Posted on 07/21/2002 4:59:30 AM PDT by Mamzelle
"....."I called my independent agent in town. They said they couldn't find anyone to write it. She (the agent) said I would love to help you, but nobody's going to write you a policy with an open claim."
Robin and Jim Lucas of Luling spent $30,000 fixing up the house her grandfather built in 1946. But last year, a leaking pipe caused substantial water and mold damage.
The Lucases say their insurance company, State Farm, responded promptly to their claim and has paid them more than $300,000 for damage to the house, contents and additional living expenses. When they totaled the costs of repairing and renovating the house, they decided it made more sense to raze the house and build a new one.
They're using the insurance money along with their own money to pay for the new three-bedroom, 2 1/2-bathroom house. They plan to break ground next month.
But they got a rude awakening when they began inquiring about insurance.
"Our problem now is we can't get insurance," said Robin Lucas. She, her husband and two sons, 19 and 23, are living in a trailer on the land until the new house is completed. "No one will insure us on a brand new house because we've had a mold claim."
Had they not been able to come up with the money on their own, they might not have been able to get financing for the new house, because mortgage companies require homeowners insurance to protect their investment.
"I couldn't borrow money because I didn't know if we could get insurance," Robin Lucas said.
If anything happens to the new house, she said, "we'd lose everything." ........." partial post of a long article
Notice that the family in this story has already been paid $300K--and they *still* need to go to the bank and get a loan to build their new house in very house-cheap Texas--and the bank requires insurance...wonder what happened to that $300K? Or maybe they're unwilling to "insure themselves"...?
They might had had a mortgage on their old house, but your point is valid. They should have a chunck of change to build a small house. They could build and get an equity loan out to buy whatever furniture they needed.
Would seem to me that $300K is plenty to build a modest home in Texas when you already own the land. But now if they fail to maintain their home, and mold is generally caused by poor mainenance, they'll have to self-insure. That's what hit them between the eyes...All our home insurance is now on the rise because of how it is abused.
New state law requires mold disclosure
Why not get an engineer instead? Mold problems are both preventable and solvable.
But the Great American Sheeple in general are abysmally stupid about the homes and apartments in which they live. They spend more time selecting the color of paint for their walls than considering whether their dream home is properly built.
They buy the cheapest HVAC system possible then whine when their house is, depending on the season and time of day, too hot, too cold, too humid, too dry, too stuffy, or too drafty.
Sorry, but these folks deserve what they get.
Sorry, I just don't believe "mold damage" is a serious threat..
If it's mold and it's from a leaky pipe of all things then I just refuse to believe that you can't kill it and get on with your business.
I wonder if they are considered sheisters and wound up in some insurance database somewhere.
Hmmm... I agree on a leaky roof being a maintenance item, but broken pipes are not easy to predict. How exactly does one know that they have a pipe that is about to leak inside their wall?
Rising water on the other hand, is predictable. Rivers and floodplains are known, usually, unless a drainage system breaks.
Since it was leaking anyway I would have been tempted to pull the shades and try a controlled leak with high concentrations of bleach over a couple of days..
Dead mold isn't an issue, right?
Probably seepage over a long period of time as opposed to a catastrophic failure.. Those types of bursts are normally only caused by things like freezing.
We would plate product samples and I never say any mold that chlorine wouldn't kill.
I would have settled this with a trip to WalMart for some cheap bleach, a piece of clear plastic tubing to meter it out and a run to home depot for drywall and paint..
Maybe you could follow it up with a bleach/water solution in a pressurized garden sprayer. (you could use that to blow it back between ceiling joists and such..)
Truly, people with no mechanical ability get screwed so frequently I am amazed they can sit.
It kills me to see them reading "consumer reports" and trying to get a good deal on a toaster while the plumber is charging them a hundred bucks to unstop their toilet.
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