It’s amazing how much a seemingly small problem can balloon into something life-ruining, but the phrase “the straw that broke the camel’s back” exists for a reason.
When this subtle issue turns out to have more serious consequences than expected, it’s not impossible to discover that the support systems we thought we had in place had larger cracks than we assumed.
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And when people discover that they’ve slipped through these cracks, the obstacles in the way of clawing back out can suddenly seem almost insurmountable.
Unfortunately, these are the circumstances that one budding Missouri family now find themselves in.
Earlier this year, Tyler and Elisha Hessel had plenty of reasons to be excited and hopeful for the future.
As their GoFundMe page explained , they learned that Elisha was pregnant and that they could expect their first child to arrive by January of 2020.
However, it seems the good times wouldn’t last for long.
The couple went in for some standard medical tests that take place at the beginning of a pregnancy. And although they confirmed that Elisha was healthy, they also uncovered that their future baby had been exposed to methamphetamine.
Neither parent had ever touched the drug, which left only one source that could have influenced these results.
So the Hessels decided to purchase an at-home testing kit to see if their home contained traces of meth.
As CBS News reported , both this test and a full testing session by the company that sold them the kit confirmed that the house was contaminated by the substance.
Although the neighbors made comments about being relieved to have “normal” people move in, that was the Hessels’ only hint that something was wrong with the house.
As CBS News reported, this is a glaring legal issue as Missouri state law requires sellers to disclose defects of their property to potential buyers and even specifically mentions that they must disclose whether the house was used for meth production.
However, the Hessels never received any such disclosure despite the fact that their property had been listed on the Jefferson County database after police raided it for this very reason.
But while one might expect this to be grounds for a lawsuit, the couple has a more immediate legal matter at hand.
The Hessels have since moved out and will not return until the house is essentially gutted and rebuilt to remove all contamination. The problem is that this process costs over $100,000 and their insurance company denied their claim.
So rather than try and figure out who failed to disclose the state of the house before they bought it, the couple and their lawyer must now focus on trying to get the insurance company to cover the home remodeling.
Worse yet, the Hessels are now facing a significant income loss as Elisha has had to leave a new job she was training for due to the stress of this situation.
So now, a relative has set up a GoFundMe page for them, which has so far raised $5,215 of their $100,000 goal.
If there’s any good news to come of this, however, it’s that the baby is seems to be developing in a healthy fashion despite testing positive for meth.
h/t: CBS News
