Mold.

This is our story of mold and water.

As you can imagine, this is a story that evokes a lot of emotion in us.  This all started at a time that we had hoped to be finally done dealing with Homes By Avi.  We already had a lot of work done in our house through warranty, and were finally starting to feel like it was a home, not a construction site.  We had just finished cleaning out all of the construction dust and had began unpacking, starting with a box of pictures.

We promise to be as accurate as our memory and records will allow us.

January 2011. 

It was exceptionally warm outside.  One of our bathroom fans had brown tinted water dripping out of it.  It was normal apparently.  Just frost build-up.  (as per Homes By Avi representative)

Then, our kitchen window started dripping water.  Brown water was dripping steadily onto the window sill. We removed everything that water could damage from the around the window, and lined the area with towels.

Homes By Avi sent over a service technician to look into it right away. However, this was due to our insist that someone come look at it immediately, explaining to our customer service representative that water falling out of the fans and windows couldn't possibly be normal or okay.
The service technician came over, looked at it, and determined that it was frost build up, in both the fan and the windows.  They knew how to fix it, and they would fix it. 

Interestingly enough though, he made a comment, which turned out to be an eerie foreshadowing of the events to come.  He said, "Unless it is raining in your attic, it is just frost."

As the days passed we found more windows dripping water.  When the service technician came to 'fix' the windows, he expected two, but had four to fix. The plans were to take off the top casing, pull out the existing insulation (which really, was not much at all, if any), spray in foam insulation, and place the casing back on.

This did not seem right to us.  First, if it was an insulation problem, why wouldn't they do the whole window?  And if it was a problem on one, why wouldn't it be a problem on all of the windows and exterior doors, considering they were all insulated by the same people?  (What else did they insulate as well?)  And why weren't they drying out the space where the frost was said to exist?  It was warm outside, but not warm enough to be without frost.

The work was questioned.  Several times.  And, several times, the service technician responded.  He made it known that we were to back-off and allow him to do his work.  We were to trust them and believe that the issue would not reoccur.  His direct quote was, "Leave it to the professionals."

Yup.  Leave it to the professionals.  It was clear to us that this was common sense, not something that required a professional.  But even then, wouldn't one of us being a red seal journeyman carpenter be classified as being a 'professional' as well? 

Not the first time we have heard this in one form or another from a Homes By Avi representative. (Another post for another day...)

As a home owner, at that moment, we took a step back, and let them do their thing.  Sometimes people have to learn the hard way, no matter how many times they are told.  We let them complete the work, knowing that it was a classic Homes By Avi 'band-aid'.

That was a Friday.


Saturday the windows were dripping again, plus some new windows.  Only the windows that had been fixed now had brown sludge dripping out of it. 

*Please realise, when we say dripping, some were mere drops, while others were a steady drip, requiring towels on window sills. If not watched carefully, water would run off the sill and onto our hardwood floors or carpet.*




And this is when we gave up on unpacking.  While cleaning up the dust left behind from the previous Friday, we had placed our pictures on the sill of a window that had just been fixed.  The brown sludge falling from that window resulted in picture frames being destroyed.  We packed up the remaining frames.  They still remain packed.

Sunday is the day we discovered the mold.  We came home to discover that both bathroom fans on the 2nd level were dripping water again.  When we looked up at the fan in the master bathroom, we found water marks on our ceiling.  We looked into our bedroom and found more water marks.  They were getting bigger.  And softer (one actually was soft enough that it would move when touched, and yes, left our fingerprint behind).  Water droplets starting forming on one of the watermarks.

When you sat in the room quietly, you could hear dripping.  Only thing was though, you couldn't find the dripping.

'Unless it's raining in your attic...'

Two times we had had Homes By Avi service technicians in our house regarding our falling water problem, one mentioned the attic, but neither felt it important to look in the attic. 

It was time for us to take a look and see what we could find. 

We lifted the attic hatch, and it snowed on us.  We moved the attic hatch aside, only to find MOLD, and frost.  It wasn't a good start, but it braced us for the rest.
 

We found the source of the dripping noise.  It was raining.  And it was in our attic.  The roof was a giant sheet of melting ice.

We can't even begin to describe the emotions that we were feeling.  

We came down from the roof and started looking around.  Drywall joints were beginning to show throughout the master bedroom, master bathroom and in the upstairs hallway, in some cases puckering. The walls were soft to touch.

That night, we went to bed listening to the water dripping in our attic.

Monday we called as soon as we could.  We had a meeting with the warranty manager and service technician that afternoon.  They went into the attic, looked around and came back down.  They weren't up there for very long (mere minutes), but were quickly able to assess the situation and come to a conclusion.  They said that it was because there wasn't enough ventilation in the attic, our attic hatch wasn't sealed or insulated correctly and there was a considerable lack of insulation (lacking 4" seems to ring a bell, but who knows, maybe it was there and was just compacted by the rain...)  They also suspected that our bathroom fans weren't sealed correctly, despite them being checked and resealed at our three month warranty check. 

When they were done in the attic, the windows were visually inspected.  We presented our case again of needing to do all of the casings on all the windows and exterior doors, and needing to ensure that the space was dry.  The warranty manager agreed with us.  We voiced concerns over moisture being in the wall, and he reassured us that he would open any wall we wanted. 

When they left, we felt hopeful, but doubtful.  We hoped that it would be dealt with in a timely manner, and fixed without any further issues, however, we knew better.  Nothing in our experience with Homes By Avi told us it would be that easy.  There would be more 'band-aids', more trade mistakes, more repairs, and more compromises and sacrifices on our behalf.

Wednesday - We already had an appointment with the duct work company for some ducts that had fallen apart.  They came, fixed the duct work, and went up into the attic to ensure that the fans were sealed correctly.  The tradesman double checked the fans, but mentioned that there wasn't enough air escaping to cause that much frost in the attic.  We called our Homes By Avi customer service representative to update them, and to receive an update, but getting voicemail, we left a message.  No return call.

Thursday - called again, left message, and finally got response.  Our customer service representative informed us that they would be redoing the insulation in all of our exterior windows and doors.  He had no idea what the plans were for the attic.  He had no notes about the walls and the potential moisture in the walls.

The idea that our house didn't have enough attic ventilation didn't sit well with us.  Homes By Avi is a big company, and the concept houses are almost as cookie cutter as they come, with our roof line being popular.  We just couldn't comprehend Homes By Avi building houses with a ventilation problem in their design. We were pretty sure that not everyone with the same roof line like us would have that much moisture in their attic.  And blaming it on the bathroom fan didn't sit well with us either. 

Once again, we went up to investigate.  We let common sense guide us, and followed the masses of frost.  Immediately, we noticed that the insulation was falling down in that area, between the bathtubs and the outside walls.  The poly has not been sealed.

Monday - We called Homes By Avi again, and talked with a service technician.  We were informed that there were plans to add more ventilation.  We informed them of what we had discovered in the attic and was reassured that the message would be passed on. 

Wednesday - We called and left a message for the warranty manager siting that we had some questions about the repairs and asked for a return phone call.

Two weeks later Homes By Avi was at the house to 'fix' the attic.  They went in the attic and sealed the poly around the bathtubs.  We asked about the potential for other holes, and we were reassured that there were no other holes.  We pointed out that there should be, given that the watermarks on our ceiling meant that water was able to escape the poly.  At one point they said to us, 'well it isn't like you had water dripping out of your ceiling'.  Nonetheless, they reassured us that they fixed the problem.  When we asked about the walls again, mentioning opening up some to assess the moisture levels, the answer this time was no longer 'anything you want' but, 'we aren't into destructive testing'.  We settled for the promise of a heat gun being brought in to detect the moisture in the walls.  Despite future requests, this never came.  Our walls were never investigated for moisture.  Homes By Avi representatives informed us that it would be impossible for the moisture to get in the wall, or for mold to form in the walls.

Another two weeks later, our attic was re-insulated.  No insulation was removed, only added.  This was the end of February.  (Side note - this resulted in our soffit being damaged, meaning, another repair, for another day.  The area where the soffit was repaired is still visible.)

Nothing else happened in our house until the last week of April, claiming that the weather needed to be good in order to ensure that the space around the windows was dry and frost free.  They came and re-insulated all of the windows and exterior doors on the main level. 

The mess that was left behind was unexplainable.

This time Homes By Avi had a company come in to our house and re-insulate the windows.  They made sure that the space around the windows was full of insulation, but they also made sure that the walls were also full of insulation.  At one point, a service technician had put his ladder down in a pile of foam insulation on a drop cloth (one of the only drop clothes used).  He then placed his ladder on our hardwood floor.  Luckily, we caught it and informed them of it in time...so it didn't become a permanent fixture on our floor.  When the company left, many areas of my house looked as though a year's worth of boogers had been smeared all over the place.  Foam insulation was on the window sills, doors and walls.  As time went on, the colour of the insulation changed too, only becoming more predominant (a yellowish-brown colour).

The service technicians did clean up behind themselves, at least they picked up the large pieces and vacuumed around their work area.  At one point, one service technician was vacuuming up a large amount of drywall and insulation 'mess'.  He hooked up the shop vac and started vacuuming.  He didn't have the filter on, and out came clouds of construction dust (drywall, insulation, dirt, etc -- it all makes dust).  The air was thick with it, blowing it right up onto the second level.  When a technician was told about it, he sauntered over to the technician to let him know, laughing about it.  They all laughed about it.

They laughed.  We didn't.  We spent the next day and a half deep-cleaning our house, again.

Homes By Avi finally had someone come over to test the mold the following Monday (it took a few phone calls, but we got it tested).  Homes By Avi representatives repeatedly reassured us that it was fine, a non-issue, simple soap and water clean up, that it wouldn't be spreading.  Forgive us for not believing them.  But, they did get it tested, and they were right, it was not harmful, simple soap and water clean up. This was the first week of May.

At the end of May, Homes By Avi came to finish the windows on the top level.  They started to do their work, which we immediately put to a halt.  We told them we were not going to have the same mess occur on the second level like what was left on the main level, especially considering that this is where we and our children sleep.  They hadn't spread any drop clothes, not on our carpet, and most definitely not on the beds.  We were told there was nothing they could do about it.  That the mess was a consequence of the fix and if we wanted it fixed then the mess would have to happen.   It was made clear to him that he was wrong, and that at the very least, he could put drop clothes down, call our customer service representative and have arrangements made to have the house cleaned that afternoon.  He made some phone calls and came back with drop clothes.  He assured us that our customer service representative would be calling us this afternoon with arrangements for the following day.  We accepted this compromise and allowed the work to continue.   

The service technician left just after lunch and said again, that we would be hearing from our customer service representative shortly.

No phone call came.  We called and left messages.  Nothing.

And yes, we had to go and clean the house again, another deep clean.  Everything from the curtains to the bedding to the walls to the carpet had to be washed down.  No cleaner ever came.  (Actually, an appointment with them is in the works currently, and is courtesy of Homes By Avi.  Homes By Avi has also agreed to have our furnaces cleaned as well.)  Once again, insulation was on our walls, windows sills, and only recently discovered (due to location), on our carpet as well.

We got one day of painters in before our household became sick.  We had to cancel the second day of painting due to the illnesses.  We were told that our customer service representative would be calling us back to reschedule an appointment. 

We never heard back from them for a few weeks.  We called and left messages, but received no phone calls back.  When they finally called and wanted to get into our house and to finish the work, we were going to be leaving on vacation and wouldn't be able to accommodate Homes By Avi. 

To be honest, it was June already.  The mold had been in our house for 6 months without Homes By Avi placing a priority on its clean-up.  We still had baseboards that needed painting from our previous fireplace re-do that had occurred the summer previous.  Obviously, Homes By Avi wasn't too concerned about the work needing to be done in our house.  We highly doubted that another month or two would change anything.  We actually really needed the time without Homes By Avi coming around.  As we mentioned before, dealing with Homes By Avi so frequently in such a negative capacity really took its toll on us and our family.  We needed some separation and time to enjoy our house without having to worry about upcoming warranty appointments, and the clean up that must happen before and after them.  We just needed some time in our house, without Homes By Avi.

While on vacation we received a letter from our new customer service representative(our fourth warranty/customer service representative to be exact).  They wanted to get some dates booked for the remaining work to be done.  We were not impressed with our new customer service representative.  To simply state it, our customer service representative was ill informed in regards to the repairs required, the length of time it took to complete the repairs, to what extent the repairs were needed, to our entire history.  It was up to us to inform her, to enlighten her to all of the described above, and at times, she was not the most receptive.

At this point, our patience, understanding, and tolerance ran out.  Too much run around.  Too much BS.  Too many broken promises.  All gone on for too long.

The service days came and went.  We had other issues that the technicians were here to do, plus they finally cleaned up the mold and painted over it with primer, and re-insulated the attic hatch.

That was the end of August.

After this appointment, we called our customer service representative, booked another service day and shared a few words, which lead to us demanding to speak to someone who could genuinely help us.  We spoke with the customer service manager, and enlightened them to our experiences with Homes By Avi.

The customer service manager did seem to care, and did seem to be a little dismayed by our experiences.  We were reassured that it would be brought up that week at a meeting, and that we would hear back from them in the following week.  That never happened.

Today, our casings and surrounding walls have been patched and painted, with the majority of the foam insulation being removed from our walls and repaired.  Insulation still remains on our window sills, as that was not the painter's job to fix (as per the painter himself, and Homes By Avi representatives).  We have, however, been instructed to just scratch it off, or try 'goof-off'. 

Of course, the painter's mark was left, and it is still obvious that the casings and walls have been patched.  The job isn't perfect, it isn't even close enough to say that its the best it can be...but it is good enough for us to live with, maybe.  We are currently at odds with each other in regards to the job done, one saying it needs to be done again, we payed too much money for a new house to have it look like a patch job, and one saying enough is enough, its time for our house to be our home, time for us to do the work ourselves and do it right. 

Our water marks are not as visible as they once were, as a matter of fact, you'd have to know where they were to even see any hints of them, that is, at least so far. 

One thing Homes By Avi has taught us, is to believe it when you see it, and if it stands the test of time.

We will see what this winter brings.