Family Wants Lumber Liquidators Flooring Out of Their Home

March 30, 2015 — Local news ABC 6 spotlighted one case involving a woman from South Carolina who says she and her family got sick after installing flooring from Lumber Liquidators.

Jessica Young said her husband installed the flooring in their home three years ago. Weeks later, she said her husband and kids started having respiratory problems.

After the same flooring was installed in her mother’s home, she also got sick within a few weeks. Her family has been in and out of doctors’ offices and hospitals, but she still hasn’t gotten a diagnosis.

After seeing a news story about flooring that might have toxic levels of formaldehyde, Young started researching what flooring was in her home. She found the same type on a website listing affected products.

Test results on her floors are still pending, but she says she wants it out of her home:

“In my gut it was like that has to be it, because nothing else none of our doctors specialists have been able to give us an explanation. I want to know who is responsible for getting it out.”

Lumber Liquidators is now under investigation from the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) for allegedly selling Chinese-made laminate wood floors that are mislabeled as compliant with regulations limiting formaldehyde emissions.

Formaldehyde is an ingredient in the glue that binds together sawdust particles in the “core” of the board. Over time, the cancer-causing chemical vaporizes into a gas and pollutes the air. The CPSC has warned about a number of health problems from toxic flooring, including respiratory problems.

Investigators who found toxic levels of formaldehyde used a “deconstructive” test, which involves taking a finished product, ripping off the laminate surface, and testing emissions from the core of the board. Lumber Liquidators says this test is inappropriate because the laminate surface helps “seal in” the toxic gas.