Bought a home not knowing there were lead paint chips everywhere in the yard, is there anything we can do?
Hi all,
My husband and I bought a house a few months ago in Michigan, for the entire process of touring, inspection, and closing the yard was covered in snow. When it finally started to get warmer and all the snow melted (about a month ago) we noticed white paint chips all throughout the yard. The exterior of the house has no white paint and the pictures from the listing, that were taken before it snowed and months before it was ever listed, also show no white paint. The House was built in the early 1900s and we just had our first child so we've been testing everything for lead in order to be safe. It turns out that the white paint chips are a lead based paint.
The yard is absolutely covered, it is most dense around the base of the home and more spread out as it goes further away. Upon further inspection we can see all the bumps and ridges where this was chipped off of the trim before it was painted over.
We were hoping to be able to have a nice veggie/fruit garden and enjoy our child playing in the yard, but without paying an arm and a leg to have a company professionally come in and remove thousands of these small pieces or the top layer of soil entirely that won't be possible.
We're wondering if there's any legal precedent or if it's worth while at all to pursue action against the previous homeowners or even possibly the painting company they hired to do the job. Not only because we likely never would have bought the home if we had known this was an issue, but also environmentally it feels illegal to just have all this lead leeching into the soil.
Thank you!