February 24, 2003
The house built for Brian and Rachel Rooney in 1999 has literally become their waking nightmare. It has all the loving touches to make it home, but the house in Amarillo Texas is straight out of a horror movie. Rather than the roving phantoms and poltergeists of Hollywood fame, it’s health-choking black mold.
Black mold that seemingly no one can, or will, do anything about.
Black mold, the stench of which assails you upon just opening the front door.
Imagine a life where you run into your own home with a mask to retrieve a few toys for your little girls waiting back at a motel, when the money’s available. Or being forced back into a house that you know is robbing your family’s health when motel money runs out.
Babysitters never come to the house on Nicholas Drive, in the fairly upper class City Park Subdivision. Relatives give it a pass, and even the postman tosses the mail in the general direction of the brick house before fleeing.
Before the nightmare began, Rachel Rooney had a 10-year job as a correctional officer at a nearby prison. "I was a sergeant," she proudly told Canadafreepress.com in a telephone interview. "But I had no choice in leaving, as someone has to be there for my kids, who need breathing treatments as often as eight times a day."
Like most couples wanting to raise a family, the Rooney’s were happy to move into their brand new, $160,000 home in November of 1999. But after living there only six months, their 18-month-old daughter Tiffany began coughing up blood and displaying frightening breathing problems.
On their frantic treks to the doctor’s office, the couple suspected anything but their own home as the root cause of their toddler’s mysterious illness.
"Then in July of 2000, my husband and I first noticed that the windows in our bedroom were leaking. At first we were more mystified than worried, but after further investigation, we realized that all of the windows leaked horribly," Rachel Rooney told CFP.
Still not linking the windows with their daughter’s breathing problems, they initially contacted Richard Burch, builder of the house.
"He came over to look at the windows, and told us that the caulking on the outside of the windows had come loose," said Mrs. Rooney. "At that point, we weren’t too worried, as the builder said he would be returning to recaulk the windows in a week."
The recaulking complete, the calendar moves ahead to the following summer. "During the first rain, I noticed that the windows were still leaking, but now there were huge amounts of what appeared to be some kind of mold behind them."
Again the Rooneys contacted Burch, who informed them that he had bought the windows from Canyon Drive Lumber, a popular Amarillo lumber company. On Burch’s advice, Mrs. Rooney called the company, who, in turn, informed her that Alenco was the manufacturer of the windows and that a man called Simon Lucero was the representative responsible for her area.
When Mrs. Rooney reached Lucero, he told her he would not be in the area until sometime the following month.
"It wasn’t until November of 2001 that I was finally able to make arrangements to have Lucero come to my home," she said. "When he did arrive, he tested three windows and all three of them leaked. He told me he would order pieces of glass to replace the glass that was currently in the windows and said he would call to notify us when the glass was available."
Months flew by, and a frustrated Mrs. Rooney, who could not reach Lucero, backtracked to Burch, who offered to try to reach the window man on her behalf.
In May of 2002, Mrs. Rooney called Burch again only to be told this time that since the one-year building warranty had expired, this now looked like a problem better dealt with by her insurance company.
The following day when she called Allstate, the homeowners insurance company sent an adjuster. The adjuster said the loss could not be recovered because it looked like condensation was the culprit.
Mrs. Rooney argued that she had video recorded the house windows when it rained, fully documenting the leaking windows.
Allstate, she said, then decided to send in engineer John Scidmore, who recommended the removal and replacement of all house windows.
But Allstate ultimately denied the claim about the same time that Tiffany Rooney turned four.
The couple’s second daughter, Britanny, now two, was born in the house. Even as an infant, the little girl started displaying the same symptoms as her sister.
When Britanny’s nose started bleeding continuously, her family doctor sent her to an ear, nose, and throat specialist who cauterized both her nostrils.
"It’s frightening because her nose still bleeds even when she’s sleeping, and it sometimes takes me 20 minutes to stop the bleeding," says her mother.
"It seems the girls are always sick and sometimes my husband and I will take them for car rides for hours just so they can breathe."
The health of the girls’ parents is also failing.
Brian Rooney, who works at the nearby nuclear station, feels safer at work than he does at home.
Rachel Rooney, who has lived all her life in the region with no allergies or asthma, has been twice hospitalized in the last two years for broken ribs due to severe coughing fits. She now has to take twice-weekly shots just to control the coughing spells, and her doctors worry about lung punctures.
Afraid to spend too much time in the house, the couple has been putting up at hotels and "intruding on friends and family."
"We put $40,000, which was all the money we had, as a down payment on the house and don’t have the financial security to just walk away."
After a long search, the Rooneys were able to hire local attorney Walter Wolfram on a contingency basis. Wolfram has told them they face up to a year just to get to court.
Although the couple sent emails of distress to hundreds of media outlets, including their hometown newspaper, only CFP responded. (This article, with photos is being sent to the Amarillo Globe News).
"I have nothing to say about this matter. I have nothing to say to you," builder Richard Burch told CPP when reached on his cell phone.
According to the Rooneys, the window company has since gone bankrupt.
Mrs. Rooney clings to the hope that mold expert activist Melinda Ballard, who has returned her several emails, will be able to help.
"She’s my hero," she said.
Ballard, who runs policyholdersofAmerica.com, said part of the Rooney’s battle for help is that her problem is "so commonplace."
"Homeowners with mold problems are a dime a dozen in Texas and no one wants to take on the big insurance companies, she said. " Texans are literally walking away from their homes and handing the keys over to their banks."
According to the activist, who won a multi-million-dollar court case against a prominent insurance company, "a radical right society in Texas caters to big business and not the homeowner."
"This is George Bush country," she said.
But Jerry Johns, President of Southwestern Insurance Information Service, blames the media and trial lawyers for driving the mold issue, specifically in Texas, where the awards have been the most significant and the number of claims most prolific" (moldreporter.org).
Compounding the problems for homeowners are the numbers of disreputable businesses that have sprung up claiming to be experts in mold removal.
"Since there is no certification currently required for mold removal, some of these companies are not on the up and up," says David Weinberg of the BioSafety Institute in Dallas.
Weinberg advises homeowners bedeviled by mold to first check with local Better Business Bureaus before hiring any company to rid them from mold.
And if environmental activists blame big business and right wing politics as the problem, mold, and its risks to human health has become a cottage industry in some quarters.
A Philadelphia workshop How to Investigate an Indoor Air Quality Program, planned for May 20-22 will cost attendees $845 for the first workshop, $560 for the second and $1,200 for both.
Meanwhile, CNN won’t be coming to Rachel Rooney’s rescue.
And it doesn’t make her feel any better that homeowners plagued by mold are a dime a dozen in Texas.
The Rooney family need clean air to breathe--at home.
If there’s an Erin Brokovich of indoor mold ready to take up the fight, please email brtbrooney@msn.com. a.s.a.p.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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