Homeowners Discover Secret Room With Warning of Hidden Danger: "You Found It"

[mondo joe]

http://www.wyff4.com/news/14488356/detail.html



Jason and Kerri Brown of Greenville found a secret room in their home behind a bookcase, and what was inside was a nightmare beyond their wildest dreams...The secret room in the old mill home on Whitten Street in Greenville's Dunean section contained a handwritten letter from the previous owner titled, "You Found It!"

"Hello. If you're reading this, then you found the secret room. I owned this house for a short while and it was discovered to have a serious mold problem. One that actually made my children very sick to the point that we had to move out," Kerri Brown read from the letter.

According to the note, there was so much mold, it made the last family who lived there sick, and they were forced to move out. The Browns later learned the home contained the worst types of mold including Stachybotrys, the so-called Toxic Black Mold.

Meet the author of the note, George Leventis. Leventis and his family were the first to discover the horrible secret of Number 6 Whitten Street. There is no indication the previous owner was aware of any mold. The Leventises did the only thing they believed they could do, with no money in savings to have the mold removed. They stopped paying their mortgage and let the home go into foreclosure.

[PATRICK]

1. A lead lined

tent filled with radioactive gas, like an exterminator. That should do it?

[Historic NY]

2. There has been good results using dry ice in large

quanities it kills the mold and it comes off as if the wood was sand blasted. The house is usually gutted where the mold is found. The Canadians use this quite often. Then again the source of the mold must be found.

http://www.rsg-technologies.com/mold-removal.htm

[Naturyl]

3. Nice of the dirt bags who sold it to the previous owners

To hide the problem and leave a helpful note for when the fraud was discovered.

[begin_within]

4. Yeah... aren't there disclosure laws about that? It has to be disclosed during the sale?

[tyedyeto]

6. By allowing the house to foreclose...

I would guess he thought that, technically, he wasn't the seller, the bank is at that point. Still the scumbag allowed another family to live in a house he knew to have the mold. I hope his conscience eats at him daily for putting another family in danger.

[mwb970]

7. Did you read the whole story? The current owners are grateful.

The Leventises did the only thing they believed they could do, with no money in savings to have the mold removed. They stopped paying their mortgage and let the home go into foreclosure.

But George Leventis knew the home someday could be re-sold, and he wanted to be sure the future owners knew about the mold. Leventis said what better way to warn them than to leave a note hidden from plain view.

"I put it in the room because I didn't want anyone to find it if it was left out in the house. I figured if someone else who had another interest or a stake in the house found it, they would just throw it away or they wouldn't tell anyone," Leventis said.

The Browns say that is exactly what happened, and say if not for the note, their child may have become sick as well.

"I'm very thankful he left the note. In my opinion, there's a possibility he could have saved Megan's life," Kerri Brown said.

[Naturyl]

9. Baloney

The guy could have found any number of more effective ways to warn the new family without them having to get dreadfully sick first.

[tyedyeto]

14. So, the guy leaves a note in a SECRET room, in hopes...

that a future home buyer would find it? Sorry, but it's still on the conscience of the previous homeowner to NOT DISCLOSE the conditions of the house.

How long before the secret room was discovered? Weeks, months, years?

Leventis still has the health of any and all persons who lived in that house on his conscience.

[Kingshakabobo]

15. I suppose he could have handled it better but it worked.

He left the not where it wouldn't be found by someone with a vested interest in peddling the house to the next sucker - like maybe the realtor or bank. His theory is, the realtor or the bank would have shit-canned the letter and STILL sold the home. In that event, the only way the new owners would know about the mold would be AFTER someone got sick.

Maybe it was not the BEST method but it worked. Perhaps a registered letter, to the bank that repossessed the home, to notify them that he would be notifying the new owners of the mold problems. In that case, the bank would STILL be on their honor.

[tyedyeto]

17. He could have become pro-active after the foreclosure

A LTTE stating he had foreclosed because of mold (more than once). Picketed the house to prevent other buyers from purchasing it.

To leave a note in a SECRET room is inexcusable. Did he expect the buyer to find the room quickly? What is quick? A week, month, year? By then, who knows what health problems the buyer and family might encounter.

[Kingshakabobo]

18. You could be right........

.......but try and put yourself in the shoes of someone losing their home and facing financial ruin. That and a sick kid probably doesn't make for the best thought processes.

[tyedyeto]

21. Granted, my kids are now adults, but if....

my child were sick due to a "sick" house, I'd want to make sure no other child ever got sick there. He foreclosed, so there was no further financial obligation to the family, but there was a moral one.

[Kingshakabobo]

22. That's a good point.

[dysfunctional press]

26. i doubt that he has them on his conscience.

you might think that he should, but he obviously doesn't, and neither do i.

[mwb970]

27. You're outraged, but the "victim" is grateful.

I'm sorry, but that doesn't make sense to me.

[fed-up]

12. houses bought through foreclosure do not have disclosures-it is assumed the bank knows nothing

about the property in question

two former meth lab homes were sold/bought through foreclosure in the last year-the buyers did NOT know and did not know to check with local law enforcement and neighbors about the history of the house. They were novice "investors" looking to making a quick buck. The toxic homes they bought ae still for sale. The one buyer told me that "the charges were dropped, so it doesn't matter"- I educated her on the toxic issues related to former, uncleaned (and "cleaned") meth lab homes.

The sellers did NOT disclose to me the fact that their step-son was busted for a meth lab on the property. They LIED, which is about what one can expect from some friends/family of druggies.

My only recourse is to find a lawyer willing to take my case pro bono. SO far no luck.

Disclosure laws are only good if one has the $10K needed for an attorney to enforce them!

[salin]

20. I periodically (at very random times) think about your situation

and deeply hope that you are finding some solutions. Sorry to read that this has not (yet) been the case.

[Egalitariat]

19. Read the post again***

nm

[blondeatlast]

28. I was thinking the exact same thing. The new owners should sue

for the entire cost of the house and then some.

[Fierce]

5. Heh. Nice hyperbole.

"NIGHTMARE BEYOND THEIR WILDEST DREAMS!" I know mold is bad, but Jayzus, I'm expecting dead bodies or something.

[mwb970]

8. Again, it helps to read the whole story.

Indeed, Steve Hendrix of Hendrix Consulting Engineers in Greenville, found elevated levels of several types of mold, including Aspergillus, Basidiospores, Chaetomiu, Curvularia, Stachybotrys and Torula.

"(On a) scale of one to 10, with 10 being the worst, I would give this one probably a seven. It's definitely got problems we want to see remediated," Hendrix said.

(snip)

Leventis and his family were the first to discover the horrible secret of Number 6 Whitten Street. There is no indication the previous owner was aware of any mold.

"I've never seen my kids that sick. And it was scary," Tricia Leventis said in tears.

According to Tricia, she and their two young daughters became desperately ill, and said doctors told them to leave the home immediately.

"It was adamant. Absolutely, get out," Leventis said. "It was to the point where my youngest was so sick, she was unable to hold any nutrition, nothing was working, she couldn't breathe."

Do you have kids? That sure sounds like a nightmare to me.

[Sugar Smack]

10. We watch too many movies, Fierce.

:rofl:

[The Stranger]

11. Sad that now you can spend a fortune on a dream home, have it turn out to be uninhabitably toxic,

and yet have no legal redress in the courts. Such that they have to let the house go into foreclosure as their only option.

Then the mortgage companies and Big Banking just recycle it to someone else.

And you can thank the "tort reform" movement and the G.O.P. for that.

[tyedyeto]

16. And now that the health of the current homeowners are at stake.....

and the possibility that this house will cost a fortune to the current homeowners for clean-up, previous owners get off scott free? That is what is unconscionable. They knew it and refused to disclose the information.

Edit: typo

[Snarkturian Clone]

13. My house is 194 years old

and has a long narrow wooden panel, about 2' x 9', along a brick wall in the basement. Always wondered what is behind it. I'm afraid that one of the previous owners is buried in there... but I also have reason to believe there might be ancient artifacts... one of the previous owners of my house was quite the successful archeologist.

[MiniMe]

23. I think I would have to open it

[tyedyeto]

25. Me, too.... and not for health reasons

Amateur archaeologists are in great vogue today. They should think of it as an exploratory expedition. I say open up that wall!

[TankLV]

24. Actually, there is a rather simple remedy that is available...

It's a cheap liquid product that has plain old chlorox bleach as a main ingredient - you simple spray it all over the place and it kills ALL the mold - even the "hidden" spores...

I used to be the architect for a construction company, and one of our specialties was mold remediation...

I don't remember the name or manufacturer of the product, it's been almost 6 years since I've now joined another firm...

[Kingshakabobo]

29. What do you do when it's behind the walls and between the floors and in the ceiling?