Radon in the New House

We were so excited about this house. It's our dream. We won't stick out like sore thumbs. Progress swam along. Pretty much planned the garden. Mentally decorated the rooms and arranged furniture. Have a pre-order in for quail and chickens, and there are 2 goats waiting for us! This is soooo exciting!

Then yesterday we got the results of the radon test we had going over the weekend. First, we discovered that although the test was to end on Sunday, when the inspector went back to pick up the testing equipment, the sellers had removed the lock box, essentially barring the inspector from entering the property. After a day of phone calls, meetings, and pleas, he finally picked it up MONDAY evening, about 28 hours after when he was supposed to pick it up.

And the report. Shows there's too much radon in the house. Not a huge amount ... the average was 5.7 pCi/L. There were times in the 53-hour-test that it was above 8! However, the EPA requires a reading of 4.0 pCi/l [picocuries per liter of air] or less... that's a law!

Another issue: from what we understand, a lot of new regulations and procedures were imposed on the lending agencies as of January 1 2010. Even lenders like ours is still trying to make sense of the new info and paperwork. Agents pretty much can't ask for a 30-day close anymore; there's just too much paperwork and too many regulations and steps to get it done in 30 days. And because the seller's agent sat on the lender letter for 5 days before getting it to us, and then took another 3 days to get us a seller-executed contract, we lost a week. Our lender just can't get it done by our close of Feb 25. They are asking the close date be moved out a week (to 3/4/10).

Our agent has sent an e-mail to the seller's agent giving our concerns about some things found in the inspection report (like the roof, furnace, whether the deck is bolted to the house, etc.), but also requesting the seller's or their bank mitigate (take care of) the radon. AND in this e-mail, Charles, the seller's agent, has been requested to check with the seller's bank to accommodate our lender's request to change the date.

That e-mail was sent yesterday (Tuesday) around noon. As of this moment (9:41 a.m.), no response from Charles to our agent. He's a very lazy agent. Charles, not ours. I wonder if he's even contacted the sellers or their bank yet? Geez.

My advice? Avoid a short sale if you can.

What a saga, huh?