Developers Knew Of Chinese Drywall "Stench" & Installed The Defective Wallboard Anyway?

In South Florida, the Broward-Palm Beach New Times reports:

• [S]everal sources involved with the investigation of Chinese drywall tell [New Times] that they've discovered that the developers and their employees knew about the stench while they were installing the defective wall board. Some union workers even refused to work with the Chinese drywall because of the severe sulfur-like smell. They feared that the smell was an indication that the drywall was rotted and could lead to liability later.

• Other employees of developers figured out that the smell would subside after the drywall was painted, so workers were told to paint quickly in order to mask the smell. Such [admissions] have come as law firms suing the developers talk to construction workers who hung the defective drywall. One worker told a law firm investigator that records regarding the drywall were kept in a truck "because they didn't want it in one place."

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• Most of the Chinese drywall lawsuits are now on hold until a federal court called the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation decides whether to have all the cases heard by one judge. The panel held a hearing last week in Kentucky and is expected to decide in a couple weeks whether to combine them and, if so, where. If the suits are combined, there's a good chance it could end up in Florida, where 15,000 homeowners have joined 150 separate lawsuits.Besides, it wouldn't be hard to find their way to Florida. Just follow the smell from the developers.

For more, see Construction Workers Admit They Installed a Stink Bomb with Chinese Drywall.

Go here for other posts on Chinese drywall.

Go here for links to recent media reports on the problems with "Chinese drywall."