Here is a story about an enormous waste of money, typical of most mold stories.
Countrywide Home Loans Inc., foreclosed on an 11-year-old, two-story house valued at $105,300. Now the city of Oshkosh wants that house to be torn down. Why? Mold as a result of neglect.
The previous owner purchased the house for $103,700 in 2004. After the bank foreclosed on the home, the power was shut off. This resulted in flooding the basement with eight inches of water, where mold grew rampant. Now the home is worthless.
The relatively new house is in a good neighborhood, surrounded by other homes of similar size and shape. Now it is the portrait of unmistakable neglect. Grass grows wild, weeds curl around porch railings, and mosquitoes breed on the property. It is a sharp contrast next to the neighboring houses with neatly trimmed grass, flowering bushes, and rock gardens.
Neighbors want the house demolished but are worried that a bulldozer would rile up mold spores and affect everyone in the neighborhood. The last time I reported on a similar situation, the city opted to have the house burned down.
The city wants the house torn down because of a state law that stipulates repairs to damaged homes that are deemed uninhabitable not exceed half of the value of the house. The city is also not issuing a building permit so Countrywide can rehab the house. “We want to prevent them from spending money, that would be ill-advised,” a representative said.
Countrywide has filed an injunction to prevent the forced demolishon of the house claiming it would be irreparably harmed. It seems too late for that.
It’s too bad that Countrywide has to lose over a hundred thousand dollars, but this is due to their own neglect. I’m not sure what they intend to gain by filing the injunction. Hopefully they don’t plan on letting someone live there.
Of course, this could have been entirely prevented saving Countrywide its massive loss, the city its hassle, and the neighborhood its grief if the bank simply spent a few hundred dollars keeping the house in check against the elements. As we know, mold is easy to control with simple preventative measures and effective mold remediation methods. But Countrywide dropped the ball on this one.
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