovering the mold and the letter from Leventis, hired Hendrix Consulting Engineers to evaluate the home. Samples came back with elevated levels of various mold species including the infamous Stachybotrys - the so-called toxic mold of lore. According to the company’s principle, Steve Hendrix, the house was “probably a seven,” on a scale of one to ten, in terms of infestations.
- The estimated remediation costs allegedly exceed the purchase price of the home.
- The Browns filed a lawsuit against the realtors and the lender, Fannie Mae.
- Fannie Mae has recently agreed to purchase back the home at the original price of $75,000, and have thus been released from the litigation.
- The lawsuit against the real estate firm and the agent that sold the home.
Link to Article, from Boing Boing and BLDGBLOG
20 January 2008 | Construction Defect, Construction and Law, Experts, Inspections, Litigation | Comments
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