Chinese Shitrock

I own a condo in south florida and was wondering if anybody here has run into the same possible financial disaster. My unit is rented as I live in NYC. I have two perfect tenants and from what they tell me I'm a pretty good landlord. Recently South Florida has been in the news because of the discovery of what is known as Chinese Sheetrock in a majority of all the newly built real estate, since 2001. Seems there was a shortage of sheetrock and because of the housing 'boom' builders needed additional sources for sheetrock. This sheetrock is manufactured by the German company Knauf and emits levels of sulfur into the dwelling that corrodes wiring, fixtures, copper tubing from air handler's, etc etc. It was purchase by companies in China and allowed in the U.S. to help with the shortgage. This can affect anything mechanical in the house as well, ie microwaves, ceiling fans etc. That's the least of the problems. Turns out, people have been complaining of watery eyes, headaches, waking up with bloody noses and some other symptoms. So my perfect tenants took some pics, spoke with other residents and it turns out my place, which was really awesome up to the point of hearing this news, was built with this shit. Lawsuits are already pending, owners suing the builder, tenants suing the landlords and around and around it goes. I paid 267k for this place, owe a little over 200k and the mortgage is about 2k a month. Without my tenants rent, I have no way of paying the mortgage and there is no way in hell I can rent this place nor would I want to. Anybody here from South Florida up on any of the legalities of this? What are my rights, my tenants rights? Every phone call I make, I get the run around and no calls back. My credit is going to be trashed. And it will be next to impossible to get a decent mortgage in the future with all the 30day lates and possible foreclosure on my credit report. I know, I used to be in the mortgage business. This sucks, this sucks, this sucks. Can anybody provide any help or insight?

bump. hoping for a response on this. any help is appreciated. thanks

Yeah, I heard of this housing crisis going around now.

Did you get Insurance? Maybe you can discuss this with your insurance company and see if it's covered to protect your ass from getting lawsuits from the tenants.

Or perhaps making your tenants sign a contract that you won't be liable for any liabilities

i've heard of people getting dropped by their insurance company for having this stuff in their house so be careful about calling them. maybe the best thing would be to spend a few grand and replace it and put the tenants up in a hotel for a couple of weeks. unfortunatley, there is no solution that is easy on the pocket. drywall is not that hard to do, i am doing it in my house now (not because of this). can you get down to florida?


also by showing that you made an immediate effort to replace it upon finding out you may protect yourself from any lawsuit.

thanks for the replies. I have a great relationship with my tenants and don't get the sense that they are looking to sue me. They have even told me that they are worried about me (financially) more than they are themselves and their health. They haven't felt any affects from this. But they did take some pics of the place and it has all the signs that point to chinese drywall. I may go to FL next week. Right now I am trying to get the builder's attorney to call me back so I know what my options are as the homeowner. My tenants are sick to their stomach from the thought of having to move. They love it there. I feel like I grew up there as I spent every vacation with my family there growing up. My grandmother used to live in this town. My parents and one of my brothers also have a place in this development. It's beautiful, on the surface. And now, it looks as if another scumbag is laughing his way to chinese bank.

I saw this on the news earlier this year. I think you need to go to the bank, get down to florida, go to lowes and get the stuff you need, go to home depot and get the mexicans you need, and fix it all up.

The answer is obvious...

Burn that bitch down, or call a lawyer.

Sue sue sue....class action, anyone?

oh and chineseshitrock.com is available to reg right now...

Get your lawsuit in first before the avalanche.

I'd talk to a lawyer but, in the meantime, I'm with forevernever and I'd get that shit out of there. Unless it's a 10K sq. foot place, materials won't cost you much and labor is dirt cheap right now. Get a small home equity loan to cover the cost if you need to. Bottom line, it's gotta get done anyway so get it done earlier than later so if you lose your tenants you can re-rent it without the baggage of the shitrock hanging over you.

thanks for all the input on this. i am going to fl on tuesday until the end of the week to get a firsthand look at this. it seems the two biggest problems here are that the govt hasn't established any safety guidelines as far as exposure to sulfuric gas is concerned. as of now, there is no harm according to them. my appliances including my fridge and ac unit (this went yesterday btw) say otherwise. so even if i find my entire condo was built with this shit (i've read that some only have a few sheets vs. being built with it in its entirety) any claims i place will be denied because of this lack of testing and safety level standards. this could turn out to be the asbestos thing all over again. everybody thought it was fine until the technology was created to prove that exposure to asbestos is the equivalent to breathing in little tiny razor blades that can't be backed out of your lungs. i haven't received one phone call back from anybody who is 'in charge' of this either. I am sure they are inundated with calls every day but my tenants could be living in a box that is slowly killing them. wish me luck....anybody got a light?

sorry, i mentioned that there were two problems. i only mentioned one. i haven't slept for about a week and can't remember my other point. my head is a bowl of pudding right now.

I would throw up a site in the Chinese Sheetrock niche and try to recoup some money that way ;-). The competition doesn't look all that tough, and if it's as big of a problem as what I've been reading, it seems like the niche will only get bigger in the future.

Perhaps they'll have some higher paying CPA offers for Sheetrock Lawyers like they did with Mesothelioma a while back? Get in while the getting is good .

All the best, Boozie. I hope everything will be over soon and be perfect.

Anyway, like what TheBHcat said... find a way to monetize it?

Maybe start a website about chinese shitrock and ask construction companies to buy ads on your site

As far as I can tell, you can at least calm down, your tenants are friends of yours it sounds like, and if that is the case that gives you a better time window than if they were say, strangers. Just take a second to calm down and think about your options.

If it was me, I'd try contacting the contractors I paid to do the work, and although it's not technically illegal I guess? ( yet anyway?) maybe try and salvage some kickback from them. maybe get try making them replace the material at least? But if worse came to worse and it was crunch time I'd just go ahead and figure out how to pay to just replace all the defective material..

If it was me..

Jmann

You may want to have the walls tested by a lab before your go to the expense of having it all redone. It might be that some of it is ok and you will not have to replace it all. Good Luck.

What do your condo's look like bro ? What part of Fla. are they in ? Do you have any vacancies ? Would there be an extreme discount on the rent because of this situation ?

I am from the hood a little problem with Sheetrock would not be of concern to me. I may want to relocate in the next few months.

Shoot me a Pm. Seriously.