tl:dr Builder of my
house refuses to take responsibility for wet basement and blames the
earth itself as the problem. I don’t know if there’s any way to
recoup some of the money I’ll have to spend to fix problems.

A year ago, my house
burned down. The house was demolished completely, including the
foundation. With the insurance money I contracted with a modular
home company to rebuild. The new house, like the old, is a ranch
with a walk-out basement (basement partly underground on two sides of
the house). The old house was a modular and similar to the new one,
except the old one was very well built and had a dry basement.

It’s been very
difficult dealing with the modular company. They have done a lot of
careless work, with wavy siding, holes in walls, sloppy foundation
work, etc. For example more than half of the windows in the house
are a different type than I asked for in the sales and planning
meetings. This means the windows don’t all match. They have
refused to correct this. All in all, the building process has been a
slow motion nightmare. People say modulars are built quickly, but
this one is nearly three months over the scheduled time.

When problems with
the new house started to show up and I wanted more information, the
building company started acting shady. Who’s the CEO and who’s
the president of the company? No one will provide names. Who was
the subcontractor who built the foundation and basement? They refuse
to say. This is not the behavior of a responsible company.

Shortly before I was
to move in, I discovered that the basement gets damp on the floor and
walls every time it rains. They just denied there was any moisture at
all as I stared at the obvious stains. Then they said, okay, there
was moisture, but every basement was damp and I should get a
dehumidifier or fan and that would fix the problem. However, the
dampness only showed up on areas where the foundation drains would
be. The walls and air in the basement were otherwise dry.

I had to hire a
lawyer and an engineer just to get them to admit the basement leaking
was an issue that needed to be addressed My engineer discovered that
the footer drain was not connected properly and this was fixed but
the basement still gets damp in the same locations after every rain.
I had to pay more than a month’s extra rent because I couldn’t
move in as well, but since I was told that correcting poor foundation
drainage would be expensive, I was advised not to pay the final
payment unless they corrected this.

The builder finally
agreed to excavate near the foundation to check the foundation
drains. The engineers (mine and the company’s) agreed that the
drains were okay, but that the builders had put clay soil instead of
gravel against the foundation and that this was probably the source
of the problem. Since both engineers agreed, I figured the builder
would now correct this, but instead, the builder is saying that since
the drains are otherwise fine, it’s my problem and I should pay for
the correction. They act like the soil on the site was some
unforeseeable accident they could not be expected to know about.

No one who contracts
for a house to be built wants a damp basement, and no home buyer
wants one, either, but they’re acting like a dry basement is some
frill that I frivolously want. I’m having to pay for this
foundation twice now, once from the builder and now to correct the
builder’s careless work, and they are acting like they have no
responsibility in the matter.

Just to add a cherry
on top of this shit sundae, I have PTSD because of the loss of the
love of my life in the house fire, so I don’t really want to live
in the new house. I was planning to stay a short time while I
decided where to move, and then sell it because I can’t afford
to continue to rent. I thought I could do this but now I have
flashbacks when I visit the house and I cry all the damned time.
This does not really make me as articulate as I need to bewhen
negotiating with the builder.

The amount I will
have to pay to fix this is a lot of money for me and my losses are
now way over the small claims limit in my state yet the amount is not
enough to interest a lawyer to sue on contingency. I have to pay to
correct the foundation and drainage issues because otherwise I will
neither be able to live in the house or sell it but I’m wondering
what my options are for getting getting the modular company to live
up to their obligations and to get some of my money back. If I stay
in the rental I lose money, and if I pay out of pocket to fix the
builder’s mistake I lose money. Do I have any useful options here?

Advance thanks
for any useful advice.