A Brisbane family has been left devastated after being forced to throw out the entire contents of their home – leaving them with nothing – after a horrific mold problem appeared in their rental.
Erin*, her husband and daughters were granted a possession order for their tenancy, obtained at the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, meaning the police could help evict them from the property if they were not vacated until October 16.
It came after they were initially given 13 hours’ notice to vacate the property by the estate agency at the end of July due to “uninhabitability”.
Mold had spread throughout the house and the family claimed to have experienced a series of unexplained health problems.
But Erin said their nightmare experience has been made worse by Allianz denying their claim under their contents insurance policy.
News.com.au spoke to the mother-of-two before the order was issued, who said her mental health was “terrible” and she feared she might have to leave.
“I’m afraid of the point where we have to throw it all away. “I think that part is probably going to destroy me because we’re throwing our lives away,” she said.
“I don’t care about furniture, I don’t mean that. We have to throw out all the things our children used to do in school. My mom passed away from cancer and I have to throw away all her stuff and that’s all she has left after my sister’s house burns down.”
The family had been living in the rental for three years, most recently paying $880 a week.
In 2022, the council notified the estate agency that there was excessive water use from the property and investigations revealed a leak.
Little did Erin know that this would turn into a harrowing nightmare for the family.
Six months later she noticed mold in the indoor bathroom and alerted the real estate agency.
A mold expert was sent to the rental in October 2023 and made a horrifying discovery. Erin said he used an industrial LED torch to illuminate the walls and bedroom.
“He said you have a really big problem here… The torch showed a lot of places where there was mold and not just in the bedroom, but the kids’ bedrooms and the living room,” she said.
“They told me I had to move everything out of those bedrooms and put the furniture in the center [the] the room and they would cover it and they would come and treat the mold.”
However, the cause of the mold was not identified, she claimed. Then, since December last year, the family has been “really bad”, added Erin.
Her husband experienced severe jaw pain and despite visits to the dentist and antibiotics nothing worked.
“My husband only asked to have the tooth pulled as he was in a lot of pain, but the dentist was uncomfortable as the X-rays showed no problem with [the] tooth He asked her if she was okay by doing a CT scan as he realized she was in a lot of pain,” she noted.
“The CT scan showed there was something in his sinus. He thinks he has polyps in his sinus and doesn’t say it’s directly related, but it’s a symptom of mold.
“We’re living in hell right now.”
Her 25-year-old daughter had severe stomach and back pain and ended up urinating blood, but the hospital could find “no identifiable cause”, she added.
Meanwhile, her 22-year-old daughter also went to the hospital with nausea and dizziness and her blood pressure was very low, but again no explanation was found, she said.
Erin herself has experienced severe back pain and low blood pressure and has had every test possible without finding a cause, while her face peels daily, she said. She added that the whole family had hives.
Her sister came with her family to stay for five weeks while they waited for their new house to be finished after it burned down.
“My sister said she didn’t feel well and ended up crying, vomiting and screaming in pain. We called an ambulance as we thought she was having a stroke as she was in so much pain. It took her lights and sirens to the hospital… but nothing was wrong with her after she left this house,” she said.
“They were moving in a day or so, she had all the blood work, scans, a head CT, a heart scan and no answers as to what happened.”
In June, Erin noticed that a leather jacket and a dress had mold on them. She bought her own torch and was horrified to see glowing mold everywhere in the house.
She said every possible trade had been sent to investigate the matter by the estate agency.
“The property and the owner issued an immediate eviction notice and said it was unsafe to live in,” she added.
“All reports say our content is contaminated. They have tested the air we are breathing and some guidelines say the mold level should be below 500 spores per square cm, ours is 13,500 in one room, 181,000 in another and 272,000 in our daughter’s room. So it’s too bad.”
Parts of the house were made off-limits, including the bedrooms, which smelled pretty bad and “if I go in there, I actually lose my voice,” Erin said.
The family were given 13 hours to remove their belongings and vacate the property, but had nowhere to go. Ultimately, QCAT issued the possession order last month.
But despite having contents insurance, the family’s claim has been denied by Allianz three times.
“We are in a situation where we are financially desperate. “The insurance company has been terrible,” she said.
“Allianz denied every part of the claim. Allianz is saying because there is no drainage around the property it is an intangible event.
“I find the whole system unbelievable.”
Erin had applied to rent, but said the reality was the moment “we get approved for a house that we don’t have anything to put in it.”
“I know it’s still crazy to be here and know what you’re doing to us here as I feel it and see it,” she said.
“Anyone who enters [the] home on behalf of the insurance companies they say do not enter this room is unsafe. It burns your eyes, you can taste it, but you can’t see the mold.”
The family no longer sleeps in the bedrooms.
“It’s a bit like a ** mess. The strangest part is that everyone is stuck with mold in the house,” she noted.
“They’ve gone, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this.’ You can’t see it, but it’s literally everywhere.”
In a later update, the family told news.com.au that they have found a rental, but it looks like they are “screwed”.
“It’s just bullshit because we actually have insurance. We have done our due diligence to mitigate our loss,” she said.
She said she had taken Allianz’s rejections of their claim “very badly”. Overall, the experience had left them feeling “devastated” and “defeated”.
“It’s a mess… I don’t know what to do anymore,” she said.
She said certificates from experts had certified the house as compliant with Australian standards.
In a letter seen by news.com.au, Allianz blamed the gross lack of adequate surface and subsurface drainage around the apartment and as a result has deemed the issue a construction defect.
An Allianz spokesman said temporary accommodation was offered to the family a number of times while the claim was being assessed, but these were rejected until recently.
In early September, an $8,400 payment was made to help the family get a new lease, they added.
A review of the original claim denial found that “the proximate cause of the mold damage is an inherent defect and the policy does not cover loss or damage caused by an inherent defect,” the Allianz spokesman added.
Allianz admits there was a leak in 2022 and that there was mold damage in June 2024, the spokesman added.
“However, there was no evidence of a causal relationship between the 2022 leak and the mold damage found in June 2024,” they added.
Even if it is accepted that the broken storm water line was also a cause of the mold damage – there are many causes – and “Allianz is entitled to apply the policy’s ‘inherent defects’ exclusion,” they added.
Erin said all of their belongings, including sentimental items collected over the years, ended up in the tip.
“We’ve dropped at least six tonnes of our stuff, tip weighed it over last weekend when we took most of our stuff to the top,” she said.
“We’ve had four extra bins to remove the remaining contents and are starting to move into a new rental that currently has basically nothing in it.
“Thankfully we have mattresses and we’re listing what we can afford to replace, but using lists of what’s urgent and important rather than spending money on things that aren’t a priority at the moment.”
The family has lodged a complaint with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority about Allianz’s decision.
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