HORSE helps homeowners find solutions for rippling wallboard

Diana Sahagun

Monday, March 13, 2000 | 10:51 a.m.

At least a dozen homeowners in northwest Las Vegas cannot hang wallpaper or pictures on their walls because of rippling wallboard in their new Kaufman & Broad homes.

The new homeowners who live near Durango Drive and U.S. 95 purchased their homes within the past year.

Karan Betz, who bought her home in May, enlisted the help of a new group -- Help Organize and Retrain Subcontractors' Employees, or HORSE -- to advise her in dealing with the builder.

Betz, who works as a secretary in a dentist's office, said one of her friends, a dentist in another dental office, had a patient who was a member of HORSE. The dentist passed along the information about the organization to her.

Betz's next-door neighbor has had his wall fixed, but it was an elaborate process of ripping out all of the drywall and leaving his brand-new home looking like a skeleton until new wallboard was installed last week.

John Wilson, founder of HORSE, visited Betz twice and was on hand Friday when Kaufman & Broad representatives met with her.

Betz said Wilson offered her advice on whom to turn to to get the home repaired.

At the meeting, three Kaufman & Broad representatives told Betz that they were not sure what was wrong with the drywall or what was causing it to have visible ridges.

The representatives told Betz they would send out an engineer to determine if there were any structural problems, and then determine how to fix the drywall. Wilson said he would send out his own engineer at no charge just to get a second opinion.

"There is a substantial amount of work that needs to be done," said Jim Wilder, director of the Las Vegas Division of Kaufman & Broad. Saying the defect should have been caught during construction, he added, "Why we had to get this far, I can't even tell you why."

Betz's main concern is that the investment she made for her family last May will hold up.

"This is my last investment and I thought I had made a good choice," she told the representatives. "Now I'm thinking I may not have made such a good one."