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Old 10-14-2014, 10:16 PM
 
Location: Connecticut is my adopted home.
2,398 posts, read 3,823,373 times
Reputation: 7774

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Literally. I'll try to keep it brief.

We bought a house in E KS very late in 2011. It was a fixer and we are not inexperienced home owners so we knew most of what we were looking at in terms of problems and what needed to happen as far as repairs. Still we had it inspected both generally and for termites which had been disclosed and the owner said were exterminated in 2007. Fine. We knew we were in for some work.

Over the winter we found the disclosure woefully deficient as one problem after another that was long standing cropped up or had been minimized by the sellers. One example: The heater wasn't keeping up with cold weather. Even coming from AK we were in coats in the house if the temp was below 20 degrees. We remained philosophical because we knew the house was a fixer and eventually we'd get to the problems.

That spring after the weather started warming up we noticed spiders literally coming out of the woodwork, more and more as the weather warmed. As an lifelong arachnophobe, I made sure that we chased them down and smashed them. One morning I found one of the type of spiders that were overrunning us (which was the only type of spider that we had at the time) in my utility sink partly dead hiding under a mop. I put it in a jar and had it identified as a Brown Recluse. OMG!

We contacted a local pest control company and they came out, sprayed around our baseboards and exterior. I started doing research and learned more than I care to know about infestations: The spiders are hard to kill, the can live in the tiniest crevices and they don't make a tell tale web. They are normally nocturnal unless population pressures forces them to keep moving during the day. The bite can cause horrific skin necrosis.

That summer we left for AK and on the advice of our exterminators we placed sticky traps around the house before we left to get a sense of the nature and location of our problems. OMG! We came home to over 750 spiders on those traps.

So we started by gutting the basement to open up their hiding places. Crab shaped spider exoskeletons of the BR type were everywhere behind walls and ceiling boards. We called the pest control company to come out and spray and dust. They told us that this type of infestation normally started in the attics which we gutted next. I put everything soft in ziplock or sealed plastic bags or sealing totes. We bought a new 40" sealed steel shipping container so that our AK stuff would be reasonably protected until we get this under some semblance of control. We replaced leaky HVAC duct system with sealed metal ducts. We caulked, foamed, filled. We next gutted the exterior drywall and insulation in the upstairs bedroom/bath area. We filled, foamed, caulked. Our exterminator said that it will be a 5 year plan to reduce the numbers to what could be considered normal.

We left again for AK and we had around 600 on our traps. Clearly where we had been doing a lot of the gutting and sealing work, attics, upstairs bedrooms, the numbers were much lower.

We are coming up on our third year. Every night we check our bed for spiders. This situation has stolen our peace and has cost us easily 25K or more to remediate thus far. We have another 25-50K to go to just have a safe framework to live in.

So last week the owner previous to the one that sold to us, drove by for old times sake and she and my husband had a lengthy conversation one part of which concerned our spider problem. She said, "Oh I know. We were on our third year of battling the infestation, working with a brown recluse expert of world renown at a local university and when we sold we disclosed the problem and handed over our paperwork to the new owners so that they could continue the work. OMG! This was absolutely not disclosed and God knows if I had been told, we would NOT have purchased this house, not even for a dollar.

We didn't pursue litigation against the previous owners when we found on our own that we had a major problem because we are not litigious people and because people around here seem to be more accepting of these critters in their homes. It could reasonably be argued that they didn't consider a "few" spiders a problem. After the 750+ spider count I was pretty sure that they knew but there was no proving it. About the same time that my DH was talking with the owner before the previous owner, our 14 year old dog showed up with a huge draining toe cyst which the vet diagnosed to be likely a spider bite without knowing our problems. After a lot of soul searching and with the dawning realization that the remedy will almost bankrupt us, we have decided to call a lawyer specializing in real estate issues.

Now the questions for the group: Is there any way of finding out who represented the previous owner when they bought the property? The broker for the sale was a "friend" doing them a favor. Reflecting on the some of the things that were "odd" in negotiating the sale, I wonder about it on hindsight. What will I need to do going forward? I'd appreciate decent advice. Thanks in advance.
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Old 10-14-2014, 10:39 PM
 
Location: El Dorado Hills, CA
3,720 posts, read 9,968,943 times
Reputation: 3927
Contact a lawyer. Don't delay, there are timelines that apply here.
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Old 10-15-2014, 01:41 AM
 
Location: los angeles county
1,763 posts, read 2,038,721 times
Reputation: 1877
Quote:
Originally Posted by AK-Cathy View Post
tl;dr

Now the questions for the group: Is there any way of finding out who represented the previous owner when they bought the property? The broker for the sale was a "friend" doing them a favor. Reflecting on the some of the things that were "odd" in negotiating the sale, I wonder about it on hindsight. What will I need to do going forward? I'd appreciate decent advice. Thanks in advance.
Should be on the MLS.

Ask any agent to search for you. I'm sure some empathetic agent will search for you if you call any random office.
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Old 10-15-2014, 02:52 AM
 
Location: Connecticut is my adopted home.
2,398 posts, read 3,823,373 times
Reputation: 7774
Even as far back as 2005ish when they acquired the property from the lady my DH spoke to?
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Old 10-15-2014, 05:41 AM
Status: "Made the Retirement Run in under 12 parsecs!!!" (set 12 days ago)
 
Location: Cary, NC
43,141 posts, read 76,719,434 times
Reputation: 45473
Quote:
Originally Posted by AK-Cathy View Post
Even as far back as 2005ish when they acquired the property from the lady my DH spoke to?
1. Lawyer.

2. MLS will have documentation in the archives. Ours goes back 21 years, IIRC. Your lawyer can request it.
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Old 10-15-2014, 09:44 AM
 
3,826 posts, read 5,778,446 times
Reputation: 2397
I wish you the best luck and hopefully you will be able to win this case!!! So sorry we have to deal with this!
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Old 10-15-2014, 10:01 AM
 
Location: Over yonder a piece
4,268 posts, read 6,269,135 times
Reputation: 7134
OMG. I also have a deathly fear of spiders and wouldn't have lasted a month in that horror house. Props to you for staying.

Get a lawyer. See if you can get your hands on the other seller's disclosure form that shows the spider problem being listed, as well as the disclosure form you got that does NOT show the problem. And have all your documentation about your ongoing battle. Talk to your neighbors and see if the previous owners complained directly to them about dealing with the spiders - they can be your witnesses that it was a definitely problem for the previous owners. See if you can find out who treated the home for the previous owners and obtain a record of work done during their ownership.

Then sue the pants out of those people for non-disclosure.
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Old 10-15-2014, 12:23 PM
 
5,048 posts, read 9,574,341 times
Reputation: 4179
I'd do lawyer first. Yes, it's right in mls but you might not want anyone notified so they can disappear or cover themselves with any more manufactured lies, by commission or omission., making up a disclosure you "signed", etc.
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Old 10-15-2014, 12:34 PM
 
Location: Georgia
4,578 posts, read 5,635,699 times
Reputation: 15968
Oh, my god, I think I'd just burn the house down! Is this you, or some other poor unfortunate soul with the same problem?

Family Has To Abandon House After 1,000's Of Brown Recluse Spiders "Started Bleeding Out Of The Walls" | Geekologie

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=893&sid=3719775

LAWYER. NOW. Sue the sh*t out of the previous owners. They knew, and they didn't disclose. There's a difference between a nuisance and a potentially life-threatening hazard. Hell, just having my DOG bitten would be enough to send me to court. What they did was inexcusable and borders on criminal negligence. The lawyer can file suit and start handing out subpoenas to the previous brokers, the MLS, etc. Make sure you have the contact information for the previous owners that stopped by to talk to you. One of the articles has names of people that specialize in this stuff -- start calling. :-)
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Old 10-15-2014, 12:48 PM
 
16,715 posts, read 19,336,312 times
Reputation: 41481
Also, get it in writing from the former homeowner your husband talked to. Sue the pants off those sorry POS previous homeowners!
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