MARION TOWNSHIP -- A family that bought a nearly $375,000 newly constructed home on a one-acre lot near Howell lived there for just 10 months before toxic mold forced them out. A poorly built roof allowed rain to seep into the walls and floors on all three levels of the home.Last week -- nearly three years after the ordeal began -- Tom and Kimberly Szymczak were awarded a consent judgment of $775,000 against Brighton builder Andrew Tonkovich and his company, A&T Development Inc.

"Of course that's some validation for what my family has been through, but I still have kids with asthma, and their medical needs are going to continue," Tom Szymczak said from his new home in Indianapolis.

He said his wife, Kimberly, 35, has had pneumonia four times in the past three years.

His children were 3 years old and 18 months in May 2003 when they moved into the four-bedroom, 2 1/2 -bath brick home, which now sits vacant amid a street of estate-size homes in the Black Eagle Valley subdivision.
The developer agreed to the settlement one day after testimony was heard in Livingston County's 44th Circuit Court. Tonkovich's attorney, Robert Holt Jr., declined to comment.

The roof started leaking six days after the family moved in, Szymczak said. "They didn't do the roof right. What would have been $200 to $300 in cost cuts caused this whole thing," he said.

A&T Development hired a contractor to fix the roof, but in February 2004 it began leaking again. During reconstruction, a mold remediation company identified various types of airborne and surface mold growing within the walls, including aspergillus, which causes pulmonary infections and allergies; Stachybotrys, also known as toxic black mold; and various strains of chaetomium, which can cause neurological damage.

"We left just before Easter of 2004 to go to a hotel for five days for the remediation," Szymczak said.

The five days turned into five months at the Brighton Holiday Inn. Then, Szymczak, a sales representative for Johnson & Johnson, was transferred out of state.

What surprises him the most, though, is that Michigan does not have laws regulating the cleanup, removal or reporting of toxic mold.

Robert Kobylas, Livingston County building official, said he is familiar with the Szymczak case, which has generated a file 4 inches thick.

"I'm not going to elaborate because it involved litigation," he said.

Kobylas said the county gets "scattered complaints on toxic mold," and it investigates.

The Szymczaks still own the home on Black Eagle Ridge and hope to sell it to an investor from an environmental remediation company.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070117/METRO04/701170351/1015

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