A Brisbane family have been left devastated after they were forced to throw out the entire contents of their home – leaving them with nothing – after a horrifying mold problem emerged in their rental.
Erin*, her husband, and daughters were served with a warrant of possession for their rental, obtained at the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, meaning police could help evict them from the property if they didn’t vacate by October 16.
It came after they were originally given 13 hours notice to vacate the property by the real estate agency at the end of July due to “non-liveability.”
Mold had spread throughout the entire house and the family claimed they had experienced a number 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 mom-of-two before the warrant was issued, who said her mental health was “appalling,” and she was fearful about having to move out.
“I’m afraid of the point where we actually have to throw it all. I think that part will probably destroy me as we are throwing out our life,” she said.
“I don’t care about the furniture, that’s not what I mean. We have to throw out all the things our kids did at school. My mom has passed away of cancer and I have to throw out all her things and that’s all that is left for her as my sister’s house burned down.”
The family had been living in the rental for three years, most recently paying $880 a week.
In 2022, the council alerted the real 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 agonizing nightmare for the family.
Six months later she noticed mold in the ensuite bathroom and alerted the real estate agency.
A mold expert was sent out to the rental in October 2023 and uncovered a horrifying discovery. Erin said he used an industrial LED torch to shine on the walls and bedroom.
“He said you have a really big problem here … The torch showed lots of places where mold was and not just in bedroom, but the children’s bedrooms and lounge room area,” she said.
“I was told I had to move everything out of those bedrooms and put the furniture in the center of [the] room and cover it and they would come and treat the mold.”
However, the cause of the mold wasn’t identified, she claimed. Then since December last year the family have been “really unwell,” Erin added.
Her husband has experienced severe jaw pain and despite visits to the dentist and antibiotics nothing was working.
“My husband asked just to pull the tooth as he was in so much pain but the dentist didn’t feel comfortable as the X Ray didn’t show a problem with [the] tooth. He asked if he was OK doing a CT scan as he understood he was in a lot of pain,” she noted.
“The CT scan showed there is something in his sinus. He think he has polyps in his sinus and he’s not saying it’s directly linked but it is a symptom of mold.
“We are living in hell right now.”
Her 25-year-old daughter had severe pain in her stomach and her back and ended up peeing blood but the hospital could find “no identifiable cause,” she added.
Meanwhile, her 22-year-old daughter also went to hospital with nausea and light-headedness and her blood pressure was very low but again no explanation could be found, she said.
Erin herself has experienced severe back pain and low blood pressure and had every test possible with no cause found, while her face peels every day, she said. She added that the entire family had hives.
Her sister came with her own family to stay for five weeks as they waited for their new house to be complete after it burned down.
“My sister said she wasn’t feeling well and she 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 siren to hospital … but nothing was wrong with her once she was out of this house,” she said.
“They were moving in a day or so, she had all the blood tests, scans, a head CT, a heart scan, and has no answers as to what happened.”
In June, Erin noticed that a leather jacket and dress had mold on them. She bought her own torch and was horrified to see mold light up everywhere in the house.
She said every possible trade was sent out to investigate the issue by the real estate agency.
“The real estate and owner issued an immediate notice to leave and said it was unsafe to live in,” she added.
“All reports say our contents are contaminated. They have tested the air that we are breathing and some guidelines say mold level should be under 500 spores per cm sq, ours are 13,500 in one room, 181,000 in another and 272,000 in our daughter’s room. So it’s pretty bad.”
Parts of the house became off limits including the bedrooms which gave off a smell that was quite 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 no where to go. Eventually, QCAT issued the warrant for possession 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 f**ked financially. The insurance company have been horrendous,” she said.
“Allianz denied every single part of the claim. Allianz is saying because there is no drainage around the property it’s an unclaimable event.
“I find the whole system unbelievable.”
Erin had been applying for rentals but said the reality was the minute “we get approved for a house we have nothing to put in it.”
“I know it’s still insane to be here and know what it is doing to us here as I feel it and see,” she said.
“Anyone that walks into [the] house on behalf of the insurance companies they say don’t come into this room its unsafe. It burns your eyes, you can taste it but you can’t see the mold.”
The family no longer sleep in the bedrooms.
“It’s a bit of a s**t mess. The weirdest part is everyone is stumped by the mold in the house,” she noted.
“They have gone: ‘I’ve never seen anything like it’. You can’t see it but it is literally everywhere.”
In a subsequent update, the family told news.com.au that they have found a rental but it feels like they have been “screwed”.”
“It’s just crap as we actually have insurance. We have done our due diligence to mitigate our loss,” she said.
She said she had taken Allianz rejections of their claim “pretty badly.” Overall, the experience had left them feeling “destroyed” and “defeated.”
“It’s messy … I don’t know what to do anymore,” she said.
She said certificates from experts had certified the house as compliant to Australian standards.
In a letter seen by news.com.au, Allianz blamed a severe lack of adequate surface and subsurface drainage around the dwelling and as a result has deemed the issue a building defect.
An Allianz spokesperson said temporary accommodation was offered to the family several times while the claim was being assessed but these were rejected until recently.
At the start of September, a payment of $8,400 was made to assist the family in obtaining a new lease, they added.
A review of the initial denial of the claim found “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 spokesperson added.
Allianz accepts that there was a leak in 2022 and that there was mold damage in June 2024, the spokesperson added.
“However, there was no evidence of a causal link between the 2022 leak and the mould damage found in June 2024,” they added.
Even if it is accepted that the broken stormwater line was also a cause of the mold damage — there are multiple causes – and “Allianz is entitled to apply the policy exclusion relating to ‘inherent defects’,” they added.
Erin said all their belongings, including sentimental items gathered over years, had ended up in the tip.
“We have discarded at least six tonnes of our belongings, the tip weighed it during last weekend when we took most of our things to the tip,” she said.
“We have had four additional skip bins to take the remaining contents away and have begun moving into a new rental that currently has basically nothing in it.
“We have got mattresses thankfully and are sorting what we can afford to replace but using lists of what is urgent and important rather than wasting money on things that aren’t the priority for now.”
The family have lodged a complaint with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority regarding the Allianz decision.
