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Anonymous
Anonymous asked in HealthDiseases & ConditionsOther - Diseases · 10 years ago

BLACK MOLD in Apartment - Health Issues & Neglectful Landlord?

I noticed the first black mold spot on my bathroom wall around 9/16. I reported it to my apartment and they came and got rid of it. Then around 10/23 I discovered a new patch of black mold in a new spot on the same wall, which my roommate and I connected to the constant puddle in the hall outside, right at the other side of my moldy wall, and I sent in a maintenance request about it. They ignored the request for almost a week and so on 10/27, I sent an email to my landlord. He didn't respond to my email, but sent a maintenance worker out the next day (10/28). The maintenance worker took my cabinet from the moldy wall, cut a big hole in the wall and fixed a broken pipe in there. He then covered the hole with plastic and tape and left for the day. He did nothing about the mold on the wall. The inside of the wall smelled HORRIBLE and incredibly moldy after being in the bathroom for about an hour trying to clean up the mess, I sneezed a lot, got a horrible headache and just felt generally awful for hours after the exposure. Since then I have basically had a constant headache.

On 10/30 my cat got into that bathroom and immediately after was making coughing/choking sounds for about 30 mins. I tried to avoid my room/bathroom that weekend. On 11/1, I felt absolutely awful. I had a horrible headache that made me nauseated, body aches/pains, shortness of breath/difficulty breathing, chest pains, etc. I think it had gotten worse because I had accidentally had my bathroom ventilator turned off for the last day (I had been keeping it on to hopefully help with the mold). These symptoms lasted the next 3 days. I sent a nasty email to my landlord on 11/2 about it, which he ignored. I took sample of the mold that night and sent it off to get tested.

On 11/3 I called my university's clinic and they told me to go to the urgent care facility or ER based on my symptoms, but I thought they were overreacting and didn't. That same day my mother called my landlord and gave him a piece of her mind, which finally scared him into some sort of action (she told him that we had taken a lot of pictures and were getting a sample of the mold tested). He sent the maintenance guy back that evening around 4pm, at which point he went in my bathroom, sprayed the moldy spots with some bleach solution and said that that was all he could do because the wall wasn't dry yet (from the broken pipe). He came back the next day (11/4) and filled in the hole in the wall (doing nothing for the entire moldy inner wall except spraying the small portion near the hole with bleach).

On 11/7 he came back to put my cabinet back on the moldy wall and when he did he somehow made a huge (3-4') crack at the corner of the moldy, presumably rotten wall. I am now being exposed to the (possibly toxic- don't have the lab results yet) moldy inside of the wall and can smell the moldy smell coming from in there. My cat was in my bathroom after the maintenance man left and, again, immediately went into a coughing/choking fit, but this time it only lasted for 1-2 minutes. I’ve had a low-grade fever (consistently 99.4-99.6, or higher; 99.9 today) since last Thursday (that’s when I first got access to a thermometer) and feel like I might be developing bronchitis or something of the sort.

Any advice on what I should do for my health/my cat’s health (other than obviously avoiding the mold)? What can I do to force my landlord to finally actually FIX this before my cat and I both keel over and die? Is this ground to sue, and if so, what kind of specific documentation should I be keeping (I’ve taken photos throughout the entire process, am waiting for the results from the mold sample, have copies of the emails and the university clinic has record of symptoms that I talked to nurse about over the phone)?

Any advice would help my poor, distressed college-kid self greatly! I'm just really at my wit's end.

2 Answers

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  • 10 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Take pictues and stuff keep all records of doctor visits or whatever and if landlord still won't do anything take to small claims court. Make em pay!

  • 5 years ago

    If you lived there a month earlier than you discovered it, what makes you suppose the owner could understand whilst he did not reside there? Either method, it's the landlords accountability to care for the difficulty. Mold reasons severe well being disorders

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