METAIRIE, La. (AP) -Saints head coach Sean Payton figured something was wrong with his suburban New Orleans house when electrical devices kept failing and his wife’s fleur-de-lis-shaped, sterling silver jewelry turned black.
Following an offseason practice on Thursday, the coach said he has moved out of his house because it was full of Chinese drywall.
“It’s a mess,” said Payton, who lives in the town of Mandeville, on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. “The thing about it that’s tough is it affects so many people that aren’t in a position really to move out of their homes. … They’re living in it. It’s awful.”
Payton was able to rent another house in his neighborhood, which he moved into in the past three weeks.
Certain wallboard imported from China is suspected of causing a chemical reaction – which gets worse with heat and humidity – that gives off a rotten-egg stench and corrodes metal.
in 2006, when many homes in south Louisiana were gutted and repaired following Hurricane Katrina. Payton’s house was new when he moved into it in 2006.
“We’ve had 14 air conditioning service calls,” Payton began. “We’ve had five computer failures. We’ve had three microwave oven panel failures, we’ve had a whole set of phone lines replaced.”
Now the coach is suing the drywall manufacturer, the supplier and the home builder, but does not expect to receive compensation until well after he has paid up front to replace the walls in the home he owns.
Payton said about 80 percent of his walls were made with Chinese boards in question, “so we’ll be out of the home for a long time and we await the litigation.”
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