Curse of defective drywall forces Florida families to flee homes

There's something rotten in Homestead.

It's the odor in Jason and Melissa Harrell's house, which was built with defective, Chinese-made drywall redolent of strong paint or rotten eggs. The smell got so bad that the Harrells felt forced to move. They now pay rent on top of their mortgage.

''What it boiled down to is, I had to choose between my financial health and my children's physical health,'' Melissa Harrell said.

When the sulfurous stink in Gary and Andrea Suhajcik's Boynton Beach home wouldn't go away, the builder offered to rip out the walls, wiring, plumbing and molding in hopes of making it livable.

Builders and homeowners have feuded over construction defects, real and imagined, since the first slab was poured in the first house in the first subdivision somewhere in suburbia. But South Florida has never seen anything quite like the curse of the Chinese drywall. Tens of thousands of homes were built with the material, which was brought in by boat from the Far East when the demand for drywall exploded during the building boom.

Aside from the odor, scientific studies by the Florida Department of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency found that drywall made by Chinese manufacturers distinctly differs from North American-made product and emits high levels of three volatile sulfur compounds, which can corrode copper piping -- like the kind in appliances -- and blacken copper wiring in electrical outlets and light switches.

No scientific study to date has linked the drywall to any specific health problems.

And yet, Michael McGeehin, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's environmental health division, told a U.S. Senate subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance: ``There's no doubt that corrosive material is causing health problems.''

COUNTING THE COST

Buyers are suing. Occupants are fleeing. And builders are, in some cases, tearing out walls and rebuilding at a staggering cost.

Although the problem is most prevalent in Florida, the defective drywall was used in at least 18 states between 2004 and 2008. Some estimate the cost of addressing the problem could rise to $1 trillion.

Dajan Green and her mother bought a four-bedroom townhome in the Silver Palms community in Homestead, built by Lennar in 2006. By buying something new, she hoped to spare herself the problems that plague older homes, like corroded galvanized pipe.

''You know: Everything is new. You don't have any issues,'' said Green, 28.

Wrong.

The air conditioner's copper coils turned black. Jewelry, including a bracelet her brother gave her to celebrate her sweet sixteen, turned black too.

And, more disturbingly, her 7-year-old son became lethargic, a condition she blames on the home -- although there is no proof.

They would leave, Green said, but they can't pay the mortgage and rent somewhere else.

''What are we going to do? We're stuck,'' she said.

Lennar, which says it isn't commenting at this time, has litigation pending against the drywall manufacturer. At the time the suit was filed, it issued a news release declaring: ``Lennar is acting promptly to correct the problem in the homes we delivered.''

The first concerns about a possible problem arose at least five years ago. A Fort Myers environmental health firm investigated complaints but didn't link them to foreign-made drywall for about two years.

Then came the first lawsuit -- the first of many, both class action and individual. The target of the suit, Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin hired its own lab, which found that the drywall emitted sulfur-containing compounds at unnaturally high concentrations but said it should not be considered a public health problem.

Following the complaints, KPT abandoned a gypsum quarry in China's Shandong province, said Melisa Chantres, a company spokeswoman.

The company believes the composition of natural gypsum from the area -- which was used by several drywall manufacturing companies -- has something to do with the complaints.

In any event, by early 2007, the housing downturn had officially taken hold and KPT products, which constituted 20 percent of the drywall imported from China during the boom, were no longer being brought in, Chantres said.

But the damage was done.

Builders are victims too, said Edie Ousley, a spokeswoman for the Florida Home Builders Association.

''They used [the drywall] with the understanding that there's nothing wrong with it,'' Ousley said.

During testimony before the Senate, Randy Noel, president of Louisiana builder Reve, said builders rely on manufacturers to make sure their products are safe.

''We're not chemists,'' he said. ``We're trying to get the homes up as fast as we can.''

Bernard Markstein, senior economist and vice president of the National Association of Home Builders, said the use of Chinese drywall had nothing to do with saving money or cutting corners.

''It was not a cost consideration. It was hard to get drywall,'' he said. ``Chinese drywall was seen as a reasonable alternative.''

Michael Gardner, executive director of the Maryland-based Gypsum Association, agreed that the supply of domestic drywall couldn't meet demand.

''All the plants in the country were working at 100 percent of capacity,'' he said.

In its lawsuit against drywall company KPT and other manufacturers, Lennar said the responsibility for the bad drywall lies with its suppliers, installers and the drywall manufacturers, which include companies in Florida, other states and worldwide.

Several companies named in the suit said they could not comment or did not return phone calls.

Some of the companies subject to Lennar's claims are very small, including L&W Supply of Hialeah.

''L&W Supply imported a very, very small amount relative to the whole total,'' said L&W spokesman Bob Williams. ``Some of it went to Lennar. Enough to make 250 homes. It's really, really minuscule compared to the universe of Chinese drywall homes.''

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol inspects incoming shipments of building materials, including drywall, but only as part of its mission to track arms and prevent acts of terrorism, said spokeswoman Erlinda Byrd.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission was not responsible for inspecting the drywall shipments because drywall isn't a regulated consumer product, said Joe Martyak, agency spokesman.

''We don't have any standard of drywall to be enforcing,'' he said.

However, the agency has since been asked to help sort out the mess. Commission representatives will head to China in the next few weeks on a visit that will include a visit to the Shandong quarry.

''We weren't looking at drywall before in the ports,'' Martyak said. ``We will be now.''

The scene now unfolding at the Suhajciks' home could soon be a familiar one.

The family bought their six-bedroom house in Boynton Beach's Canyon Isles neighborhood in 2007. It has a one-year warranty. About five weeks ago, they moved out, at the builder's expense, so repairs could get under way. Everything was stripped. The family checks on the work daily.

''They have been nothing but nice and accommodating,'' Andrea Suhajcik said. ``When you want to be angry you simply can't because they're that amazing.''

GL Homes declined to comment on the cost of the repairs. But in Senate testimony, Louisiana builder Randy Noel said repair projections vary from $100,000 per home to a third of the home's value. If estimates that up to 100,000 homes nationwide are affected have any validity, a reasonable projection of total repair costs would be $1 trillion.

Gus Gil, former president of the Latin American Builders Association, said those numbers sound about right to him. If the cost of building a new home is about $75 per square foot, redoing everything could easily cost $125,000.

Andrea Suhajcik says she is pleased not just with the work but with GL Homes' agreement to restart the warranty at the time they reoccupy the restored home.

Lennar, which is currently fixing about 80 homes in South Florida, says it has made similar allowances.

Some lawyers who have joined in the frenzy of lawsuits -- there are whole websites devoted to litigation over drywall -- think the builders should be even more generous.

''Give them a lifetime -- not one-year -- warranty,'' Miami attorney Jeremy Alters said. He has filed suits in state and federal court against almost a dozen builders, along with drywall manufacturers. ``If they sell the house, people have the peace of mind of knowing there's nothing wrong. Otherwise no one's going to buy that house.''

Some families don't even want to return to their homes, even if they are repaired.

Amy Davy and her husband, Chris, moved to Parkland from Arizona two years ago. Initially, they figured the chemical smell stemmed from the fact that the house was new. Wrong again.

NOSE BLEEDS

After enduring four bouts of bronchitis, various nose bleeds and coughs so severe they have made one son gag, the family decided to flee. When school gets out this Thursday, Amy Davy and the children are off to Charlotte, N.C., for the summer to live with her parents.

When they return to South Florida, she said it won't be to the home in Parkland -- a home they chose carefully because of its built-in charm and proximity to schools.

Like the Harrells and the Davy brood, Kathy Foster and her family have moved out of their home, built in 2007 in Boyton Beach with Chinese drywall. Repeat problems with the air conditioning -- as well as headaches and lethargy -- became a way of life for her family of four.

When searching for a rental, the family made one stipulation: It had to be built in 1999 or earlier.

And at every place, her husband would ask, ``Can I see your air-conditioning coils?'' ###