NAMPA, Idaho — Flooding at newly built homes is causing headaches and big expenses for homeowners and new buyers in the Treasure Valley. I spoke with a new home buyer who dropped out of her contract to buy a home in Nampa after discovering flooding at the property.
- You can find a link to our previous story about homeowners in Kuna paying thousands to fix flooded crawl spaces here.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
"This is a brand new house. I bought a brand new house, not expecting to have a fix-it list,” says Mary Powell, who moved to the Treasure Valley from Oregon.
She put down a deposit to buy a newly built house in Nampa, but during her first tour of her soon to be new home she noticed flooding in the backyard and mud all around the house.
"They blamed the neighbor and said they over-watered their backyard and it ran into mine. That's what they said happened, I don't think so. Not by the condition of the yard that I saw. There was too much water, it was like a pond that had been back there,” says Powell.
Along with the flooded yards and drains sinking into the ground, Mary tells me she spotted enough other issues with the house to make her change her mind.
"I was fortunate enough to arrive when they were trying to fix a big problem and they couldn't fix it good enough. But nobody would buy that house if they saw what I saw."
She then terminated her contract and requested her $8,100 in earnest money back from Toll Brothers, who she says ignored her request and sent a separate termination notice to her saying they would keep her money.
"I'm retired. I sold my house to move over here. I only have a certain amount of money, I'm obviously not going back to work. That's part of my savings to buy a house so now I've got less money to buy a house because of them,” says Powell.
I reached out to Toll Brothers requesting an interview to talk about Mary's experience and the concerns of other homeowners. They denied my request and sent me the same statement they sent me last month — after I asked about new homeowners in Kuna experiencing flooded crawl spaces.
"I would say that probably 30-35% of all the homes that we inspect that have crawl spaces or even basements, any below grade spaces, will have some active flooding to them or some evidence of periodic flooding,” says Stan Audette, who has been inspecting homes for over 30 years as the owner of AAD Inspection Corp.
He says that having six inches of slope away from the foundation is crucial so that water can drain away from the home — a small but important detail in the building code that he tells me can be overlooked by builders.
"The solution I guess is to, even on new construction, have independent home inspectors who know that importance, inspect the house and then hopefully, hopefully get the builder to say “oops sorry yes that probably is important, we'll fix it,” says Audette.
"People need to speak up, people need to know about them. They need to know they don't have to buy their house,” says Powell.
