Damaged mobile home - Insurance? Mold? Rats? Help!

13 years ago

Ok, any advice is appreciated. Advice regarding whether insurance will cover damages or replace home, or advice on repairing the home and removing mold from walls! Thanks in advance!

Ok, I have an 87 14X70 mobile home.

The first flood and landslide occured in 2004.

My home is on a hill, so it wasn't "in" the flood. (We have had another flood since, and a couple smaller landslides.)

However, I have steep hills on 3 sides of the home,

and water comes off the hills, and collects under the trailer. We have tried to re-route the water with drainage ditches, but it has NOT dried up completely!

During the 2004 flood, we had a large landslide!

One of the hills came down, and knocked some of the underpinning out, as well as shifted the mobile home slightly off some of the blocks.

Since then, it has shifted more, and now the sliding glass door has a big gap, and will not close completely.

The kitchen counter is beginning to crack, from the trailer being off level.

A wall in one of the end rooms is bulging in considerably, I assume from the shift and twist of the trailer.

Some of the underpinning in the front has popped off, and some if bulging, from the shift.

More water has accumulated underneath, and the floors has become warped and rotten. We removed the carpet in all rooms, to assess damage, when we had hopes of making repairs.

The livingroom floor is so buckled, it looked almost like a rollercoaster track.

The bathroom floor buckled, and even cracked the linoleum. The hall floor has a huge weak spot, with a crack.

The bedroom floor rotted, leaving 3 holes, one very large.

Now, rats have gotten in through one of the holes in the bedroom, and have infested the trailer. They have chewed holes in the walls, and caused more damage! We have set out traps, tried cats as "mousers", nothing is working!

We had a massive waterleak in the bedroom closet, the water heater must have been leaking for a long while, in the wall, as the wall have rotted, as has the floor. Mold and mildew EVERYWHERE, including inside the wall!

We also have walls needing replaced, due to moisture accumulation underneath. Two walls in the livingroom at rotted out, one in the bedroom, and one in the hall literally crumbled. Ofcourse, that was mostly from a water leak we found behind the washer.

The lower cupboards in the kitchen are severely damaged, from the humidity.

Frankly, I am lost. I don't know what to do. All along, we have been trying to get up the money to make all the repairs. But anymore (especially after finding the mold IN the wal), i'm not so sure that CAN make the repairs!

Has anyone dealt with anything like this before? Would insurance cover this at all? Has anyone dealt with mold in the walls, and know how to remedy it, without replacing all the walls? Any good ways to rid the rats from the home, without poisoning them and potentially poisoning the cats?

(The rat situation is so bad, they are now coming out in front of me, broad day light, and not just one at a time. You can even hear them chewing in the walls, scratching and fighting inside the walls. EVEN from the outside.)

And, does anyone know anything about mold related illness? I've been to the doctors for repeated illness the past few months. Mostly recurring sinusitis and ear infections, but also have had respitory congestion, blood in my urine and extreme stomach pain. So far, they can't find what is causing it. Going on antibiotics will help the sinusitis/ear problems to an extent, but only temporarily. A few days after going off the meds, it comes back!

Anyway, any advice? I don't know what to do anymore.

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Comments (5)

Shades_of_idaho
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Sounds like it will cost more to repair than it will to buy another one.

Any one of your problems is bad. Add them up spells disaster.

We were in a flood and we took care to do all mold abatement right off and still had to work at it hard. Now it sounds like it is ahead of you. This all did not happen over night. The walls need to go the cabinets and counters need to go the floors are ruined. Foundation falling down.Rats, mold. I do not see much good in trying to throw more money at it to fix it. Gads I am so sorry this is happening to you.

Neighbor here just spent thousands in repairing an older flooded mobile home and it still is not in good shape or ready to move back into.
larke
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Should we assume you don't have insurance? I have to say that it sounds like your place is a write-off, and I wouldn't live there another day with the health problems you have - would not wait until some lab somewhere confirmed what you must already know for yourself. Whatever happens otherwise, at least get out of there now and go live somewhere else. These homes do not "get better". They're like old cars which you can patch til you're in debt forever, but what you end up with is not something you'll sell for much money in the end, if even enough to break even after the fixes, and if you can find some financial way to just leave, before the whole thing collapses one night, do it!
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melissa_in_wv
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Insurance--if you would have contacted them as soon as the water problem/slide would have happened they would have helped--would have had you move the mh or move it and fix the problems--retaining wall/french drain/drywell.maybe pour a concrete pad under mh--then move it back--but now--if you call your insurance agent--they will cancel the policy--is this a lost cause?? well no but will cost to fix so do you have the money to fix or cheaper to move---where to start--rats you are infested get professional help,they can be in the roof/walls/floors/duct work fix the moisture problem,dig out slide,retaining walls,a lg french drain all around the mh,put a vapor barrier then tackle on room at a time--remove the floor/ wall covering, clean out rats/bad insulation,remove mold the seal up the bottom of mh and the underpinning and replace the insulation/plywood/drywall--find out what is feeding the rats--outside dogs,their food will draw in rats and other critters--this job is a lot of work but very DIY and cost hard to say--we are doing a total gut of a mh and the drywall is running @ $ 6 sheet,plywood 10-12.insulation @9 bundle,add paint and trim--a 12 x 12 room avg 200 more or less depending on how many windows--a great time to replace windows with real house windows vs mh--look for deals window manufactures in our area have windows for 70 each for all sizes--it is easy to put other size windows in a mh --we just did it here is our current project,photos are out of order we could not replace the mh with a newer model due to zoning laws,if we removed them we could not replace here is the album

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/sharing/shareRedirectSwitchBoard.jsp?token=739392009803%3A541222773&sourceId=533754321803&cm_mmc=eMail--Share--Photos-_-Sharee
Good Luck
krycek1984
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I'm not sure about insurance for mobile homes, but because it appears the damage started in 2004, insurance probably wouldn't cover quite a bit of it...usually for homeowners insurance you only have a certain amount of time to make a claim after an event or it is not covered.

Your home, I'm sorry to say, is now uninhabitable. I can think of no feasible way to rehabilitate it. If the health department came in there, and you had kids, they'd take them away.

Do you own the land the trailer is on? If not, put a trailer on another piece of land - you are never going to win a war with mother nature and since you are at the bottom of 3 slopes, you will never win.

I'm so sorry to hear all of this has happened.
Shades_of_idaho
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
WOW Melissa. Just WOW

Damaged mobile home - Insurance? Mold? Rats? Help!

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Shades_of_idaho

larke

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