Eight-Legged Dream Home Tenants Create Nightmare for Homeowners

October 17th, 2014. By LucyC

When Winning Your Lawsuit Just Isn’t Enough…

Talk about Caveat Emptor. A couple who purchased an upscale home next to golf course in a suburb of St. Louise, MO, got more than the nest of their dreams—turns out it was also the dream home for some 6,000 brown recluse spiders—which, incidentally, are venomous.

The couple bought the house in 2007 for $450,000. Shortly after moving in they discovered the spider problem. After unsuccessfully trying to evict their unwanted tenants, through various strategies including interior and exterior pesticides, Brian and Susan Trost filed a claim with their insurer—State Farm, only to have it denied. So they sued the former owners for failure to disclose. They stated in their lawsuit that the spiders and their telltale webs were absent during the couple’s final walk-through.  However, shortly after moving in—ie the first day, the spider problem became apparent. In fact, Susan Trost stated that once when showering a spider fell from the ceiling and washed down the drain, narrowly missing her. Time to find a hotel!!!

In 2012, Mrs. Trost told St. Louis television station KMOV-TV the spiders “started bleeding out of the walls,” and at least two pest control companies were unable to eradicate the infestation. I see a movie script here…

In 2011, during a civil trial in St. Charles County, one of the county’s leading experts on brown recluse spiders, Jamel Sandidge, a professor of biology at University of Kansas,  estimated there were between 4,500 and 6,000 spiders in the home. Making matters worse, he said, those calculations were made in the winter when the spiders are least active. Really, really not what you want to hear.

The Trosts, not surprisingly, won their lawsuit against the previous home owners, but were unable to collect the judgement of $472,000, because, State Farm, the previous home owners’ insurers, claimed that the former owners’ policy lacked coverage and refused to pay. Then, the previous owners filed bankruptcy. Nice.

Although the Trosts have filed suit against State Farm for denying their original claim, they moved out of the house and allowed it to go into foreclosure. Because the previous owners filed bankruptcy—the Trosts, may never see their money.

According to the St. Louis Dispatch, the home, now owned by the Federal National Mortgage Association, was covered with nine tarps this week and workers filled it with a gas that permeated the walls to kill the spiders and their eggs. “There’ll be nothing alive in there after this,” said Tim McCarthy, president of the company hired to fix the problem once and for all.

I can’t help wondering about the neighbors—if I lived next door, I’d be really worried…

This was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2014 at 2:54 pm and is filed under Crazy Sh*t Lawyers See, Emerging Issues . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.