A Kelowna family’s mould strickened ‘house of horrors’

KELOWNA — John Dunn can’t enter his house of horrors without a wearing mask.

From the basement to the kitchen, there’s mould everywhere in his home on Hein road in Rutland. The roof is so leaky, a light fixture in the ceiling has also filled with water.

Dunn even bought a home kit to test for mould, what he found was alarming.

“As you can see there’s probably seven different types of mould growing in our air,” said Dunn, showing us the petri dish.

The problems started months ago, but at the time, the family says they didn’t know the house was in disrepair. Then the entire family started getting health problems.

“When it rains, the next day my kids are all congested,” said Dunn. “When it starts drying out, they have random nose bleeds, random rashes, random fevers, itchy eyes, crawly skin, little sores coming out of ears sometimes.”

They approached their landlord numerous times to fix the mess but they say nothing was done. Only after they threatened to call media when they say the landlord promised to house them in a hotel for a month — on the condition they leave the home, and sign a contract that wouldn’t allow them to demand compensation in the future. They signed it.

“The reason I signed this contract to stay in hotel, I was scared my kids wouldn’t wake up in the morning I was having a hard time breathing my kids were having a hard time breathing,” he said.

We contacted the property manager Mark Passay but were told the owners are out of town until tomorrow.

“I need to speak with the owners. They’d have to be comfortable about that I can’t go and speak on behalf of their tenants without their permission,” said Passay.

After speaking to the family, we still weren’t clear why they would stay in the home for so long — if there were so many problems.

The Dunn family says they didn’t want to uproot their kids, they also said it’s hard to find housing for low income families.

“We shouldn’t have to move though, as a lower income family with young children it’s not easy to pack up and uproot their life like that,” said Alyssa Robinson, Dunn’s partner. “Our kids are in a good school, they’re close to the school, they like their school.”

As of Monday, the Dunn family is officially out of a home, all their contaminated belongings will have to be trashed.

Dunn says he has a hearing with the tenancy branch on Wednesday.