HOBB Press Release
A 65-year-old grandmother and long-time consumer advocate for better home construction practices goes on trial here Monday, January 7, on charges that she falsely called 911 and reported to police that a bomb was located in an Arlington, Texas KB Home residential development, previously used as a military practice bombing range in the 1940s and 1950s.  The charges were leveled against Janet Ahmad, president of HomeOwners for Better Building , a national consumer advocacy group dedicated to helping people with defectively built homes and well known critic of KB Home, and its long history of poor building practices.  KB Home build on a bombing range? YES!: 20/20 Report

HOMEOWNERS   FOR   BETTER   BUILDING

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                             — PRESS RELEASE —                                                        

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                 Contact:  Linda Armstrong
January 4, 2008  

Better Home Building Advocate and Grandmother Goes On Trial For Reporting Bomb from KB Homes Construction Site

           Fort Worth, Texas –-  A 65-year-old grandmother and long-time consumer advocate for better home construction practices goes on trial here Monday, January 7, on charges that she falsely called 911 and reported to police that a bomb was located in an Arlington, Texas KB Home residential development, previously used as a military practice bombing range in the 1940s and 1950s. 

            The trial begins at 9 a.m. at the Tarrant County Justice Center , 401 W. Belknap St., in County Criminal Court #10.
 
            The charges were leveled against Janet Ahmad, president of HomeOwners for Better Building , a national consumer advocacy group dedicated to helping people with defectively built homes and well known critic of KB Home, and its long history of poor building practices. 

             In mid-2001 Southridge Hills homeowners first became aware of the former practice bombing range when a dog and children began to find practice bombs on the property.  In 2002 the U.S. Congress approved an appropriations bill and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved a $1 million budget to clean up the site. 

            Ahmad was at the site in 2002 at the behest of homeowners concerned that KB Homes was still building and selling homes on the property, despite the fact that the home construction company had not hired an unexploded ordnance contractor to clear the land of the remaining bombs.

             The City of Arlington continued to issue permits allowing KB to build the homes in spite of local and national news reports of the existence of bombs in the Southridge Hills subdivision.

             For more than 30 years, Ahmad has relentlessly helped consumers fight for and protect their biggest investment—their home.  Ahmad has advocated for local, state and national legislation for more uniform construction standards and practices, and lobbied for licensing of residential contractors in Texas .  For the past 10-years she has staunchly advocated national legislation that would eliminate binding mandatory arbitration clauses from home builder contracts that unfairly deny families their constitutional right to sue their builder in a court of law for shoddy construction; and helped author the first every home lemon law to force builders to correct their mistakes or to buy back the defectively built homes.