Nice house, I'm thinking as I walk to the door. Red brick with stone on the front gable. The windows are spacious, trimmed in yellow. It was a 2001 Clermont County Home Show house.

Five bedrooms, 41/2 baths. Cathedral ceilings. Nice.

The owner, Frank Carr, wishes he'd never set foot inside it.

He's 66 years old, a retired coal broker, who moved here in June 2001 from Montgomery with his wife. He pictured himself playing golf, watching the Reds on the TV in his finished basement, having the kids for the weekend. Frank has four children and four grandchildren.

Not that he expected everything would be perfect. Three months before he moved into the new house, doctors found cancer in his lungs and brain. Real trouble. But Frank believes God sometimes works here on earth through doctors. So you never know. He just didn't think in between chemo and radiation, he'd be up to his ears in paperwork. Engineer's reports, insurance claims, medical reports.

Most of those lovely windows leaked. The builder, Imbus Builders, Inc., came and worked on them. "About four or five trips," Frank guesses. "They must have used a case of caulk." Some carpeting had been drenched and smelled musty.

A claims adjuster from Westfield Insurance, representing Imbus, hired an environmental consultant and an engineering firm. The insurance company's own inspection found mold, including Aspergillus, which is, in the company's words, "a fungi that can sometime in its life cycle produce a fungal toxin that causes adverse health effects in the exposed individual's immune system."

So Frank, in the midst of chemotherapy, stays out of the dining room where mold growth, according to Westfield's inspector, is particularly "troubling." He also has closed the door on his study, the finished basement and a couple of bedrooms upstairs.

The engineer concluded that "the original installation of the windows was defective" and found "defective construction practices on the part of the stone/brick masons." Everybody agreed that Frank had a brand-new house that was leaky, moldy and badly built. They just couldn't agree on who should take responsibility.

Frank scratches his head, which bears a dime-sized scar at the crown from radiation therapy in April. Now he's also seeing an allergist. One doctor told him bluntly, "Get out of that house."

Easier said than done. "Where would we live?" Frank says. "I can't afford another mortgage." He paid $389,000 for this house. And has spent another $15,000 doing his own inspections.

"We never wanted to sue anybody," he said. "Finally, we just didn't know what else to do." They sued Imbus.

"They are trying to say it's the fault of subcontractors, but we bought the house from them. We didn't get to choose their workers."

The strategy, according to Robert Trainor, the Carrs' attorney, is to wear the homeowner down. In Clermont County, the average wait for a court date is about a year. Motions. Inspections. Requests for forms. And more forms. Billable hours.

Well, time is money, I suppose.

Except for Frank Carr. To whom time is everything.

E-mail lpulfer@enquirer.com or phone 768-8393.