Like more than 1000 Canberra homeowners Kathleen Read faces the devastating prospect of being forced to have her home demolished in the wake of the Mr Fluffy asbestos crisis.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
But the Watson resident has vowed to fight to save her home of more than 50 years as she believes it never contained Mr Fluffy insulation and has ACT government laboratory results to prove it.
When the quest to find homes with the deadly Mr Fluffy amosite asbestos began in the 1980s Mrs Read and her late husband were shocked to find out their home was one of them.
But it wasn't until halfway through the nine-week clean up in 1993 that contractors working on the home told her husband the home did not contain Mr Fluffy.
It led Mrs Read to insist on the laboratory report, which showed the home contained cellulose insulation and only a "trace" of amosite in an extension added to the back of the house in about 1973 – accounting for about a quarter of the total floor area.
"I feel appalled that we won't told until we actually forced the issue that we didn't even have it in the roof and yet I'm not being treated any differently to the poor unfortunates that have had it in their roofs," she said.
"I'm expected to attach this sticker to the fuse box, and I've decided I'm going to put my own notice in beside it saying 'it isn't [a Mr Fluffy house], it never has been'."
An air monitoring report Mrs Read found in her home after the clean-up showed there were no asbestos fibres found.
Mrs Read believes others may have also had their home mistakenly identified as a Mr Fluffy home and hopes to get a group together to mount a legal battle to fight the acquisition and demolition process.
"I feel very sorry for the people who are finding fibres drifting into their houses, but we've all got our own fight to fight," she said.
"I feel perfectly safe, this is home, this is where my husband and I planned to see in our old age."
She said she would be prepared to allow the ACT government to "re-clean" the extension.
"Rebuild it to my satisfaction and we'll call it quits, which is a lot cheaper than knocking the house done and destroying everything that's been planted over the past 50 years," she said.
But a spokeswoman for the ACT Asbestos Response Taskforce was confident all Mr Fluffy homes were identified correctly and said remediating a portion of a house was "not effective or practicable".
"The Taskforce has matched its list of known affected properties with the properties positively identified and remediated during the original program," she said.
"Demolition is the only enduring solution to the health risks as well as the social, financial and practical consequences of the presence of loose-fill asbestos insulation in homes."
The spokeswoman said the taskforce "strongly" recommended Mrs Read arranged a free assessment of her home by a licensed asbestos assessor to "assist in informing future decisions".
But Mrs Read said she did not plan to co-operate.
"What gives them the right to compulsorily acquire people's homes without compensation?" she said.
The spokeswoman said the buyback program was voluntary "at this time" and sought to accommodate the individual circumstances of affected homeowners, including those who wished to stay in their homes in the medium term.
"Those residents wanting to stay in their homes in the medium term will be required to undertake at their cost a range of risk-mitigation measures such as the sealing of entry points to prevent asbestos fibres entering living areas," she said.
Asanother Mr Fluffy home backs on to her's, Mrs Read said she was cynical about the motives behind the demolition program.
"Deep down, it's a land grab," she said.
"They're going to be able to subdivide a block like this … they've got two houses for the price of one."
It's not the first time Mrs Read has fought the process. She also tried to stop the 1993 clean-up, which she says left her house damaged, with possessions missing.
"I understand how refugees feel ... the only thing is we weren't being shot at," she said.
"Our lives were just taken away from underneath us and the government is going to do it to us again."
The spokeswoman said homeowners would receive more details on the buyback and remediation scheme this week.
