Homeowners want answers. They say toxic drywall is eating through their homes and savings.

Now, for the first time, we're hearing from a state toxicologist who says it could be months before homeowners have any real answers.

A Northwest Cape Coral home looks beautiful from the outside, but its owners have moved out because of the smelly mess inside. They have Chinese drywall. Their builder wants them to sign a contract for the company to get rid of it, so long as the couple agrees never to sue.

Homeowner Chris George shows WINK News the destruction caused by Chinese drywall. He's moved out of his home until someone can give him answers instead of speculation.

"Nobody has any answers for me, and I need to know how to remediate the home correctly so I can go back to it," George says.

He took his questions to a packed, public information meeting featuring state toxicologist Dr. David Krause.

Dr. Krause says there are still a lot of unknowns but that one thing is certain -- the state recommends getting rid of the culprit.

"So far none of the data shows that there's an immediate health risk, but we're still looking into it because based on the number of people reporting, it's not without some risk," Dr. Krause says. "We know that if you've removed the source, you've removed the problem."

But some people think the fumes dive deeper -- into their carpet, furniture and walls.

"We're waiting for an answer because we don't want to put money into a storage unit and maybe contaminate other stuff that's nearby," George says.

Right now hundreds of samples taken from homes in Cape Coral are being processed in labs. Now it's a matter of wait and see until that data is analyzed.

"It takes hundreds and hundreds of man hours to do this," Dr. Krause says. "For every hour you're on site, it's going to take two to three hours analyzing data."

The state needs your help to get a handle on how big the problem really is. Dr. Krause believes defective drywall is grossly under-reported.

Dr. Krause says the state plans to release a public health notice about Chinese drywall at the beginning of September.

On Monday the Lee County Property Appraiser sent 50,000 letters to homes suspected to have defective drywall. If you can prove you have it through pictures and documents, you could be entitled to a tax break this year. Visit www.leepa.org for more information.