We closed on our new home on March 17, 2020 after living 13 years in our starter home. On March 21, 2020, our family moved into what we thought was our dream home in a neighborhood in Littleton, Colorado. The house had been flipped/remodeled with everything redone from flooring and cabinets to granite countertops and a new yard.
A week after moving into the house, Eric came across some drug paraphernalia in the backyard and again in the attic over the garage. After having conversations with neighbors, and finding additional concerning evidence, we had a test performed in the house. The test came back showing levels above the safe limit for meth residue. Due to these results, the house was condemned for occupancy by the county and state. We were required to quickly leave the home we had moved into only three weeks before. Our belongings were put in storage and we were forced to find a temporary living situation all in the midst of a global pandemic and shut downs.
These unfortunate events forced us to initially stay in different homes. This was such an unimaginable and unbelievable situation. Along with the monthly mortgage payment and insurance on the house, we incurred the cost of the home meth test, storage for our possessions, meth residue clean up on the home, monthly rent for temporary living and legal fees to begin our case.
In the very beginning we were hoping the selling agent (who is also the investor that flipped the house) was going to do the right thing and buy back the home from us and let us move on from this nightmare. He responded to our demands with an amount that wouldn’t cover the cost already incurred since our eviction. We also couldn’t purchase a new home while carrying the current mortgage and we have remained in temporary housing during this pandemic with all of our things in storage. This house has been nothing but heartache for us from day one when we also found a serious issue with the plumbing that required the concrete basement floor to be jackhammered and piping replaced. Then the meth pipes were found on the property inside and out a week later.
In July of 2020 two local news stations reached out to inquire further about our story. We were interviewed and a segment aired on CBS4 on July 13th. You can watch the story and read the article here: https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/07/13/littleton-house-contaminated-meth/. The story mentions that the seller did offer to pay for remediation of the house. What was not mentioned was that it was a borderline insulting amount that would have likely not covered the full remediation, let alone the additional money that has been lost or paid during this process.
While I wish the news report spoke more about the monetary and emotional damage this ordeal has caused, and shed more light on how the seller has been handling this entire fiasco, it did bring additional attention to our situation and was much appreciated.
In August of 2020 we finally had the house cleaned from the meth residue in the contaminated areas. We had to make sure we had some issues worked out with the city of Littleton and Tri County Health with constructional defects, permit issues and an agreement on the work to be done. On top of that COVID caused huge delays in our timeline. The house was retested and was cleared and certified by the state to be livable. In September we listed the house to sell and it took a month for it to go under contract. We did disclose the previous meth contamination which did affect the desire for the home based on feedback we received but we did the right thing and did not want another family to experience the same thing we did. The house went under contract in October and the new buyers wanted to do their own meth test on the areas that had tested with high levels from our previous test. Their tests passed except for the garage which tested a little over the “safe” limit. They still wanted the home and we came to an agreement to pay them more money at closing to remediate the garage area on their own. We closed on November 3, 2021 and took an incredibly huge loss on the house.
This situation has caused extreme stress. While the rest of the country is already going through the stress of COVID 19, social and political unrest the family is also going through what most would consider a worst case scenario when buying a house. Our family was uprooted, no friends or family nearby, no personal belongings going on a year and a new fear of the unknown. This should never be allowed to happen. Now we wait and fight as the litigation process has begun.