An unwelcome tenant

On July 15, at the roll call of heartbreaks known as the Hennepin County sheriff's mortgage foreclosure sale, a deputy called out the names of Denise Martineau and Mark Bufkin. It was the couple's last chance to pay up before the lender took their condo in Golden Valley.

Martineau and Bufkin weren't there to answer. Martineau said they gave up on saving their home in the Villa on Bassett Creek after fleeing an outbreak of mold that rendered their unit "uninhabitable."

From May through September 2008, the couple wrangled with their homeowner's association over the origin of the mold and who should pay to clean it up.

Now living at an extended stay motel, Martineau and Bufkin are still puzzled at how an initially friendly response turned into a confrontation that left them without a permanent home.

They learned that although they owned their condo, their neighbors to a large degree could determine their fate. As far as they know, Unit 307 still hasn't been cleaned up.

"If there's a mold problem in their building, I would think they would want to fix it," said Bufkin, 54, who works at UPS. "To me, it makes no sense at all."

Board members of the development and a representative of Personal Touch Property Management referred calls to the association's attorney, Paul Fahning.

"Their policy is not to comment on things that are involved in potential litigation," Fahning said, even though Bufkin and Martineau say they have no intention or money to file a lawsuit.

The comfortable third-floor condo in the seven-year-old complex was a step into the middle class for Martineau and Bufkin. Martineau's mother bought the unit for them to live in as renters in 2007, with the plan that they would buy it from her the following spring.

In late 2007, the couple noticed water coming through the roof onto their porch and notified condo management. Martineau and Bufkin believe the roof was damaged in a storm and not repaired, but a roofing company concluded that the water probably came from condensation at a furnace vent.

The roof was repaired in April 2008, the same month Martineau and Bufkin became owners, not renters, of Unit 307. They lived there just another six weeks. Extremely sensitive to mold, Martineau found it difficult to breathe. Small water stains on the wall made them suspect mold was the cause.

At first, the board seemed to be on the couple's side. "The mold issue needs to be followed up on ASAP," one board member wrote in an e-mail on May 1, 2008. Later that month, an environmental firm found elevated levels of mold spores in the bedroom and closet.

Martineau and Bufkin escaped to a hotel on May 23, but thought the move was temporary. Things changed for the worse, they said, when the homeowner's association found it would cost $25,000 to $50,000 to remediate the mold.

In August, Fahning informed the couple's attorney that "the most immediate issue is determining the cause of the alleged mold problem." The association feared "drawing hasty conclusions" would create legal problems and lead to "unnecessary or inadequate resolutions of the alleged problem."

Convinced the association didn't intend to fix their condo, Martineau and Bufkin refused to let another firm inspect it the next month.

"Your clients have now frustrated the association's ability to make this determination, thus relieving it of any potential responsibility for the condition," Fahning wrote on Sept. 5, 2008.

The couple couldn't find a lawyer willing to take their case without a retainer. In November, when their insurer stopped paying their hotel bill, they stopped making mortgage payments.

Two weeks ago, Unit 307 of the Villa on Bassett Creek was sold to the lender, the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, for $165,965.37. Martineau and Bufkin lost $40,000 in equity.

But they have moved forward.

On June 6, they got married at a restaurant in Eden Prairie. They honeymooned on the North Shore, then went home to their one-room unit at the Candlewood Suites hotel in Richfield.