If it isn’t contaminated drugs, tainted milk products and lead painted toys that Georgia product liability attorneys constantly encounter, it’s the prospect of being poisoned in your own home by defective drywall. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is investigating whether gases emitted from Chinese-made drywall pose a safety risk to house owners, including those in Georgia.
The investigation is linked to complaints of sulfur-like gases that were being emitted from the drywall, resulting in corrosion of electrical wiring and plumbing in a few homes in Florida. Drywall is commonly used in the construction of interior walls, and currently the CPSC has no standards for the material. The drywall that has been the focus of close to 100 complaints by homeowners in Florida to the state’s department of health, was imported from China due to a shortage. The CPSC investigation will look at whether there are potential safety hazards in the use of the drywall, and whether a recall needs to be issued for the defective drywall. Besides Florida, the problem is expected to be particularly high in gulf coast states like Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. Parts of Louisiana and Mississippi that were badly ravaged by Katrina are likely to have several houses that were rebuilt after the hurricane, using the toxic drywall.
Symptoms of sulphur poisoning from the drywall include sulphur odors that are similar to the smell of rotten eggs. The house may have more problems with this electrical wiring and air conditioning systems that can’t be explained easily. Most importantly, people living in the house could be experiencing frequent respiratory tract infections, and unexplained dizziness.
Frustrated home owners are already beginning to explore their legal options. The number of people discovering that they have drywall with sulphur toxicity around the country is increasing. If you suspect that your house has defective drywall (if your house was build between 2005 and 2008) you can call your health department to test whether there is a sulfur toxicity problem, and if it can cause health problems. Besides suffering from respiratory problems and dizziness, home owners with the defective drywall could also find themselves having to tear down their homes to remove the material.
Georgia Product Injury Attorneys
It seems like American consumers are being increasingly handed cheaply made foreign products which they end up paying the full price for anyway. Defective products are entering almost every aspect of our lives – from the food we eat, the medicines we take, the toys our children play with, and now it seems, even the houses we live in. We can’t wish away globalization, but as product liability attorneys we can demand that products manufactured abroad to cut costs meet the safety standards that apply to American-made products.