Is My Drywall Chinese? - HB Litigation Conferences

Get out of house with Chinese drywall, doctor
tells family
PARKLAND, Florida (CNN) -- Yorelle Haroush fled a million-dollar South Florida home this week, chased
out, she said, by drywall made in China that's emitting vapors that smell like rotten eggs.
Amy Massachi hugs her pregnant niece, Yorelle Haroush, as she prepares to move this week.
"It's making me sick. Physically, mentally and emotionally, making me sick," said the 18-year-old, who is
pregnant with her first child.
Haroush lives with her aunt Amy Massachi and her four siblings and cousins in the house. They believe a
year's worth of upper respiratory infections, antibiotics, bloody noses and sickness have been caused by the
walls.
Their doctor said they need to get out of the $1.2 million estate in Parkland, Florida, northwest of Fort
Lauderdale.
"I said, 'you can't stay there anymore, because you're sick every minute,'" the family's longtime physician,
Dr. Ross Nochimson, told CNN. "They're sick on a weekly basis. Earaches, sore throat. I give them
something, and they're sick again."
Massachi and her family are among homeowners in more than a dozen states who allege Chinese drywall
has emitted corrosive gases they believe have given them health problems.
Homeowners also allege the gases corrode metal components including copper wiring, causing air
conditioners and other household systems to fail.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says most of the complaints have come from Florida,
where the concerns emerged last year. But consumers also have filed complaints in Louisiana, Virginia,
Wisconsin, Ohio, Alabama, Mississippi, California, Washington, Wyoming, Arizona, Tennessee and
Washington, D.C.
The Florida Department of Health says complaints it received -- more than 330 as of Tuesday -- generally
involve homes built between 2004 and 2007.