Years after hurricanes Ivan and Katrina, local homeowners may still have unlivable homes even though the water and wind damage was taken care of years ago.

During the construction boom which followed the storms, drywall was imported from China to meet the demand. Most of the drywall was imported primarily in coastal states Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia between 2004 and 2008. Not all drywall manufactured in China is toxic, according to Chinese Drywall Marketing, LLC. After complaints of ill health started rolling in from inhabitants of structures where Chinese drywall was used further investigation found the drywall emits sulfur gasses.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Chinese-imported drywall is actually toxic and could lead to a plethora of health problems for inhabitants of tainted structures. The sulfur in the toxic drywall can create an odor and corrode metals within the structure, such as air conditioning coils.

According to the U.S. CPSC the most frequently reported health symptoms associated with contaminated drywall include irritated skin and eyes, difficulty breathing, coughing, headaches, bloody or runny noses, sinus infections and asthma attacks.

The U.S. CPSC is still investigating the problem and has not recalled the toxic drywall until scientific proof has been gathered to prove the imported drywall is causing the health and corrosion problems in homes.

To date, the CPSC has received 3,770 reports from residents in 42 states who believe their health has been negatively impacted by drywall produced in China. There have been 215 reports from Alabama, accounting for 6 percent of the total reports.

To get rid of the drywall’s negative effects completely, in most cases, the entire structure has to be gutted and rebuilt. In some cases even the furniture has to be replaced because of contamination.

John Campbell, co-owner of Chinese Drywall Recovery USA is hosting a series of community meetings “to discuss helping homeowners negotiate a suspension of mortgage payments and a permanent principal reduction of their mortgage balance — so they will no longer be underwater on their loan,” he said.

Campbell will hold public meetings at the Foley Public Library Friday at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., noon, 1 p.m. and 2 p.m.

“Our goal is to help homeowners with a permanent solution to address your Chinese drywall disaster,” said Campbell.

Because of the remodeling required to get rid of the toxic Chinese drywall many homeowners have found themselves making payments on an unlivable structure along with rent where they actually live.

Campbell’s wife, Marina, helped her husband start the company because of their experiences dealing with Chinese drywall.

“I started this company last year. The goal is basically to try to help homeowners who have Chinese drywall in their homes restructure and significantly reduce their mortgages. It is a huge problem,” she said.

She and her husband owned multiple rental properties in Slidell, La., which she said they could no longer rent out once the toxic drywall was found. While the rental properties sat vacant, the Campbell’s tried many different avenues to stay out of debt, including legal action.

“Obviously there have been a lot of lawsuits, with not a lot of success. Lawsuits are very lengthy and aggravating and in the meantime people are sitting in their homes and they are worth nothing. You can’t sell them, they can’t refinance them, they can’t rent them out and the banks really don’t want them so they are in limbo waiting for a lawsuit to settle,” said Campbell.

The Campbell’s were one of the first to join a class action lawsuit against the manufacturer. According to Marina, out of twenty properties involved in the suit only one has been settled.

The true problem, according to Campbell, is the work required to get the toxic drywall out, because the work is expensive and extensive.

“The bottom line is to really fix the problem you have to gut your house down to the studs and the foundation, clean the studs properly and then rebuild your house and then buy all the stuff that you have to throw out. It is a very expensive process,” she said.

The Campbell’s hope to help people get through the waiting periods, either to wait for a home to be remodeled, or to wait for a lawsuit to settle so the money is available to remodel. Either way, according to Campbell, the longer people wait, the more money the homeowner ends up owing.

“We learned a lot about what is at stake for people and we discovered if you have Chinese drywall, your house is worth nothing and you are miserable in your house but you still have to pay your mortgage. You have a mortgage so you still have to pay it, and that is a bad deal for people. Some people have to rent a home and pay their mortgage,” said Campbell.

Campbell is traveling along the Gulf Coast in the coming weeks to make people aware Chinese drywall is dangerous and is most likely in this area. By raising awareness, Campbell hopes to garner enough support and manpower to show the banks and public officials how widespread an impact this has had on property owners, which he hopes will put pressure on the banks to provide some sort of mortgage relief for homeowners with Chinese drywall.

“The result of which should be that they are in a much better position to hold onto their home while they go through litigation,” said Marina.

Foley is the only location the Campbell’s are visiting in Alabama. According to Marina, she and her husband lived in Gulf Shores a few years ago and she witnessed a lot of construction in this area, so she thinks there is likely a high concentration of structures with Chinese drywall.