Pittsburgh family calls for accountability, saying mitigation contractor left home contaminated

After suffering roof damage from this year's brutal winter, a Pittsburgh family says their insurance company has left them with even bigger problems.

Camie Hubbard lives on Craftmont Avenue in Pittsburgh and claims a mitigation contractor hired by their insurance company tore into their home without proper testing or safeguards in place, exposing them to contaminants like lead and asbestos.

Family says home is covered in soot

"We want our house put back together. We've been here almost 22 years. We want to come home, but we don't feel safe,' Hubbard said.

Mitigation contractors went to the home on Feb. 16 after an ice dam caused water to leak inside the home through the ceiling and walls in January. 

They completely tore out three rooms, but Hubbard said the work ended up causing more damage throughout her home, including cracks running down the walls and everything inside being covered in soot.

"We're like, 'What is going on?' My floor is black. My carpet's black," Hubbard said.

The demolition left her and her husband sleeping on a blow-up mattress in the dining room in an attempt to separate themselves from the exposure upstairs.

"Then we started getting sick," Hubbard said. "We all had congestion. We all had upper respiratory. My son was the worst and he's 20 years old. He's an athlete, you know, and he was the worst."

Hubbard said that's when she called a public adjuster.

Lead test comes back positive 

Stephen Hnat, the president of Stephen Hnat and Associates of Public Adjusters, said the first thing he did when he got to the home was a lead test.

"Proper protocol is that any house built before 1977 should have a lead test done before any kind of demo," Hnat said. "It concerned me because everything was everywhere and goes the same thing for the asbestos that they should have an asbestos test done before any demo starts."

Hnat said the lead test came back positive.

"We reached out to State Farm and requested, 'Hey, can we see the demo test?' And they came back to us and basically said that, 'Hey, demolition has already been done,' you know, kind of move on,'" Hnat said.

Hnat showed KDKA different rooms inside the house where they were covered in dust, soot or even had giant handprints and fingerprints on the walls.

"Proper mitigation should be cleaning the joist, wiping everything down, making sure there's no contaminants left over," Hnat said.

Hubbard then showed KDKA her furnace filter, alleging the entire home is now contaminated.

"This is how bad it's traveled through the furnace system, so this is not good," Hubbard said as she pointed at a black filter.

Hubbard said the contractors claimed to have done a lead test of their own prior to construction starting. She showed KDKA a text where a crew member said, "We are getting results in batches. We expect yours to be in today." That text was sent Feb. 12.

"I thought that everything was fine," Hubbard said about not receiving results when crews showed up on Feb. 16 to complete the work.

New roof denied

Hubbard said her insurance claim is through State Farm, which she said initially agreed to pay for a new roof and then later denied it.

"After eight weeks, they said they were going to pay for a roof, and then they halted," Hubbard said.

In a voicemail, a spokesperson who represented themselves as a State Farm employee notified the family of the denial, stating "no roof damage or actual shingle damage" was found.

"I had three different estimates for three different roofing companies come and do that for the roof. All said the same thing. It was all ice dams and the cracking with the expansion, with the ice going underneath it," Hubbard said.

Additional living expenses denied 

Hnat said due to the hazardous conditions inside the home, he reached out to State Farm to request the family receive additional living expenses to allow them to live somewhere else until the work is done. According to emails shared with KDKA-TV by Hnat, State Farm denied that request.

Meanwhile, Hubbard said that's exactly what her policy through State Farm pays for. Now she is demanding answers, saying she, her husband, son and dogs have all been exposed and left living in a nightmare.

"I want our policy to be withheld through State Farm. We want accountability. We have additional living expenses in our policy. That's what you pay for. We want that to happen," Hubbard said.

After living in their home for over two months post-demo, the Hubbards moved out and into an Airbnb, paying out-of-pocket, as they wait for lead test results, including blood work and X-ray results, to come back.

KDKA-TV reached out to State Farm about the Hubbards' claims.

A spokesperson said their customer privacy policy prevents them from sharing details about a specific claim.

"When repair questions come up, customers want clear answers and support. We're working directly with our customer. Our focus is on helping them understand the claims process and paying them all benefits their policy offers. Questions about the repair work itself are best addressed by their contractor."

As of Thursday afternoon, the Hubbards told KDKA-TV that they haven't heard from State Farm since last month.