Consumers, such as Jennifer Belsom, whose homes are lined with noxious Chinese drywall are angry, helpless and embittered. The tainted drywall has sickened their families and corroded their appliances, yet few sources of help have emerged to help them tear it out of their homes.

Insurance companies have denied their claims. Builders will not return their calls. Their mortgage lenders offer no reprieve if they want to move out of their house to escape the potential health threat. In the absence of a federal disaster declaration, they cannot obtain a rental voucher or a Small Business Administration loan to help with repairs.

The drywall has thus become a financial catastrophe for residents of greater New Orleans, many of whom exhausted insurance money or personal savings to repair homes after Hurricane Katrina, only to be forced out again by toxic building material many believe contributes to nosebleeds and respiratory problems.

As her baby battled rashes and a continual sinus infection, Belsom and her family moved out of the home they repaired in Meraux and into another they had planned to use as a rental. Belsom is at a loss for what to do with the contaminated property, which she believes is nearly worthless as long as it contains the tainted drywall.

“We just finished using our personal savings to fix it the first time,” Belsom said. “It is a very nice house in a nice area. It is our dream home. We put all our heart and soul into fixing it, not to mention all of our money, and we do not have the money to fix it again. We just don’t.”

Reports began emerging out of Florida late last year that Chinese drywall, much of it imported during the height of the building boom in 2006, emitted sulfur compounds that merged with moisture in the air to form sulfuric acid or other substances that irritate the sinuses and corrode air conditioners, copper wiring and household electronics.

While the symptoms associated with the defective drywall are clear enough — an odor of rotten eggs and repeat appliance failures — much of the evidence is, at this point, anecdotal. Federal agencies have begun to test the imported drywall, and their findings could provide the basis for a civil complaint against builders, suppliers or manufacturers that might eventually help consumers recoup their losses.

Several consumers interviewed for this story said they plan to sue their builder. Others have signed on to a class action veteran litigator Daniel Becnel Jr. filed in federal court in New Orleans against a prominent manufacturer, Knauf Gips, and its Chinese subsidiary, Knauf Tianjin. A panel of federal judges is weighing whether to merge Becnel’s suit with similar class actions in Florida.

Stephen Mysliwiec, a partner at the law firm DLA Piper and the chairman of an upcoming conference in New Orleans about Chinese drywall, said it will not become clear who is liable for the defective product until consensus emerges on the precise cause of the problems. One theory ventures that gypsum mined in China contains excessive sulfur, he said, while another ventures that fly ash, a byproduct of the burning of coal, was used during the manufacturing process.

“Until the science of what is causing the problem is settled, it is very difficult to know which party is going to be held liable for the cost of making repairs,” Mysliwiec said.

Consumers, meanwhile, are groping for help, often to little avail. Several said they have tried haggling with their builders, but many contractors cannot afford to replace the drywall as their revenues have nosedived during the housing downturn.

Randy Noel, president of the local building firm Reve Inc., testified before a Senate subcommittee in May that it would cost roughly $100,000 per home to replace the tainted drywall and corroded wiring. While he said large, publicly traded builders might be able to absorb such costs, it was almost out of the question for mom-and-pop operations.

“The economy is so bad and builders have seen the value of their properties cut in half, banks aren’t cooperating, and it makes it difficult because you don’t have the assets or the liquidity to go in and help those folks, and it hurts,” Noel said. “…. The only place that we can figure out that that might come from immediately might be the federal government.”

The defective drywall did not garner much attention from federal regulators until U.S. Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., began clamoring about the threat to the health and financial security of their constituents. At their urging, a number of agencies are developing procedures for performing air-quality tests that should be rolled out later this month.

The Environmental Protection Agency has also tested the composition of Chinese drywall. The agency released a report last month that showed the samples of Chinese drywall had much higher concentrations of sulfur and strontium than domestic drywall, as well as two organic compounds associated with acrylic paint. The test involved only a few samples of drywall, however.

Landrieu’s staff said the federal tests could lay the groundwork for the Consumer Product Safety Commission to bring a civil action against the drywall manufacturers that could result in financial penalties, which would be disbursed to consumers. Landrieu’s office is urging residents who might have the tainted drywall to contact the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, which has already received 625 calls through its hotline, 888.293.7020.

The tainted drywall has claimed several high-profile victims, notably among them Saints head coach Sean Payton. Payton said his family just moved out of its house after a builder inspected it and confirmed that most of the drywall came from China.

Payton has lived in his home, which is new, for fewer than three years. During that time, he has made 12 calls for air conditioning service, three for microwave service and five for computer service, one of which involved changing out the motherboard, the computer’s nervous system. The phone lines failed, and his family had to replace them. The Paytons are also on their second burglar-alarm system.

“All the drywall, the electrical and the air conditioning has to be removed. Everything has to be taken down to the studs again and built back up,” Payton said. He said a state law provides a warranty for homes fewer than five years old, and he said he planned to pursue the matter with his builder.

While the Payton family could afford the temporary move, many consumers have had to live inside homes they fear could be toxic. Thomas Stone, the fire chief in St. Bernard Parish, said he poured his savings into restoring his house after Katrina and is now tearing out the drywall one room at a time.

Shannon Schulz, of Meraux, also has no escape hatch. She blames the defective drywall for the wholesale failure of her household appliances, starting with the air conditioner and refrigerator, which both went dim last summer. She has lost two televisions, and the controls on her oven no longer work. She turns it on and off with the breaker box outside the house.

Schulz said the Consumer Product Safety Commission needs to recall the drywall as a way to open the door to possible federal assistance for beleaguered homeowners.

“If I had somewhere else to go, I would absolutely move out,” she said. “The people in this situation are basically stuck, because they rebuilt after the storm and are more in debt than they were before. How do you take your family and move out and pay a mortgage and then rent on top of that? How do you pick up the kids and move them again?”

Nicole Waguespack and her family left their two-story home in Covington in March, two days after their builder told them it was filled with the defective drywall. She plans to tear the house down, as the nails throughout the building’s frame have corroded. Like other consumers, she puzzled over the unexplained failure of her appliances — the dishwasher motor, the ice maker in the refrigerator, the garage door — until she learned about the problems with the drywall.

Waguespack ran up a big bill living in a hotel for five weeks after her family left the house. While she has since found a place to lease in Mandeville, she said she can afford to pay the rent and the mortgage on what she called her “toxic house” for only so long.

“We need someone to put pressure on the banks, where they can suspend our mortgage for a period of time,” she said.

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