Insurance Dispute Lawyer Blog

The New York Times’ financial section, interestingly enough, did a report on how to know if your home contains Chinese drywall. While most of the signs have been featured in this blog, there are certain tips and tricks the article mentions that are unique and clever for detecting the presence of the dangerous gases that the toxic wallboard emits.

Jennifer Saranow Schultz notes

If your home has central air-conditioning, Danny Lipford, a television home improvement expert, recommends hanging a piece of silver jewelry or a silver utensil on a string in front of the return air filter and watching it over a few days to see if it corrodes. It’s a trick he learned about at a recent industry event.

Positive news for those looking for a federal response and action behind the Chinese drywall matter emerged this weekend with a Consumers Product Safety Commission report with a very notable inclusion. As reported by Sarasota’s Herald Tribune, buried within a long, 500-page report on Chinese drywall is a possible health diagnosis for the problems homeowners with the toxic import have been experiencing.

The Herald Tribune notes

The report issued by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and other agencies posits that victims might be experiencing “neurogenic inflammation” brought on by the “trigeminal nerve,” which branches out behind the face and throat with exposed endings in the nose.

In what may be a smoking gun of the evidentiary sort, federal investigators have found a chemical difference in the composure of Chinese drywall when compared to those products made within the country. While the discovery has yet to be the clear-cut indictment of the manufacturers of the imported wallboard, it is significant because it shows a clear difference between that drywall causing problems and domestic drywall that remains to be safe and not a cause for concern.

The New York Times reports

Federal investigators reported Thursday that imported Chinese drywall that homeowners have linked to health problems and odors had higher levels of some chemicals than its domestic counterparts.

The Virginia-Pilot profiles a few families harmed by Chinese drywall and the struggle they face in this dire time period. Within this piece is an interesting statement by a local elected official appealing to banks to avoid foreclosure on uninhabitable properties that have Chinese drywall installed within them.

The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission is investigating air-quality issues related to the drywall and plans to release some of its findings today and additional reports in the coming weeks. Several local homeowners also have sued the companies that manufactured and imported the drywall.

In the meantime, dozens of families across Hampton Roads face a dilemma similar to the Dunaways’: Continue to live in a home that could be making them sick, or move out and stack a rent payment on top of the mortgage bill.

The Associated Press recently ran a piece outlining the delays that will be faced in the $5 million assistance program established in Louisiana to assist in the removal of Chinese drywall in homes. While the project was set to help homeowners repair the wrongs created by the toxic wallboard, it appears that a myriad of bureaucracy and red tape may slow the track to recovery.

The program would be limited to homeowners with the drywall who received aid through the Road Home program after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The help would only flow once federal officials devise a national standard for drywall testing and remediation, and state officials acknowledged it’s not clear how long it might take to develop such standards.

Federal officials also would have to agree to spend the $5 million in federal hurricane recovery aid on the Chinese drywall program.

Consumer Product Safety Commission chairman Inez Tenenbaum’s visit to China is completed but the direct indictment of the foreign nation’s faulty drywall was not achieved, despite progress in the way of opening dialogue and encouraging cooperation. While Tenenbaum’s visit shows promise in that a visit by an American official puts pressure on China to cooperate with pending litigation claims, that the chairman failed to place blame on the manufacturers and demand results and response is going to disappoint some.

The Wall Street Journal reports

The new chairman of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission wrapped up her first visit to China with a call for domestic suppliers to “do what is fair and just” in responding to allegations from U.S. homeowners over damage blamed on defective Chinese-made drywall.