Drywall problems leave many in lurch

Displaced once by hurricane Katrina, and again by Chinese drywall, homeowner faces $150,000 repairs that builder says aren't covered by warranty.

___________________

The problems with Darryl Ledet’s new house in Prairieville started just a few months after he moved in. The bathroom mirrors grew foggy, and it became hard to make out a reflection. Not long afterward, he says, the central air unit’s evaporator coils failed.

Then, according to Ledet, his wife and 4-year-old daughter began having upper respiratory problems and unexplained nosebleeds.

His builder, Sunrise Homes, replaced the mirrors and repaired the air conditioner, but the problems soon reappeared.

Eventually the builder figured out that the house was built with “Chinese drywall,” Ledet said.

Sunrise Homes notified Ledet of the findings in April. In June, the company sent a letter saying it was not responsible for further repairs because, under Louisiana law, product defects are covered under a one-year warranty. Ledet’s warranty had expired.

Meanwhile, a contractor told Ledet it would cost about $150,000 to fix all of the problems, including pulling out the drywall and replacing the corroded electrical wiring.

The new home was supposed to solve Ledet’s housing problems — he and his family fled Terrytown in Jefferson Parish after Hurricane Katrina badly damaged their home in 2005. Now he’s displaced again.

“I’m living with my in-laws because I can’t afford to pay the mortgage and pay rent to live somewhere else,” Ledet said.
It’s unclear how many Louisiana homeowners have been affected by the drywall problems.

The state Department of Health and Hospital’s Indoor Air Quality Hotline has fielded 675 inquiries since Feb. 20, spokeswoman Jolie Adams said. Roughly 400 of the callers have agreed to participate in an informal health survey.

Between Feb. 20 and May 20, DHH surveyed 305 households, agency records show. Orleans, Jefferson, St. Tammany and St. Bernard parishes accounted for 85 percent of the complaints in the survey. Five of the participants live in East Baton Rouge Parish.

Meanwhile, hundreds of residents in Florida and other states, whose homes were built or repaired with the controversial drywall, have sued builders, suppliers and manufacturers. The class-action lawsuits will be heard by a federal judge in New Orleans.

Sunrise Homes operations director Natalie Culpeper said the builder has sued Interior/Exterior Supply Co., the firm that supplied the drywall used in Ledet’s house. Culpeper said she could not comment further because of the lawsuit.

Sunrise’s letter to Ledet says the issue remains complex and may be resolved through the courts.

Salvadore Christina Jr., an attorney for Becnel Law Firm in Reserve, said the problems with the drywall are just coming to light in Louisiana.

Most appear to be in the New Orleans area and on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, Christina said. The Becnel firm represents about 100 people. Only a handful, including Ledet, are from the Baton Rouge area.

Most of the problem drywall was imported in 2006 during a supply shortage created by the national housing boom and hurricane repairs.

Builder E. Jacob Fakouri said his firm used the drywall in one house, as far as he knows. At the time, he said, everyone was happy just to get the material.

“As a builder, it comes in, it looks like Sheetrock, it smells like Sheetrock, it tastes like Sheetrock. It must be Sheetrock,” Fakouri said. “You hang it up, you go along.”

Three years later, there’s a problem with it, he said.

“Well, how the heck was I supposed to know this?” Fakouri said. “I didn’t buy it from a flea market or off the side of the road. I bought it from a reputable supplier.”

Jeanette Mills, who owns the Fakouri built house in question, said she started having problems with her air conditioning in the first year after the house was built. So far she has gone through four evaporator coils.

The local air-conditioning company, the unit’s maker and Fakouri met last year to try to figure out the problem, Mills said. The air-conditioning firm, Montgomery Heating & Air Conditioning Inc., ended up replacing the unit.

Mills said the drywall manufacturer eventually notified her that Chinese drywall had been installed in her home. Fakouri contends the defective materials are not his problem.

Mills said she has not filed a lawsuit but must take some action to fix her house.

However, state Sen. Julie Quinn said Louisiana consumers, unlike those in Mississippi and Florida, face an uphill legal battle.

Changes Louisiana made to its liability laws in the 1990s mean that companies are responsible only for their share of damages from defective products, said Quinn, a Metairie Republican. In addition, a company is only liable for damages if it knew the product was defective, she said.

For example, a manufacturer might be responsible for 75 percent of the damages, the supplier 10 percent and a contractor 15 percent, Quinn said.

Under the previous law, a consumer could sue one defendant and, if successful, collect 100 percent of the damages from that one company, she said. It would be up to the first defendant to get the other defendants to pay their share.

“Now we’ve forced Louisiana consumers to sue China and collect from China, which is impossible,” Quinn said.

Quinn said that even if the consumers sued in international court and won, they would have no way to make Chinese companies pay the damages.

The manufacturers named in the lawsuits include Knauf Gips, a German company, and its Chinese affiliates, Beijing New Building Material plc and Pingyi Zhongxing Paper-Faced Plasterboard.

Quinn authored a bill during the 2009 legislative session that specifically targeted liability involving Chinese drywall. She said the measure drew little support.

Dow Chemical Co. and the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, a pro-business group, argued the bill was designed to enrich plaintiffs attorneys.

Ginger Sawyer, LABI’s vice president for political action, said Quinn’s bill had several problems, not the least of which was undoing years of legal reforms. Sawyer noted that consumers have already filed lots of federal lawsuits.

“It’s not like these people are being left out in the cold,” Sawyer said.

In addition, consolidating all of the cases from Gulf Coast states, Puerto Rico and elsewhere puts much greater pressure on the Chinese government to settle, Sawyer said.

The bill would have allowed consumers to sue nonprofit organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity, that built or repaired hurricane-damaged homes, along with contractors, builders and others in the construction industry, Sawyer said.

Quinn said she plans to offer the bill again during the next legislative session.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/suburban/49394732.html