Dozens of families are suing Balfour Beatty Communities, alleging toxic living conditions and accusing the company of “shoddy maintenance practices and corporate indifference or ineptitude” at its privatized military housing community at Naval Air Station Key West, Florida.
Forty-four of the 56 families in the complaint are military families. The remaining plaintiffs, civilian families, have been permitted to live in the community when space was available. Many children are among the 192 current and former residents named in the lawsuit, which was filed in state court in Monroe County, Florida, on March 27.
Families reported issues such as collapsing ceilings because of water damage, mold, insect infestation, structural defects, HVAC and plumbing issues, electrical problems and the presence of lead paint and asbestos, according to the lawsuit. Balfour Beatty leases and manages more than 43,000 homes across 55 Army, Navy and Air Force installations, including 700 housing units at NAS Key West.
“Balfour concealed the horrific conditions from unsuspecting service men and women and their families,” the 175-page complaint alleges. “When these conditions were discovered and reported, Balfour systematically failed to properly repair and remediate significant problems in the homes,” the plaintiffs claim, and “Balfour misled the families into believing that repairs were made, knowing that families living in the homes would likely suffer serious health problems as a result of the conditions.”
The lawsuit alleges the families suffered from severe physical, emotional and financial harm because of the condition of the houses and Balfour’s actions.
“We are aware of the complaint and intend to defend ourselves vigorously,” Balfour Beatty Communities officials said in an email statement to Military Times.
The families allege they’ve experienced exposure-related medical problems as a result of the housing conditions, such as asthma and other respiratory issues, sinusitis, migraines, memory loss, brain fog, blurred vision, compromised immune systems and rashes. Some of the families stated that when they would leave the house for a time, their symptoms would disappear, but would start again when they returned to the house.
The families accuse Balfour Beatty of gross negligence, fraud, breach of contract, negligent infliction of emotional distress and breach of warranty of habitability. They ask for an unspecified amount of compensatory damages and punitive damages.
Plaintiff Virginia Guess said her children developed persistent respiratory issues and other health problems within months of moving into their home at NAS Key West in June 2022. They developed the “Sigsbee cough,” a label used by neighbors and teachers to describe a cough in children who lived in Key West’s military housing. The Sigsbee Park housing includes more than 500 townhouse units, many of which were built between 1962 and 1965, according to the complaint.
Guess, a construction manager who started working for Balfour Beatty in August 2023 as a service center coordinator, “quickly recognized alarming patterns of negligence in housing maintenance,” according to the lawsuit. It hit home when the Guess’s ceiling started to crack in February 2024. But Balfour Beatty delayed needed repairs, the complaint alleges, and by June of that year, there was water intrusion and mold growth. An independent moisture reading inspection found severe mold contamination.
“Yet Balfour management attempted to shift blame, attributing the mold to ‘dog hair’ and excessive ‘pasta boiling,’” the lawsuit states.
Other family members who worked for Balfour Beatty alleged they witnessed company employees engaging in “fraudulent and deceptive practices.” Plaintiff Lyric Seaton alleges employees were “instructed to lie to Navy housing inspectors, block visible damage, and select only ‘perfect’ files for audits.”
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., asked Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy James Honea about some of the allegations against Balfour Beatty during a congressional hearing on service members’ quality-of-life challenges on April 8.
“This lawsuit even claims that Balfour Beatty officials blocked Navy personnel from inspecting houses in some cases,” Wasserman Shultz said.
Honea said he didn’t have information about specific allegations.
“I do know that both the installation commander and their teams did go through all the housing down there at Key West,” Honea said, noting that Naval Installations Command officials inspected some of the homes. “We did a full inventory of all those homes and determined a certain portion of them to be uninhabitable. Balfour Beatty paid for those members to be moved and placed in other homes or temporary housing as necessary.”
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Mold infestation was a common complaint among the families. Sections of the McCarthy family’s garage ceiling collapsed on two occasions in 2023 and 2024, revealing mold, water damage, decaying trusses and extensive termite tunnels. When the military family moved to temporary housing in May 2024, they woke up in the middle of their first night covered in bugs, according to the complaint. So they returned to their original house, where five months later, water began pouring from their kitchen’s light fixtures, saturating the ceiling, dripping down walls and seeping through cabinets.
When Balfour maintenance looked at the kitchen’s condition, they claimed everything looked normal, the suit alleges.
“The Balfour report notes that, ‘The mold looks good,’” the lawsuit states.
Many of the families in the lawsuit said they had no choice but to stay in dangerous conditions. The Moody family moved out in October 2024 after two years, paying for more than $5,000 in moving expenses. The active duty family said they experienced water leaks in the roof, ceiling, walls and electrical outlets and persistent mold infestation. They say their infant son suffered persistent health problems. His mother fears exposure to mold and other hazards during his early development might lead to lung problems or other complications later in life, according to the complaint.
“The guilt that she had no choice but to bring her newborn home to a dangerous and hazardous house is overwhelming,” the lawsuit states.
Balfour Beatty has previously come under scrutiny for subpar living conditions in military housing. The company pleaded guilty in 2021 to committing fraud against the U.S. and was ordered to pay $65 million in fines and restitution for misconduct relating to its military housing practices in federal contracts. The company also agreed to pay $35 million to resolve a False Claims Act civil suit brought by the government.
Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book “A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families.” She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.
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