- Full list of asbestos-affected homes
- Mr Fluffy cluster: The streets worst hit
- Canberra’s Mr Fluffy houses: questions and answers
- Risks for visitors to Mr Fluffy houses low
- Security arrangements for vacated Mr Fluffy homes
The toxic legacy of Mr Fluffy in the territory has impacted hundreds of Canberrans but none more so than the Yarralumla family that first discovered the nightmare beneath their floor.
It has been more than two years since the Harradine family found out they were living in a home contaminated with the dangerous substance.
In June 2013, Mark Harradine spoke to the Canberra Times about the results of an asbestos test he’d had carried out that showed the presence of loose-fill amosite asbestos.
At the time he spoke about the horror of discovering he’d inadvertently exposed his children and workers to potentially deadly fibres during a renovation.
It was the start of a truly terrifying journey for the family that is only now coming to an end.
The ACT government at the time said the loose fill asbestos removal program had never intended to remove all asbestos from the properties just what was visible.
Work was also under way on a fact sheet for those living in Mr Fluffy homes.
Robson Environmental, the company that conducted the testing on the Harradine home, said they had found amosite asbestos in five subfloors of previously clean Mr Fluffy homes that year.
The ACT government also confirmed it had found a fourth home to have missed the original Loose Asbestos Insulation Removal Program in the 1990s.
A few months later ACT Attorney-General Simon Corbell told the Canberra community “these homes are not unliveable if they are managed” and in April 2014 dismissed calls for Mr Fluffy homes to be demolished.
Just six months later chief minister Katy Gallagher announced that a $1 billion loan from the Commonwealth had been provided to the territory to buy back and demolish all of the 1021 homes.
Less than a year later, and at the end of the government’s opt-in period for the buyback and demolition scheme, Mr Harradine said the family was now finally able to move on.
“We are a hell of a lot happier now than we were a year ago – a year ago we had nothing,” he said.
“We were desperate to make our family safe, to get our lives back and at that point we were financially ruined.”
The family purchased an asbestos-free brand new home at the start of the year, have got back into normal routines and are able to enjoy life again.
But there are still scars that will take time to heal – like the fact they could not keep their land and rebuild.
The NSW government announced on Monday that Mr Fluffy residents on that side of the border could opt to sell their homes only and keep the land.
Harradine said while the family did want to re-buy the block the longer the process went on the more unlikely it seemed, particularly when the land would be split in half.
It had not been an easy decision to opt into the scheme.
“We bought the house, we planned to make our life there and it was taken away from us – it hurts a lot,” Harradine said.
“It’s been very, very tough and our experience of it is we need to get past it and through it to get our lives back.”
Harradine said the Mr Fluffy list should have been released much earlier so people were made aware of the dangerous homes.
“It’s way overdue,” he said.
People seeking information from the Asbestos Response Taskforce can use these contacts
Phone: 13 22 81
Web: act.gov.au/asbestostaskforce
Email: asbestostaskforce@act.gov.au
Facebook: facebook.com/ACTAsbestosResponseTaskforce
Twitter: @TaskforceACT
People who are anxious or concerned can access support through their GP, ACT Medicare Local on 6287 8066, Lifeline (13 11 14) and Beyond Blue (1300 224 636)