At the height of the U.S. housing boom, where the materials were rare, construction companies use millions of pounds of products produced in China, the walls are dry, because it was plentiful and cheap.Well, the decision is alarming, hundreds of houses and flats, based on the residents of the wall there, the vapors, the corrosion of copper tubes, jewelry in silver and black, and perhaps ill people.
Shipment of the material supplied by the Associated Press indicates that imports of Chinese building materials potentially tainted more than 500 million pounds over a period of four years of rising real estate prices. Drywall in May, more than 100,000 households estimated to be, even the houses rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina.
"It is an extraordinary stress disorder," said U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, a Democrat from Florida has a bill in the Chamber of Deputies, the temporary ban on the production in China, which imports more as long as you know, by the chemical composition. A similar scheme has been in the Senate.
Drywall apparently causes a chemical reaction, which followed a smell of egg pourri, which deals with the heat and humidity.
The researchers do not yet know what the reaction, but the possible culprits fumigant sprayed on the material and the panels of plaster on the inside. The Chinese also have a drywall product called fly ash from coal is not so high that the American decision-makers drywall.
Dozens of houses in the south, the producers, suppliers and manufacturers that the walls around them are compounds of sulfur, free of odors, the poisoning of their families and the provision of their homes uninhabitable.
"It is their hopes and dreams are just," said Mary Ann Schultheis, whose treatment by a fire in the eyes, sinus headaches, and usually the heaviness in the chest, he moved into his new, 4000 square meter in this house in good Rules of the southern suburb of Florida a few years ago.
It has few options. Its builder is bankrupt, the government is not helping your lender and him no peace.
"I will scream," he says. "We do not know what to do."
The manufacturers will have their own suppliers and manufacturers, on the pretext that the improper use of unauthorized materials.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has initiated an investigation of how the health services in Virginia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Florida and Washington.
The companies which form a part of the wall says that they are looking into the allegations, but has the option, the risks to health.
"What we do now is to investigate what exactly happened," said Ken Haldin, a spokesman for Knauf Gypsum Tianjin, a Chinese company named in many processes.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce, and the construction industry and the administration, monitoring the quality of inspection and quarantine is not the repeated requests of the reviews. News Chinese AQSIQ said that the standards for the quality of the products, an investigation into the complaints, but the people of the press agency said they can not confirm.
During this time, the governors of Louisiana and Florida, the support of the federal government, and experts say that the problem is now to the surface.
"Given the quantity of devices that are at stake, it is possible that in just one year, 100,000 homes will be involved," said Michael Foreman, the owner of a construction consulting. The company has more than 200 houses in the Sarasota area and has been the transit of dry wall.
The German authorities explain investigate how the wall has been imported. Shipment of the documents requested by the AP show that more than 540 million pounds of cast iron - which both the gypsum boards and ceiling coverings, tiles - were from China from 2004 to 2008, but it is difficult to say whether all the material was or certain problems.
Most of their entry into the country in 2006 after a series of hurricanes on the coast of the Gulf and a lack of a national real estate boom.
The Chinese are also cheaper board. A house told AP that the savings were $ 1000 for the construction of their house with his by a gross national product.
In 2006, it is quite wall from China to build some 34,000 housing units for about 2000 square meters depending on the AP for the dispatch of documentation for the analysis and estimates provided by the supplier of the national United States of walls made of plaster dry.
Experts and advocates in May many households were using a mixture of Chinese and the walls dry and possibly increase the number of affected households is significantly higher.
So far it seems that the problem primarily in Southeast Asia that are successfully using the new construction during the housing boom, and if the weather is humid, and it seems that the plaster in the building materials industry to deteriorate faster. In Florida, more than 35,000 houses in May with the product, the experts said.
Louisiana, the state of the Ministry of Health has reports of at least 350 people in a few weeks. Many owners affected, again after hurricane Katrina, only the prospect of the demolition of their homes and rebuild again.
In another cruel twist treatment, some communities were hit by the collapse of the housing market and the rise of exclusion is the core of the problems, the walls dry.
Foreman warns against "animal sleep in the bank in possession of thousands of houses and condominiums across the country, where nobody can complain.
Outside the South, it is difficult to say that the number of households affected. In climates secs, like California and Nevada, in May, the years before the owners start to see - and believe - that tapi May is in its walls.
Drywall rage is the latest in a series of problems potentially toxic to the imports from China. In 2007, the Chinese authorities Ratchet and reduces the controls of the restrictions on the export of the manufacturers have been the erroneous against cough syrup, an ingredient toxic feed for pet toys and lead paint set.
The scientists hope the problem through the investigation of chemicals on the board. Drywall is made up of large, flat cardboard for the walls. It is often of gypsum, a mineral that can be extracted or derived from the byproducts of coal-fired power plants.
The complainant in this proceeding, and the wall of the U.S. say the manufacturer of gypsum panels was tainted fly ash, a residue from the combustion of coal in mixtures of concrete.
Fly ash can be collected before they enter the chimney, where the technology is used to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide. The process of "cleaning" of the emissions from the fireplace creates calcium sulfate or gypsum, used for the wall, say the experts.
Haldin, Tianjin Knaupf spokesman said that some national dry wall is also less refined fly ash.
But Michael Gardner, director of the Association of U.S. Gypsum, said the U.S. producers to capture households plaster after treatment, which is a detergent.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission sent teams toxicologists, electrical engineers and other experts in Florida for the phenomenon. The Committee also works in cooperation with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine whether a risk to health.
The Florida Department of Health has noted that the analysis makes Chinese drywall "volatile sulfur compounds and contains traces of hydrogen sulphide strontium, the landmark May egg smell and reacts with air to corrode metal and wires.
However, the Agency on its website that "no evidence is found, an immediate danger to health or the Chronicle at the moment."
"We try," said Susan Smith, a spokesman for the ministry, which has 230 complaints of housing.
Dr. Patricia Williams, University of New Orleans in Louisiana toxicologist, by a law firm by the plaintiffs in some cases, said he has very toxic compounds into the plasterboard, with hydrogen sulfide, sulfuric acid, sulfur dioxide and carbon disulfide.
One long-lasting connections, especially the high carbon disulfide can cause breathing difficulties, chest pain and even death, and can affect the nervous system, the CDC.
"It is absolutely disgraceful what happened," said Williams.
Dr. Phillip stinger, set by a toxicologist Knaupf plaster Tianjin, the budgets of 25 dry-wall, the wall, in some companies and some of those who are not held.
"The studies that we have carried out so far, allows a very low natural," said stinger. "This is what we found no public health problem. The chemicals are of natural origin. They are in the water of the ocean, the salt from the air, at the mouths.
But living with him, are convinced that something is sick, including the ten houses in a settlement in the park land, about 50 miles north of Miami. Now, faced with a choice of the size of the crack and reconstruction assistance, or to quit and stuck with a mortgage and a home that they can not sell them.
"We are particularly concerned about the safety and welfare of our children," said Holly Krulik lives on the street by Mary Ann Schultheis.
She and her husband, Doug, suffer curve and respiratory diseases, and his young daughter has repeated nosebleeds.
"If a copper coil can be quite shiny black in a matter of months, certainly can not be good for humans," said Krulik.
Neighbor John Willis is in motion, even if it little opportunity to surrender a home, the ownership of only three years. He screams when he's about 3 years old, son of respiratory infections, which eventually need an operation.
"You have essentially a substance which, in the adhesive rubber with my son 3 years of the breast," he says. "My wife and I are now with the choice between the health of our children and our financial strength. My children are still to win is."
Subdivision manufacturer WCI Communities, is in Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy and restructuring proceedings is hardly more than the registration of complaints, said spokeswoman Connie Boyd.
The federal government does not regulate the chemical composition of the ingredients imported drywall.
Tianjin Plaster said he had the plates of plaster of 10 years after the American and international standards.
Another company, claims against China Taisha Gypsum Ltd, also stressed that all American.
Determine what the cause of the problems that take months. The investigators try again in the laboratory the conditions have caused sulfur, which are usually the signs of plaster of gases released.
During this time, It is people like Lisa, 43, left with more questions than answers. Felt not good, since the shift in Henderson, Nevada, rentals of less than one year, and fast money terni.
"I can hear my wheezing," said, the experience in the testing environment of dwellings, built in the 2007th "My eyes are constantly itching, extreme fatigue."
And even if the wall is poor, they are not felt for months. Lost five weeks of work with only Thanksgiving.
"I'm always tired," he says. "It makes no sense."
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