Posts Tagged ‘ chinese drywall ’
Chinese Drywall: Here doggy, doggy!
September 11th, 2009. By AbiK
There was an article in the Palm Beach Post earlier in the week about…what else? Chinese drywall! Well, you can’t blame the folks in Palm Beach and Broward Counties—it’s a daily nuisance (or worse) they have to live with. But, they might be getting some help—from dogs.
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of getting “frisked” by some gnarling, ferocious dogs as you’re tooling through customs in Miami International Airport, you know what dogs are capable of sniffing out. So I’m all for this one.
According to the Palm Beach Post article, defective Chinese drywall can be difficult to locate with real accuracy—and air quality tests don’t necessarily register high levels of sulfur. That one stopped me cold: all the hoopla about “professional” testing of homes for Chinese drywall to date has pretty much focused on air quality tests—and they may not necessarily detect it?
Give it to the dogs!
The article goes on to quote American K-9 president, Mark Mahler, as saying “The more I read about Chinese drywall, the more I’m committed to getting some dogs trained and get them out there to help.” He also noted that dog training could begin in a matter of weeks.
Another little tidbit from Mahler: Dogs’ sense of smell is up to 40x stronger than humans. While humans have about 5 million olfactory cells, dogs average 220 to 250.
Chinese Drywall: Happy New Year!
September 6th, 2009. By AbiK
You can either choose to look at it as glass half-full, or glass half-empty. I’m betting that folks who’ve been living in the hell known as Chinese drywall have been looking at it as glass all-the-way empty and are somewhat numb by now to any developments in this story.
The latest is that now we have a target date for the inaugural Chinese drywall case going to court: January 2010.
U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon told lawyers this week that he’s looking for them to select six plaintiffs whose cases will begin to be heard early next year. For anyone who’s been keeping
Chinese Drywall not radioactive after all
August 24th, 2009. By AbiK
We recently posted a
bout some early news reports that indicated Chinese drywall could potentially be radioactive—luckily for folks who’ve been suffering through the defective drywall debacle, the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Florida State Department of Health—both of whom were asked to test the drywall by the US Consumer Safety Commission—found no unusual levels of radioactivity in the drywall.
According to The Miami Herald (8/22/09), traces of radioactive material were found, but they were not at levels that would be any higher “than found in the natural environment”.
Good news, but perhaps a moot point anyway if you’ve already been forced out of your home.
Chinese Drywall, Foreclosure and…Mosquitoes
August 14th, 2009. By AbiK
A lot of the news lately on the Chinese drywall situation is unfortunately inextricably entangled with the economic downturn. The problem? Foreclosures. Unfortunately for those who’ve found themselves underwater on the value (or lack thereof) of their home, the addition of a Chinese drywall problem only exacerbates things-not only can they no longer afford their homes, but they can’t unload them either given the defective drywall.
The situation reminded me of an article I had read back in March in National Geographic. The article, “Mosquito Hosts”, focused on some homes in foreclosure in Maricopa County, Arizona—homes that had been vacated and have pools in their yards.
At issue was that in the absence of being able to afford their homes, the homes had been left unoccupied and the last thing on homeowners’ minds was pool maintenance. So, of course, the resulting green, algae-filled pools sat there effectively putting out an “Open House!” sign for mosquitoes to come on in.
Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act: Yeah, right
August 13th, 2009. By AbiK
So Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) introduced a bill calling for new legislation regarding products that are manufactured abroad—and found to be defective or cause injury here. No doubt the impetus for their bill has been the Chinese drywall situation. Let’s face it, for those who’ve been affected by the defective drywall, it’s been an uphill battle to get accountability where it belongs—upstream in the supply chain to where the drywall was manufactured: China.
Oh sure, there’s been cooperation with Chinese officials. And everyone’s got studies going on to determine the root cause of the rotten egg smell and the corrosion of air conditioning coils and all. But here’s the thing—who’s going to pay? And on that note, not only is no one eager to raise their hand and shout, “Me, Me, Me—I’ll pay!”, everyone also knows it’s a prayer in you-know-what to try and enforce payment—especially if it’s supposed to be coming from China.
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