My Friend in the Attic

This is what vermiculite looks like, incase you're curious.

Flip This House

I'm thinking of starting a new blog, it's called, "How Not to Buy a Home" It's probably already been done. It would be a comical cautionary tale. Anyway, maybe a rich, retired couple from Atlanta will buy the home for the land, tear down this death trap, and build themselves a nice new, efficient McMansion. You never know. It's our only hope at this point. Then we'll move north, at least to Kentucky. So I can have some snow. This is just to far south for me. Sorry, my family can shun me, I really don't give a shit any more. Maybe it's fair. After all my mom shunned my grandma for 10 years and I missed out on seeing my grand parents from the age of 9 until I was 19. Talk about some fucked up shit. So don't tell me where I can or can't live.
Yikes, I just noticed chunks of vermiculite stuck to the bedroom door and just painted over. I tell you, if the seller knew about this stuff, tried to hide it, and then sold this home to a family with kids. Well, there's just got to be an extra special place in hell for him. Plus, I'm starting to understand why his wife left him and fled 1300 miles away to California. Run Margaret! Run!

More Adventures in Vermiculite

I've been doing a little research, trying to find out who was the last person to know that there is vermiculite up there. I suspect it is the previous owner, who checked "I dunno" on the asbestos question. Now, how do I go about proving negligence or liability? I guess first things first, I need to have it tested. If I'm lucky, it will come back negative, via the "Cincinnati" method. Then I can have the results certified and everything is fine. But, if it comes back positive we might have a big expensive problem on our hands. Does liability fall with the home inspector who should have known that in an older home there is often a mix of insulation types and that some may not be visible? Or does it fall with the previous owns, who most likely knew since he was having the home renovated and did a lot if the work himself. Is it the contractor he hired? Or the insulation company? It becomes a game of, "I didn't see it there" but some one did. I need to put on my Ms. Marple hat and get to work. It's a small town, but you can't screw this Jew. Just kidding, I'm only Jewish in distant ancestry. Maybe no one knew, or just didn't know what the stuff was. You know, true ignorance. It's hard to say, and unfortunately for me, even harder to prove. I know what to look for next time. And, yes, you need to be there for the entire home inspection. You really need to baby sit those guys. There isn't a regulatory board for home inspectors, at least not in Georgia, so there's no QC for them either. Basically anyone can be one. I know they are only human, but this was a big mistake. Bigger than the  not up to code broken drain pipe for the laundry room, and bigger than the leaky toilet basin. No, this is a potential hazardous material, costly clean up, mistake. So yeah, I'm a little perturbed.

V is for Vermiculite

One may say I'm particular even fastidious, or picky. I just like things done right and preferably up to code. Well, I made the mistake of trying to brush off the bathroom exhaust vent and it started to pop out and re-pop out. Each time it did little flakes of what looked like mica fell out too. I wasn't sure what it was and though it was something to do with the sheet rock. Now I'm watching "Holmes Makes it Right" and they are redoing the insulation in a porch roof and he found vermiculite, which looks like mica, turns out it's an old form of insulation which, yay, contains asbestos. So I'm really excited about how much more of that is up there. You know, I paid a lot for the home inspector that came out, with all his glowing reviews. His first mistake, he didn't bring the radon test I requested. And even said it wasn't worth his time to come back with one another day. He also missed a lot of big issues, like the leaking toilet, the broken and no conforming washer drain, the wasp nest in the chimney, the nails sticking through the shingles and the roof boards and into the attic, the loose un-boxed wiring in the attic, the mis-matched note up to code circuit breakers, oh yeah, and the vermiculite. The realtor was right, why pay more for an inspector, they apparently miss the big things. This guy was supposedly an air force mechanic. Sure.
So what is vermiculite?

Vermiculite is a mica like mineral that puffs up like popcorn when heated. It was used in homes as insulation between 1920-1990. Most of the vermiculite insulation came from a mine in Libby, Montana which contained a significant amount of asbestos contamination. If you find vermiculite in your home, it's very likely that it came from the Libby mine and it's probably contaminated with asbestos. About 80% of all vermiculite insulation produced between 1920-1990 came from Libby, MT. 
So now what to do? There's no reliable testing methods, so you're best to just assume that it is contaminated and do the following:
Limit trips to the attic, stay off the insulation, and try not to store anything up there.
So now my attic is a useless toxic waste zone?
Where a properly fitted mask rated for asbestos if entering the attic.
Seriously? I've already been up there and the stuff is falling into my bathroom!
Seal around penetrations in your ceiling such as attic the attic hatch, cracks, holes, light fixtures, ceiling fans, and heating vents.
Well this is getting funner by the minute.
If planned remodeling will disturb the vermiculite, have it removed by a trained , certified, and properly trained asbestos abatement contractors.
Should this have been on the disclosure? Can I sue my home inspector?
If the vermiculite has been disturbed, have an accredited asbestos testing firm come and test the air for asbestos fibers.
I'm sure the bathroom exhaust is blowing it all around.
So this concerns me. We have a goofy bathroom exhaust situation. It basically just blows in the attic and directly onto the cellulose insulation. So all that stuff in the attic is just blowing around every time we turn the exhaust fan on. No that vermiculite has fallen out of the celling when I was cleaning around the exhaust fan, I'm worried about how much is up there, and how much is being "disturbed". I'm feeling disturbed to tell you the truth. There was a lot of incorrect information on the disclosure from the owner, and a lot of stuff left off the disclosure that the home inspector missed. Is there any sort of remediation, financially, or legally for this? Or with homes, is there no legal recourse? Next stop, Legal Zoom. 

I guess the insulation in the attic was previously vermiculite until they replaced it with the annoying, every falling out of the attic, cellulose. At least cellulose has a good R value and no asbestos.
While cellulose, when installed correctly, does offer superior insulation options. I question if the guy installed his right. It's not in a smooth consistent layer, it's in lumpy piles, and the roof above the front porch, which has a gable that opens into the attic, isn't insolated at all. I'm not sure if that matters, since cold air falls.

So everyday it's something, isn't it. More than I had anticipated. I wonder, a lot, if we should just sell, before we find more things. Plus, to be honest, this house is really damn small. A good agent, which I question ours, wouldn't push a tiny house on a family of 3. It's 2 bedrooms, one tiny bath, and 1082 soft. Most of the time I'm about to start screaming from the noise. And ever since we moved in my daughter has been acting really weird. Making a lot of weird noises, stumbling around, whining, crying, unhappy, bored. 10 acres to run on and she's bored. I'm am too. It's like she's having a nervous break down, and the wood floors and small rooms only amplifies the noise. I can't send her outside because people come down the road at 55mph even though we are 100 feet from the stop sign, there are fire ant beds, a gully, and probably snakes. I guess I'm not in Wisconsin any more. What the hell am I doing here anyway?

But I'll try not to complain. Too much

But let's he