In early 1995, they purchased a home in a suburban community through a real estate brokerage company. The home was built in 1958. It was inspected and major appliances in the home were guaranteed for 5 years. The home has three bedrooms, a livingroom, family room and a glassed in back porch. It is heated by a forced-air, natural gas furnace in the basement.
Hot water is provided by a gas-fired water heater , also in the basement.
Beginning in the autumn of 1995, Betty Jones began having headaches and feeling very tired . During the summer of 1996, Betty Jones and the whole family felt much better, although she and the children continued to have frequent headaches and to feel slightly fatigued . They felt better when they went away for vacation for two weeks. She was becoming so lethargic that she could not accomplish her normal housework. She was forgetting tasks that needed doing, and finding it increasingly difficult to maintain the family checkbook.