Frederick M. Hueston, PhD  

Stone Care Consultant 

As I write this, I can finally smell fall in the air. The decaying leaves and the cooler air are a nice change to the past wet and hot summer.

Since it’s fall I thought I would change up my ole cup of Jo and go to Fivebucks for a pumpkin spice latté. Never had one but my breakfast buddies down at the greasy spoon are always talking about them. And Fivebucks is not a typo. I call it that ’cause any drink order is always around five bucks. I got in the ole Woody and headed for my first cup of that latté.

As I was pulling up in line for my latté my cell phone rang. The deep voice on the other end identified himself as an attorney. He sounded more like the Sargent on that old TV show Dragnet, for those of you as old as me. 

He went on to say that he was representing a homeowner who was suing the builder of his home for some damaged marble flooring. He told me that the damage was only in certain areas and was only on the perimeter of the floor.  

“I need an expert to go out there and take a look to determine the cause,” he said.  Sounded pretty straight forward so I told him I could take a look at it later this morning. He gave me the address and I continued in for my pumpkin latté.

Later that morning, caffeinated and ready to go, I pulled into the drive of this very old house. It was one of those Victorian types – I think they call them “painted ladies” in San Francisco. Hmmm, I thought. The attorney told me they were suing the builder. It must be a remodeling project since this home had to be close to 100 years old. 

I  knocked on the door and this very pretty older lady answered. She said, “You must be the Stone Detective?” 

I said yes and handed her my card. I was right – the home was totally remodeled. All the flooring was white Carrara marble. 

She took me into the kitchen and pointed to the damage running along the cabinet base. I bent down to take a closer look. 

There appeared to be a light etch, like something was spilled. The same damage was along the baseboards throughout most of the rooms.  It was time to ask some of my Colombo questions. 

I asked when the damage occurred and she said shortly after they moved in. 

“Have you had any contractors in here since you moved in?” I asked her. 

She thought for a moment and said, “No. None.”  

OK, now I was puzzled so I asked her what she uses to clean the floor. She took me back to the kitchen and showed me a bottle of stone cleaner. It was the proper cleaner. 

I asked if I could perform some non-destructive tests on the floor and she said, “Whatever you need to do.” 

I pulled out some litmus paper to check the pH. It was right around 7. I next took out my pocket microscope to have a closer look at the damage. Strangely, the stone was not etched, but some chemical had deposited a white dull film on the stone. I scraped some off and placed it in a sample bag. I told her that I would have to get this sample back to lab to have it analyzed. I wished her a good day and off I went.

I got back to lab and was about to perform some tests on the sample when the phone rang. It was the pretty lady that I just left. She told me that she forgot to tell me that the day they moved in the house there was a guy there spraying for cockroaches. I asked her for the name of the company and she told me.  Now I had a good idea what the film was – insect spray. 

I called the company and asked for an MSDS and, sure enough, it was an insecticide that would leave a film on the stone. Next I had to call the attorney to let him know that the marble wasn’t damaged and could easily be cleaned. Another case solved, and one more attorney defeated!  LOL!

The Stone Detective is a fictional character created by Fred Hueston, written to be entertaining and educational. He has written over 33 books on stone and tile installations, fabrication and restoration and also serves as an expert for many legal cases across the world. You can send any email comments to him at fhueston@stoneforensics.com.