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By John HollenhorstImagine if the walls of your house stayed wet for many years, until your home was overrun with mold, spiders and hundreds of mice. That scenario unfolded in slow motion for a Utah family, and they're still struggling to cope with the disaster.
It's not clear where the blame lies. The family admits to mistakes of their own, but they claim there were manufacturing and inspection errors. The companies involved dispute that.
Regardless of the blame, it was a nightmare that forced the family to flee their double-wide manufactured home in the St. George suburbs.
The home is clearly unlivable right now. But it was more or less unlivable for 10 years, and it was home for the Escobar family.
"It was horrible. It was sticky. It was disgusting," Gina Escobar said.
They're tearing out pretty much everything now. They moved out a year ago when tests confirmed mold. "Yeah, we couldn't take it. Our health is real bad," Carlos Escobar said.
The first hint of trouble was in the late ‘90s, about a year after they moved in. "Well, I noticed that the walls were wet halfway up; lot of moisture in the house," Gina explained.
They submitted an insurance claim. But they told the insurance company they thought street runoff was flowing downhill into their home. An insurance inspector agreed and, for that reason, denied coverage.
"I made the mistake of saying I had thought it was the water from the street, but I didn't know," Gina said.
Their next big mistake was not solving the problem right away. They say they didn't have the money or the know-how. "You just buy a house, and you go and live in it; you got no idea what's going on," Carlos said.
Over the years, the wetness just got worse. "Well, it kind of felt like you were walking into a sweathouse," Gina explained.
Ceilings, walls and floors stained, sagged and rotted away. Spiders ran wild. "We had over 300 mice in our home," Gina said.
Kids and parents suffered coughs, runny noses and headaches. Hospital workers told them it was allergies. They didn't know who to call, so they contacted everyone, up to and including the governor.
"And to see your family sick, and nobody cares … It's never their problem," Gina said.
When mold forced them out last year, they finally learned the truth. A hired consultant found leaky pipes that were bleeding water into floors and walls.
"Ten years, I never knew the pipes were leaking," Carlos said.
It's not clear if the pipes were leaking all those years. In 2000, inspectors identified drainage and foundation issues, which the Escobars never fixed. The resulting instability could have damaged the interior plumbing over the years. But inspectors eight years ago didn't open the walls and check the pipes, so we'll never know for sure.
Incredibly, after 10 years of what amounts to a living hell, they still owe $86,000 on an unlivable house. "On a house that should have been condemned," Gina said.
The insurance company has offered the Escobars more than $40,000. They say it's not enough. "We lost everything," Carlos said.
The house was manufactured in Arizona in 1997. Cavco, the manufacturer, says it was pressure-tested for leaks at that time and passed a federal inspection. The standard one-year warranty expired more than a decade ago.
E-mail: jhollenhorst@ksl.com
