WWBT did a story on the ‘Chinese drywall” issues at the Overlook condos.
Excerpt:
“The first year I lived here it was probably worked on 25 times,” he said.
Edmonds could smell a strange odor, like rotten eggs in the house. His silver was starting to corrode.
“When I first purchased the home I bought all brand spanking new GE appliances, which is one of the top of their lines, and within 14 months my refrigerator had gone bad,” he said.
In four years he’s been through four TV’s, 26 cable boxes, and two refrigerators. He says it all made sense on May 22, 2009 when he got a letter from his developer, Steven Middleton. The letter stated, “Drywall imported from China, may have been installed in some of the homes at The Overlook.”
The drywall is considered defective. Reports show that the walls inside a home with this drywall emits sulfur gasses into the air, which eat and corrode copper and other metal surfaces.
“It destroys everything. It’s destroyed TV’s, it’s destroyed computers,” Edmonds said.
Edmonds hired an engineer, who concluded, the walls of his home are made of the drywall and are emitting sulfur gases. He found damage to copper pipes, plumbing. They were black and powdering. He found damage to electrical wiring and appliances.
“It’s bad. It’s toxic and it has ruined my home,” said Edmonds.
Edmonds started having nosebleeds and worries about his health. It’s unknown at this time what the long term effects of the drywall are, but a toxicologist with the University of New Orleans told a judge, prolonged exposure to the gases can cause serious problems, especially to developing children.
Twelve homes in all at The Overlook had the drywall. Eleven settled the issue and were repaired by developer Steven Middleton. Edmonds filed suit. Middleton’s insurance company counter sued, saying it’s not responsible to pay the claim.
Middleton’s attorney John Rasmussen said, “Not all the properties at The Overlook had Chinese drywall. We resolved the drywall issue with the other property owners. We tried to resolve it with Mr. Edmonds and we were unable to do so. Based on pending litigation we don’t want to comment further.”
The article also mentions that “VA’s secretary of Commerce created this web site about the drywall. http://www.commerce.virginia.gov/Initiatives/DrywallTaskforce/index.cfm”
