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PROUD PARENTS: IN THE NEWS
Meet the Cerda family – featured on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, these folks pulled on the strings of America’s heart, all to make a quick buck. The parents claimed the daughters were, like their mother, suffering from combined immunodeficiency disease. Because this disease is so severe, the children were stuck indoors behind face masks to protect them from contracting illnesses. We’re now being told this was all a lie, and the parents are up on child neglect charges.. keep going for the full news story!
Courtesy of Yahoo! News
Written by Joe Pompeo
Ty Pennington and the philanthropic crew of ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” have been giving families the houses of their dreams through sweeping seven-day renovations and reconstructions since the series premiered in 2004. The uplifting reality show brokers in hardest-luck cases that sometimes appear too sad to be true. And in some cases, as it turns out, they are: according to a recent trial in Oregon, it seems the would-be do-gooders were duped by a family falsely claiming two very sick young daughters.
“Extreme Makeover” recipients Chuck and Terri Cerda are the parents of Molly and Maggie, 10 and 8 respectively. Terri, in her appeal to the show, said she suffers from combined immunodeficiency disease, as do her daughters, who had to wear masks to guard against the toxins coursing through the air of their rundown, mold-filled Las Vegas house. You can watch a video of Terri and the two girls posted by the Immune Deficiency Foundation above.
That was before “Extreme Makeover” transformed their abode in March 2009 into “an opulent new home that included high-quality air filtration systems, an elevator, solar-heated swimming pool, gourmet kitchen and floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace,” as The Oregonian’s Steve Mays writes. But it turned out the Cerdas “couldn’t afford the increased cost of operating the larger home. By fall 2009, the house was for sale and the family moved to Oregon.”
Which is when their real troubles began. Mays reports:
Several doctors and a hospital social worker began to question Terri Cerda’s insistence that her daughters had chronic health problems when tests and examinations indicated otherwise. In January, Dr. Thomas Valvano, an OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital pediatrician who specializes in suspected child abuse and neglect, reported the Cerdas to state child-welfare authorities, and in February, the state took temporary custody of the two girls.
The ensuing case in Clackamas County Circuit Court told a story much different from the one presented on television.
Six doctors testified that Molly, 10, and Maggie, 8, did not live in constant medical peril, as Terri Cerda claimed.
Valvano went further. The Cerda children, he told the judge, were victims of medical child abuse.
The Cerda family’s case is not the only controversy “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” has faced in its seven years on air.
Back in 2005, for instance, five orphaned siblings sued a couple that allegedly took them into their care in order to get a new nine-bedroom house before turning the kids out one by one. In 2007, a Hawaii couple that benefited from the program’s generosity was revealed to have a household income of more than $200,000. And last year, the Wall Street Journal detailed the plights of three families who either struggled “to pay the upkeep on their expensive new homes” or ended “up with bigger mortgages that are hard to maintain.”
14 Comments to PROUD PARENTS: IN THE NEWS
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And people think a good ass whipping with a belt was bad.
What horrible people.
this is really sad because alot of people from the community go to help these people build there house. And there is probably needed this house alot more than they did. this is terrible
yep I kind of figured some people would start scamming when I first saw Extreme Makeover. Some people are just selfish and heartless.
That show always irritated the shit out of me. Fine, you want to help underprivelaged kids or families who couldn’t afford to renovate or whatever but did they have to build them half million dollar homes? How many more families could’ve been helped if they built modest homes instead? If the family is struggling with the cost of maintaining their existing home, how the hell can they manage to pay for the mansions they are given in the shows?
If I remember right, one of the make over families, as soon as they got their new house, used it to make a loan which they spent like water, and then couldn’t pay back. Of course the lost the house. Oh well, good while it lasted.
How do these people sleep at night?
I have only watched it a couple of times but I felt ‘played’ the whole time. Too many tear jerkers that we are now finding that all is not as it may seem. Shame on this type of people.
These girls are lucky they only had to wear masks. Real Munchausen syndrome kids usually get physically hurt while mom and/or dad get their much wanted attention.
And isn’t it a bit hard to get mold in an environment like Vegas?
Never lived there, but it’s my understanding its in the desert. Umm…anyone know about this?
Well, actually, mold spores can survive in some of the harshest conditions including desert weather. Also- please don’t forget the fact that houses have areas with water – improper or rusted plumbing can cause leaks which will help the spores grow. Just an FYI.
Thanks Pot girl. I wouldn’t have thought it though in such an arid area. Learn something everyday ;-D
Sorry..FYI.
.That was mean to be “Thanks Lobster Pot Girl” Didn’t mean to mess up your name…Sorry
Can’t seem to get anything right tonight. Sans the FYI…sigh! I did the same type of stuff on FB tonight! Time for bed and start over in the morning!B-D
What the article doesn’t state is that the original mortgages are usually fully paid off by the show and donations from the community. The families then go out and re-fi these homes for more money then they can pay back. The show is not at fault for people being greedy and losing their homes.
The nerve of some people… But at the same time EXtremeM should require medical proof instead of believing some sob story
I can’t take the over-the-top screaming of Ty Whatzisname and all the sniveling by the crew.
Thanks for pointing that out, Jami. The article makes it sound like the upgrades force these families out into the streets. What it also doesn’t say it that they typically end up paying off acquired medical fees and/or leave them some money for future bills and such.