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Sep 27, 2023

Families suing D.R. Horton over mold in homes share stories

Anna Pollock still braces for the worst when she opens a closet. For nearly eight years, she and her family lived in a Lafayette Parish house contaminated with mold. Spores grew on the family’s

Anna Pollock still braces for the worst when she opens a closet.

For nearly eight years, she and her family lived in a Lafayette Parish house contaminated with mold. Spores grew on the family’s clothes and shoes, photo albums, baby toys and other keepsakes that they stowed in their closets and crawlspaces.

The family moved out of the home two years ago and lives in Georgia now, but Pollock remains haunted by the experience.

“It was heartbreaking to watch your family losing items and you just have to keep replacing things,” she recalled.

Microbial growth did more than damage the family’s belongings, according to Pollock and her attorneys. Unbeknownst to the Pollocks, their youngest daughter was exposed to mold as a toddler, they claim, and she slept in a bedroom that had high concentrations of fungus buried in the walls. In 2018, doctors diagnosed the 5-year-old with a severe case of asthma and attributed it to elevated levels of aspergillus and penicillium spores in the Lafayette home, Pollock said.

“It’s not something that’s ever going to go away for her,” she said. "I feel like I’ve handed her this problem in her life.”

Anna Pollock and her daughter, Rachel.

The Pollocks are among a growing list of Louisiana homeowners who allege houses built by D.R. Horton aren’t properly constructed to withstand Louisiana’s humidity.

Many of those families are now suing the Texas-based construction company, with attorneys saying the nation’s leading homebuilder has erected defective homes along the Interstate 10 corridor from Slidell to Lake Charles.

Where has DR Horton built in Louisiana? Check out this interactive map.

Recently unsealed court documents in Justin and Anna Pollock’s lawsuit show D.R. Horton handled at least 1,100 complaints about mold, water leaks, structural defects and high humidity in Louisiana homes dating back as far as 2007. The work orders provide a glimpse into the ventilation system breakdowns as well as alleged failings in how the company responded when issues arose. The records indicate problems often persisted even after D.R. Horton made repairs, forcing new homebuyers to submit multiple work orders for the same issue.

Attorneys representing D.R. Horton either declined to comment or failed to respond to multiple phone calls and emails from The Advocate. In the past, company officials have said an arbitrator will mediate the matter. They also defended the builder's integrity.

"We take the plaintiffs’ claims seriously, as we do with all issues homeowners raise with us," D.R. Horton attorney James Brown said in May 2022, responding to the lawsuits. "We desire to satisfy the folks that buy homes from us."

But the company still hasn't figured out how to properly build homes in the state, according to Lance Unglesby, the New Orleans attorney representing the Pollocks as well as hundreds of other plaintiffs suing D.R. Horton in a separate class-action civil claim. He said many of the homes have shown humidity levels above 65% after being tested.

"When that happens, it creates moisture in the air, and that moisture then starts to create mold," Unglesby explained.

Anna Pollock said her home had leaky windows that allowed moisture to trickle in. Mold soon began to form near the vents and air-conditioner registers, then seeped into the walls of the home in which she was raising her four young children.

She and her husband spent the better part of seven years making repeated requests to get leaks fixed. D.R. Horton replaced the same windows at least seven times, but they were never able to resolve the issue, according to the Pollocks' lawsuit.

In 2018, the Pollocks' daughter started having severe coughing spells while she slept. After contractors cut open drywall in the child’s room, they found mold and rotted wood, the family alleges in the lawsuit. An inspector hired by the family later determined a faulty HVAC system caused elevated levels of mold spores in the home, according to an air quality report.

Anna Pollock's voice trembled with emotion as she spoke of the ordeal.

“I can deal with the loss of furniture. I can deal with the fact that we’ve had to replace couches, clothing and toys,” she said. “But you can’t put a price tag on your children’s health. And knowing the decision to buy that home hurt my daughter, that’s going to stick with me forever.”

Another couple in a D.R. Horton house in the same neighborhood where the Pollocks once lived -- their daughters played together -- is also suing, claiming similar issues with mold.

Wes and Alicia Dixon saved up for years to buy their first house. When they moved into a split-level ranch house in the newly built Sugar Ridge subdivision in Youngsville, they envisioned it as their forever home.

“This was where our kids were going to grow up,” Wes Dixon said. “We thought we were going to be grandparents in this home. This was it for us.”

Wes Dixon shows mold spores outside bedroom window in his family's Youngsville home on March 1, 2023.

But their dream house quickly turned into a nightmare after the ventilation system malfunctioned and mold began forming throughout the residence, they say. Electrical issues from the moisture caused appliances to short out, and humidity drove up temperatures in the house nearly 10 degrees, Wes Dixon pointed out.

The Dixons say that when they called for maintenance early on, D.R. Horton dragged its feet and did “Band-Aid” patchwork fixes to get through the two-year warranty period, when the home repairs became the homeowner’s responsibility.

Over the years, the Dixons have poured thousands of dollars into trying to remediate the mold issues to no avail, their lawsuit claims. Alicia Dixon has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a disorder that occasionally keeps her bedridden for days when it flares up. Wes Dixon said the couple’s daughter has mold allergies and goes to a specialist who gives her a shot once a week. They are trying to find evidence that proves the home caused the family’s chronic illnesses.

“It’s so disappointing and frustrating,” he said. “We worked our butts off to get to the point to buy a brand new home, and now it’s making us sick.”

The Dixons now live in constant fear of their own home and feel like they have run out of options. They say they can’t sell the home because it’s in such poor condition. And the working-class family can’t afford to move into a new home while keeping up with its current mortgage.

Mold pictured on a window sill outside Wes and Alicia Dixon's Youngsville home March 1, 2023.

“It’s like we’re living in a molded prison,” Wes said. “Financially, we just can’t get out.”

The Dixons are poised to be the lead plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit alleging D.R. Horton used deceptive sales tactics to close deals on homes it knew were poorly built.

Unglesby and his team are currently fighting to get internal documents from the company that can shed light on its business practices.

The case was moved from state court to the U.S. Middle District Court of Louisiana earlier this year. In February, U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson suspended court proceedings in the case, pending a decision in arbitration, which would occur outside of court.

The federal judge later vacated that stay order after Unglesby pushed for reconsideration. A U.S. magistrate judge is now weighing the plaintiffs' motion to send the case back to state court.

D.R. Horton is a multi-billion dollar corporation that bills itself as the nation's leading builder since 2002. According to a company fiscal report, it closed on nearly 83,000 homes and single-family rentals in 2022.

Unglesby alleges sales representatives used coercive tactics to make some of those deals. Many Louisiana customers who purchased the homes were quickly left with buyer's remorse because of constant issues they had to deal with, the lawsuits allege.

According to Unglesby, Bell Mechanical, one of the main subcontractors that partners with D.R. Horton, began installing dehumidifiers as a stopgap measure in moldy homes the company constructed last year in a Slidell development that is still being built out.

"Even after building all of these houses, they still can't get them right," Unglesby said. "To me, the installation of dehumidifiers across the board in Slidell is an admission that D.R. Horton's homes are defective. You're not supposed to need a dehumidifier in a brand new house if you build it right."

Sugar Ridge turned into a hotbed for the problem as at least a dozen homes D.R. Horton built in the subdivision became infested with mold, according to Unglesby.

Anna Pollock said her daughter’s condition has improved since they left the home. But the girl, now 10, still suffers from occasional chest pains when she plays outside. She has nightly coughing fits at times, remains on breathing treatments and has to carry a rescue inhaler with her to school.

Anna Pollock believes D.R. Horton should lose its right to build homes altogether.

“I don’t know how an ethical company that calls itself America’s homebuilder can knowingly put families at risk,” she said. “I don’t think they’ll ever realize what they do to people.”

Email Matt Bruce at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter, @Matt_BruceDBNJ.