Rebuild from Severe Mold at Pechawer Family Home
Donation protected
I am seeking support for my friends, Jason and Allison Pechawer. They purchased a home in May 2018, but after several costly repairs they discovered that it is severely mold infested. In late October, they were advised to vacate the home, and abandon all their belongings inside. To restore the home to livable condition, it must be stripped down to the frame and rebuilt.
Their situation is as dire as if the home had burnt down, but insurance will not cover repairs because they consider the mold to be a preexisting condition. The Pechawers are diligent, hard-working people who manage their money well. But with the money they owe on their mortgage and the previous repairs, they have no room left in their budget to cover rent, much less the massive renovation that is now needed.
Our small church family is committed to helping them, but their financial need is staggering. The renovation of the home is estimated to cost $150,000. So, my goal is to raise that amount plus 10 months rent for them, a total of $165,000. My hope is that we will have the funds available for them to begin renovation in early spring 2019. All money will go directly to the Pechawers.
Bryan Craddock
Pastor
__________________________________________
Detailed Narrative from Jason
(December 2, 2018)
The following has been and continues to be what my family has experienced since the end of May of this year. Our faith, our marriage, and our family have been tested, bent, and humbled, but by and through God's love, strength, and mercy we have not lost hope. We lay this before you as a request for help.
My family purchased and moved into a new home at the end of May of this year. Shortly after moving into the home, we began encountering serious issues, which we began trying to fix as we found them.
* Removed carpeting, padding, and tack strips from finished portion of basement. Mold discovered along exterior drywall.
* Plumbers had to remove and replace 40' section of the main water/sewer line due to seller of home doing his own plumbing work, which caused issues with toilets not flushing and sewage not flowing out of the house into the septic system outside.
* Had water coming into the basement through the closet containing the electrical panel and near the utility tubs next to the washer and dryer.
*Removed landscaping and sidewalk from the front of the house and part of the back of the house. Then had a landscaping company bring in dirt and grade the dirt so that water would flow away from the house. They also put in a few French drains.
* Removed and replaced gutters and downspouts.
* Removed old molded insulation from the attic and replaced with blown in insulation.
* Corrected the rim joists on the unfinished side of the basement, removed old bathroom fans, installed two new bathroom fans and vented outside of the attic, and blew in insulation into exterior walls.
* Gutted both bathrooms and planned on having both remodeled. Stopped work once we received the air quality test results showing the high mold levels and had to vacate the home.
- Master bathroom shower did not have a shower pan resulting in water leaking into basement. When original shower was demolished, the subfloor was black with mold and had to be replaced.
- Main bathroom had mold showing up on ceiling.
- Main bathroom also had to be gutted due to plumbing issue causing toilet to plug, then overflowed into bathroom.
* Moisture damage discovered in main floor closets caused by leaking through roof and flashing by chimney. The water damage also has run across the kitchen ceiling and behind the kitchen cabinets.
After putting a significant amount of money into the home, maxing our debt capacity, and thinking we were done with the work on the home, the last step was to remediate the mold, which we thought was limited to the basement of our home…we had air quality tests completed in the middle of October, which resulted in discovering that we had dangerously high levels of toxic mold throughout our entire home.
The BIGGEST surprise was that there was a higher concentration of mold on the first floor which is where we had spent the last four and a half months. As a result of these mold levels, we had to vacate our home. We have no more money to fix our home, we have lost the majority of our clothing that was in the home, and we have been living in a hotel with a family of four and two dogs.
We’ve filed insurance claims, which have been denied due to the issues having been in the home prior to us owning the home (pre-existing conditions). We’ve also consulted with several attorneys, and unless the previous owners admit to knowing about all of the issues and the mold, even though several of these issues were not disclosed and appear to have been deliberately covered up, we have little chance of successful legal recourse against the seller since we would have the burden of proof.
The home inspection (66 pages long) was complete before buying the home did not see nor report on several major issues with the home. When we looked into recourse Michigan laws have no recourse on inspectors other than what we paid for the inspection ($350).
We have contacted many agencies (Red Cross, YMCA, Kalamazoo Neighborhood Housing Services, several State agencies, even federal agencies) and we have been turned down for assistance because we make too much. Our mortgage lender has offered two choices if we cannot fix the home: short sale or deed in lieu of foreclosure, which will result in us losing our home and having to pay the mortgage lender back for any remaining balance (estimated at $75,000-$125,000) in addition to the $41,000 that we borrowed to fix the things listed above. Either choice from the bank will ruin our credit for several years and we will be paying rent plus the above stated balances, making finances strained for years to come.
We know that it will cost as much as $150,000 to essentially gut/strip the home down to the wood frame and rebuild the home from the first floor on up. This has been verified by contractors (building) and mold specialists (DeLisle Associates) as to what needs to happen to make the home livable again, safe and free of the high levels of mold.
My family is in a very serious situation in need of help and don’t know who else to ask or where to go without losing our home. We humbly ask for your financial assistance to save our home.
__________________________________
Their situation is as dire as if the home had burnt down, but insurance will not cover repairs because they consider the mold to be a preexisting condition. The Pechawers are diligent, hard-working people who manage their money well. But with the money they owe on their mortgage and the previous repairs, they have no room left in their budget to cover rent, much less the massive renovation that is now needed.
Our small church family is committed to helping them, but their financial need is staggering. The renovation of the home is estimated to cost $150,000. So, my goal is to raise that amount plus 10 months rent for them, a total of $165,000. My hope is that we will have the funds available for them to begin renovation in early spring 2019. All money will go directly to the Pechawers.
Bryan Craddock
Pastor
__________________________________________
Detailed Narrative from Jason
(December 2, 2018)
The following has been and continues to be what my family has experienced since the end of May of this year. Our faith, our marriage, and our family have been tested, bent, and humbled, but by and through God's love, strength, and mercy we have not lost hope. We lay this before you as a request for help.
My family purchased and moved into a new home at the end of May of this year. Shortly after moving into the home, we began encountering serious issues, which we began trying to fix as we found them.
* Removed carpeting, padding, and tack strips from finished portion of basement. Mold discovered along exterior drywall.
* Plumbers had to remove and replace 40' section of the main water/sewer line due to seller of home doing his own plumbing work, which caused issues with toilets not flushing and sewage not flowing out of the house into the septic system outside.
* Had water coming into the basement through the closet containing the electrical panel and near the utility tubs next to the washer and dryer.
*Removed landscaping and sidewalk from the front of the house and part of the back of the house. Then had a landscaping company bring in dirt and grade the dirt so that water would flow away from the house. They also put in a few French drains.
* Removed and replaced gutters and downspouts.
* Removed old molded insulation from the attic and replaced with blown in insulation.
* Corrected the rim joists on the unfinished side of the basement, removed old bathroom fans, installed two new bathroom fans and vented outside of the attic, and blew in insulation into exterior walls.
* Gutted both bathrooms and planned on having both remodeled. Stopped work once we received the air quality test results showing the high mold levels and had to vacate the home.
- Master bathroom shower did not have a shower pan resulting in water leaking into basement. When original shower was demolished, the subfloor was black with mold and had to be replaced.
- Main bathroom had mold showing up on ceiling.
- Main bathroom also had to be gutted due to plumbing issue causing toilet to plug, then overflowed into bathroom.
* Moisture damage discovered in main floor closets caused by leaking through roof and flashing by chimney. The water damage also has run across the kitchen ceiling and behind the kitchen cabinets.
After putting a significant amount of money into the home, maxing our debt capacity, and thinking we were done with the work on the home, the last step was to remediate the mold, which we thought was limited to the basement of our home…we had air quality tests completed in the middle of October, which resulted in discovering that we had dangerously high levels of toxic mold throughout our entire home.
The BIGGEST surprise was that there was a higher concentration of mold on the first floor which is where we had spent the last four and a half months. As a result of these mold levels, we had to vacate our home. We have no more money to fix our home, we have lost the majority of our clothing that was in the home, and we have been living in a hotel with a family of four and two dogs.
We’ve filed insurance claims, which have been denied due to the issues having been in the home prior to us owning the home (pre-existing conditions). We’ve also consulted with several attorneys, and unless the previous owners admit to knowing about all of the issues and the mold, even though several of these issues were not disclosed and appear to have been deliberately covered up, we have little chance of successful legal recourse against the seller since we would have the burden of proof.
The home inspection (66 pages long) was complete before buying the home did not see nor report on several major issues with the home. When we looked into recourse Michigan laws have no recourse on inspectors other than what we paid for the inspection ($350).
We have contacted many agencies (Red Cross, YMCA, Kalamazoo Neighborhood Housing Services, several State agencies, even federal agencies) and we have been turned down for assistance because we make too much. Our mortgage lender has offered two choices if we cannot fix the home: short sale or deed in lieu of foreclosure, which will result in us losing our home and having to pay the mortgage lender back for any remaining balance (estimated at $75,000-$125,000) in addition to the $41,000 that we borrowed to fix the things listed above. Either choice from the bank will ruin our credit for several years and we will be paying rent plus the above stated balances, making finances strained for years to come.
We know that it will cost as much as $150,000 to essentially gut/strip the home down to the wood frame and rebuild the home from the first floor on up. This has been verified by contractors (building) and mold specialists (DeLisle Associates) as to what needs to happen to make the home livable again, safe and free of the high levels of mold.
My family is in a very serious situation in need of help and don’t know who else to ask or where to go without losing our home. We humbly ask for your financial assistance to save our home.
__________________________________
Organizer and beneficiary
Bryan Craddock
Organizer
Kalamazoo, MI
Allison Pechawer
Beneficiary
