Drywall in china? Rice-paper walls - but if they use drywall it will be the same crap.
As for the toys, you can be assured their citizens get the poisoned stuff too. Remember the Melamine fiasco????? Killed a lot of chinese kids.
American Capitalism at its finest. Buy the cheapest crap you can and charge the most you can for max profit. Make sure it is not made in the USA where oversight and living wages reduce your profit margin.
Do the Chinese have a court system... or do they just execute the CEO and 5 or 10 of is closest friends?
At this stage of the game, that might be rather difficult.
Sad to say, they don't seem to be doing any better for their own kids.
The real problem appears to be a mix of greed and ignorance.
I'm certainly glad we don't suffer from those here. :-T
Don't just blame the businesses. They sell what people will buy. Just watch your neighbors shop for the lowest possible price on appliances, cars, home goods, etc. They will buy the China stuff to save $5 even if their mother works for the US appliance maker and will get laid off from lack of sales. . Why pay $129 for that color TV when I can get it for $119? I'm a smart shopper, right?
Don't blame the buyers or the sellers--just recognize that (economic) incentives matter and the confusion will disappear. Economic incentives, of course, include more than pecuniary ones.
It would appear that in this instance, home buyers
1) Had no clue that bad drywall could exist 2) Had no means to check what the builders installed 3) Were deceived by home builders, who likely knew everything but chose not to inform buyers.
Most people didn't.
Well, yeah, it's kind of tough to test for something you don't know is a problem.
You think builders knowingly installed material they knew to be faulty? Huh?
R
Chinese products regularly use false "made in the USA" labels.
Even if it is labeled Made in China does not make it bad.
Again...tell us how to tell the difference between the good and the bad sheetrock.
The problem is harder than it looks.
TMT
TMT
If that's all they can get? Sure.
It may be that no one was negligent, at least not initially. It's possible that everyone involved, from the maker of the drywall on down didn't realize there was any problem with the raw materials being used. It's always possible, in hindsight, to say someone "should have known".
it's not that simple. In this case there has been nothing put forward that suggests the builder failed in any of his duties. There is no law that requires him to run tests on drywall for things that have never happened before. From what I've read, the only party that might have liability would be the maker of the drywall, and good luck collecting from some factory in China. For small problems a large builder will often just fix them, like if a pipe burst in one house because the copper run was defective he might just fix it. But if it was discovered that all the copper in an entire subdivision was defective and the pipes were bursting (like happened with the first plastic pipes) it would be the pipe manufacturer on the hook, which I believe is what happened with the plastic pipe.
You honestly believe an established - notice I didn't say honest - builder would install something he _knew_ would come back to bite him in the but and result in lawsuits? I think that is just as likely to happen as your lawyer taking your money and doing nothing, or any other trade/profession screwing someone over when they knew they were going to get caught. Such things are in the 1 to 2 percent range at most.
Every builder's contract has a clause about conditions outside of their control and limiting their responsibility. The Ignorant one said the builders "knew everything" about the problem, and still installed it. There are essentially no cases, no mention, of defective drywall before the current Chinese created problem. How would these builders know that there would be a problem? No one had ever encountered it before.
R
The Chinese product was used years ago. The chance you'd find it in a supply yard today is about the same as finding fire retardant plywood, which was a defective prroduct produced in the USA in the
80's that lead to hundreds of millions in lawsuits.When it comes time to sue, the usual procedure is to go after everyone in the chain that was involved, assuming they have some assets or insurance worthy of a claim, In this case that would seem to be the builder, perhaps the sub, the supplier, importer, and manufacturer.
It was likely that, or loose his business when he couldn't fulfill the contract.
But I doubt that anybody "knew everything" about what was going on. So in that respect I'd concur with your last.
The key point here is that this type of problem was never covered under any homewoner's policy that I've had, nor do I think any policy would likely cover it. If the furnace turns out to be defective, or the front door falls apart prematurely, your homeowner's policy won't pay for it. The reason they are canceling is likely because they know the risk of them having a claim of a secondary nature is high. Examples would be the owner deciding to stage a fire to get out of the problem, or a house guest suing them for medical claims. Now those would typically be covered.
Yeah, it's amazing how people jump to conclusions. I would think it likely that the builders or yard carrying the product didn't know anything about safety issues any more than the home buyer. Was every toy store that sold the Chinese toys aware that they contained lead?
Well said. I wish basic economics would be required in high school. Then people might understand how markets work.
No. A smart shopper would get one free, on Freecycle.org.
Keep in mind that new drywall always has a slight odor, and there are a lot of other odors on a construction site. It isn't as obvious until it is installed in a fairly airtight home, when the fumes build up. The joint compound, new lumber, paint, caulking and other odors could mask a lot of odors, and there is a good chance that all the doors and windows are open while the drywall is hung, finished and painted. Most crews do an average house in a day or two. I helped some friends rebuild their home after a major fire. Three of us did the drywall entire house in two days. The bulk drywall is out in the open on a flatbed truck, where the fumes can't build up.
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