Up against the drywall

Editorial

Some homeowners plagued with stinking drywall from China have worked out fair deals with their home builders, but it has mostly been every man for himself.

The manufacturers are beyond effective reach, so it's hard to push accountability all the way back up the supply chain to the source of the problem.

When a domestic company can't or won't cooperate, the result can be financial disaster for the victim. A 27-year-old owner of a town home in Sabal Pointe last week told Tribune reporter Shannon Behnken that her builder, Rottlund, has backed out of a promise to replace the wallboard that is fouling the air in her home and corroding metal.

"My ceiling fans have to be replaced, my carpet has to be replaced, my washer and my dryer, my stove, everything, all my wiring," she told Behnken. "So they were going to move me out. I had to find temporary housing in order for them to come in and repair my home."

Now the company has said its insurer won't cover the loss, and it has decided not to help. She is on her own. Some 10,000 claims have been made against the makers and distributors of Chinese drywall, but there seems to be no appropriate legal forum to quickly resolve who is at fault.

One Miami-based supply company has agreed to a $54.5 million settlement, but some homeowners are saying that after the lawyers take a cut, a homeowner might only get $5,000. The cost of replacing walls, air conditioning, wiring and appliances can be in the neighborhood of $100,000.

The supplier in turn is suing a German conglomerate that imported the defective Chinese drywall.

Meanwhile, affected homeowners are suffering from malfunctioning appliances, bad air and a home that cannot be sold.

Their plight illustrates a loophole in international trade. How does a Tampa resident force a producer in China to cover damages caused by its products? Congress has expressed surprisingly little interest in the matter.

Lawmakers last year refused to pass the Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act, which would have required foreign producers to have an agent in this country. Consumers at least would have someone with whom they could communicate in English.

The business community was generally against the bill because of fears it would hurt trade. Small importers would be at a disadvantage, and foreign governments might have countered with similar rules. Perhaps prices would have risen and suppliers would have been a bit less competitive. But look what can happen when other countries don't have to accept responsibility for producing defective, dangerous products. The legislation isn't an attack on free trade but an attempt to reform a corrupt system that is gouging Americans.

Last year the bill had 64 co-sponsors, mostly Democrats. About 25 percent were unseated by Republicans in the November elections.

With federal legislation unlikely to pass, that leaves the Tampa woman and many like her with few options other than to open the windows. The small amount saved by importing toxic drywall has come at a very high price for her and thousands of others.

It is a shameful, unacceptable way for the world's largest economy to treat some of its most vulnerable consumers.