Odor lingers 3 years after oil delivery

AKRON (AP) -- More than three years after a delivery driver mistakenly dumped 250 gallons of heating oil into the basement of a northeast Ohio home, the smell still lingers and the owners refuse to let anyone live inside.
Thousands of dollars have been spent to clean the small red house in Copley Township, west of Akron, but the odor remains because the soil beneath it is contaminated. Owner Angela DeCaprio and her husband, Frank Demczyk, who now live west of Medina, refuse to rent the home because they are worried about the possible health effects of exposure to the fumes.
They believe they might never be able to sell it.
"It's kind of a waste of a house," Demczyk said.
The fuel was dumped into the house in October 2003 by Gas and Oil Inc., a company that owns gas stations and distributes heating oil. The delivery driver, who company owner Joseph Monesky said was fired, opened an old pipe on the side of the house, pumped the fuel and left a bill for 288.22. The delivery was intended for a house down the road.
The home's former fuel tank had been removed at least 20 years earlier.
The couple's insurance company, Western Reserve Group, paid 67,696 in claims but did not renew the policy because the home is vacant.
An investigator hired by the insurer has acknowledged that the home would need to be torn down and the soil removed to alleviate the odor problem, the couple said. The insurer told them the policy covered the building and its contents, not the land underneath.