Anyone entering the home of Benjamin and Joy Allen on Daniel Island must wear a protective mask.

At first it appears that a family lives there, like they just stepped out for a while. The kids' rocking horse and stuffed animals are there. The kitchen is well-stocked. But a large rectangular hole has been cut into a wall.

"This is the worst I've found on Daniel Island," said Terrence Tully, owner of Moisture Control Experts of Summerville. The wheezing respirator he wears muffles his voice as he talks about the family's mold problem.

The Allens paid Tully  to test their home for mold May 26 when they noticed it growing on the outside of the house. When the results came back, they abruptly left what they considered their dream home on the advice of their doctor. They have been living with friends since May 30.

Tully discovered mold, which essentially is a fungus, on the inside of walls of the Allen home. That was bad news because the walls are made of porous material that allows mold spores to spread to the rest of the house via the heating and cooling system.

Moisture seeped into the home's walls, creating a wet environment conducive to mold because, Tully thinks, window flashing was not properly installed. Flashing is material that fills the space between the edge of a window and vinyl siding that prevents wind-driven rain from getting inside walls.

Tully said fixing the mold problem could cost more than $100,000. He has done limited testing at the Allen home because of the expense, cutting into some walls to evaluate the situation. "You don't know what you have until you start opening it up," he said.

If the Allens move back home, Tully said that anything porous in the house must be removed. That includes furniture, bedding and carpeting. Insulation must be removed from the interior walls. Windows and doors must be fixed to prevent another moisture problem. And the area must be fogged with a chemical to kill mold, he said.

In the meantime, the Allens are living day-to-day. Their daughters, Madeleine, 3, and Ellie, 4, cry themselves to sleep because they don't understand why they left their home, and why they can't have their stuffed animals, Joy Allen said.

Because of their disrupted home life, the daughters become upset when their mother leaves for her job as a music therapist at Trident Regional Medical Center.

"They're normally not like that," she said. "They're scared. They're absolutely scared. They don't want to go to bed at night. They want their rooms."

A next-door neighbor of the Allens, David Pittman, said the Allens' apparent problems with their D.R. Horton-built house have caused him to be concerned about his D.R. Horton-built house.

"We need to determine if we have problems with the house. We've spoken with an attorney," Pittman said.

Another neighbor said she had problems with her D.R. Horton house but could not discuss them on the record because of a confidentiality agreement she signed with the company as part of a settlement.

Representing D.R. Horton, attorney Kyle Dillard of the Greenville office of the law firm of Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart released a statement saying the builder was first notified of the Allens' concerns in a letter from their lawyer, Patrick McDonald.
Dillard's statement said the company has arranged for the Allen house to be inspected, at D.R. Horton's expense, by a third-party professional engineer.

"Once the engineer has provided us with his opinions and recommendations, we will discuss with Mr. Allen's lawyer how to most appropriately address Mr. Allen's concerns. Horton is hopeful that Mr. Allen's concerns can be resolved in a timely manner to the mutual satisfaction of both parties," he said in the e-mailed statement.

The Allens said they purchased the 1,580-square-foot home, their first, for $419,000 and moved here in August of 2005 from the Washington D.C. area.

Benjamin Allen, 33, who is disabled from multiple sclerosis, said he was a special assistant for national security in the Bush Administration.

The Allens live at 100 Jordan Court in the Etiwan Park neighborhood. The home was built eight years ago, and two other homeowners lived there before the Allens purchased it.

"This was going to be our dream home. We scraped together every penny we could for this home," Joy Allen said.