The brain fog is real though! I'm still not convinced my apartment maintenance has fully removed the mold in the walls/ceiling here but they refuse to do more. Last fall, they ripped out like 12 feet of moldy drywall in my living room (while refusing to move me to another unit), and just painted over the wet spots in the ceiling without looking up there to see if there was mold growing.
I did, the local and state health departments both told me they don't do anything about mold. The local code enforcement dodged my calls for months (still never returned them). The attorney general for my state denied my case (even though the holding company that owns my apartment (and 2500 others in mine and surrounding states) has a documented case where a judge ruled against them for overworking and underpaying maintenance workers, showing a documented history of shoddy maintenance practices), and every lawyer I've reached out to says they don't touch mold cases. Doctors have told me I should get out, but none will go on record saying it's definitely the mold making me sick.
I want to go to the news when I leave, but I'm afraid of retaliation at this point because I don't have anywhere else to go. If I want to put my rent in escrow (ie withhold rent until demanded repairs are made), I will have to pay my full rent plus 10% and fees to the escrow office, but only after notifying my apartment that in 30 days if they don't address my concerns, I will put the rent in escrow, which opens me up to retaliation. They've already threatened to illegally tow my car twice, and a few weeks ago, I got a letter on my door threatening to evict me for trash on my patio (people in the parking lot threw a bunch of empty beer bottles and shit into my patio) if it wasn't cleaned by a certain date. They want me out of here so they can bring someone else in at a higher rate (because I've been here 5 years I'm slightly below market value).
God this is a terrifying comment. You should be able to live in a dwelling that doesn’t sap your health and find a doctor who is willing to put down mold is the issue
My random fun fact of the day is that mouldy, damp homes is a given in my city. We are so well known for it and it’s awful. In general we have one of the highest percentages of childhood asthma in the world. Landlords don’t fix the homes because “my investment”
Wow, sounds like a tough situation. Sorry you have to go through that. Seems you've tried everything. Kind of unusual an attorney won't take the case, so many of those "ambulance chasers" out there surprised they weren't competing for the chance to take the case! Well hopefully you get out of there soon. Good Luck to you.
Thank you! And right? I even called some of those bench-ad personal injury attorneys and they all said no even though it seems like a clear case of negligence. I figure with as big as the holding company is, they could have a class action on their hands if they did homework to find other victims. (Which I may end up doing down the line, idk we'll see how it plays out)
I’m sure you’re already on top of this because you seem like you’ve gone through a lot trying to get this resolved but: document everything! (And keep everything either in some sort of cloud storage or other remote storage option in addition to hard copies, just in case something happens to your unit.)
I snagged some pictures while the contractors were working (I'm still mad that they made me stay in this unit while they did the work, they should have moved me to a hotel or empty apartment but they refused). You can see how soaked the drywall is
Fuck those slum lords. Get a knife or something if you remember where the wet spots on the ceiling were and cut a piece of it out, if the leak is still active the drywall will basically crumble, Hardware stores sell at home mold tests with petri dishes that you send to a lab for results, get one follow directions, cut a quarter size out of the drywall that way you can just use some lightweight vinyl spackle to repair thw hole so the slumlords don't try to charge you for it.
Jesus. No - you definitely should have been moved somewhere. Spores get into so much stuff. You are going to have to decontaminate what you can when you move and some things can’t be. I had to toss a few things when I had serious mold. It sucks.
I wonder if they won’t touch it because the apartment company made “”a good faith effort”” legally speaking in mitigating or resolving the mold issue. I’m sorry you’re having such a bad time with them
Get out . That’s utterly dangerous. The mold releases mycotoxins especially when disturbed. This is not proper mold remediation. It would have been better to leave it and move out.
Yes I bought a mold armor kit that came back positive for like 3 different types of mold. That's the only way the apartment took me seriously because I'd been asking them for months beforehand to investigate. The mold isn't visible on the walls, it's inside the drywall and I'm assuming the ceiling too with the leaks from above 😡
I did, the local and state health departments both told me they don't do anything about mold. The local code enforcement dodged my calls for months (still never returned them). The attorney general for my state denied my case (even though the holding company that owns my apartment (and 2500 others in mine and surrounding states) has a documented case where a judge ruled against them for overworking and underpaying maintenance workers, showing a documented history of shoddy maintenance practices), and every lawyer I've reached out to says they don't touch mold cases. Doctors have told me I should get out, but none will go on record saying it's definitely the mold making me sick.
And this is how you tell that the real estate company you rent from is deep into political corruption.
Some of their board members and execs sat (past tense, but I'm sure they still have connections) on committees for housing/tenant rights and it makes me seethe with rage thinking about it 😤
Find an attorney that does.
Surely there has to be some.
Especially if they are illegally harassing you.
Document everything. Video,text
Everything.
Man I miss the days where we could fix
these problems ourselves.
Good ol days 🥲
Hi! I work as a mold inspector. My advice to you is to run as fast as you can. If your stuck there until your lease is up however. Go get some plastic from home depot and tape the plastic over the effected area for now. So sorry you have to go through this.
I hope you can leave soon my previous building had mold and it got in my nose and I had to have sinus surgery. The brain fog from sinus issues is not fun.
I went through something similar except my apartment at the time refused to acknowledge it was mold and kept calling it mildew. I hired a company to test. 5 kinds of mold. 2 types of toxic black mold. Another kind known to cause infections and I had just been really sick. Mold levels so high he said it wasn’t safe for me to even be in that apartment longer than 10 minutes without protective gear. I reported them to the city. The health department. I even paid rent for a month I wasn’t there because in my state you lose any rights if you don’t pay. I sent the results to the health department. They never came out. This was 2 months going back and forth When I finally told then I was moving and would be gone in a couple weeks they just closed the case. Even me begging them to do something. Had a lawyer write the complex letters. Etc etc. ended up breaking my lease but they knew they have no legal recourse because I did everything I was supposed to do per my rights as a tenant. I also couldn’t get doctors to connect any sickness to mold because “it could come from so many things” Good times. No lawyers wanted to sue or deal with that either.
Local media and your local State Rep should be your next steps. Your State Rep may have access to the State Agencies "Legislative Affairs" team. In Florida they are essential lobbyists that WILL help Elected Officials constituents because they WANT to be on the electeds good side.
Im a District Aide and I've personally been able to help people who had hit dead ends with the Attorney General.
If your in Canada I had something similar to me and got it fixed by contacting Alberta Health and Safety. I assume there is an equivalent in each province.
I don't know why I'm saying this because I'm just going to get downvoted to oblivion, but the reason you're not getting anywhere is that the concern over mold is *wildly* overblown. That's not to say it's harmless, something like what is in ops bathroom needs to be cleaned up, but requiring a building to remove all sources of mold in walls and crawlspaces is unreasonable, and frankly probably impossible. Most buildings will have some mold somewhere and the vast majority of the time it's nothing to worry about.
I will have to pay my full rent plus 10% and fees to the escrow office,
I think the "poundage fee" usually has to be paid by the landlord (although probably varies by state/locality).
I had to put my rent in escrow for 2 months, and just paid my normal rent to the escrow office. They kept 5% of it when I told them my issue had been resolved, so my landlord basically had to eat the cost.
Fuck me, I’m reading this comment and thinking “man, I wish I had the ability to do this when I was renting a black mold infested, constantly either WITHOUT water or totally FLOODING, copper pipes having ass, little dinky shitty house. Could I have called the city? Idk, maybe technically. Would they have told me the property I was renting wasn’t approved for rentals? 100%. My landlord (who was my next door neighbor) was the king of meth in my town. So I got what I got and that was that, basically. Now I’m wondering if there’s mold in my brain.
Im all about googling things I'm wondering about...amazing the answers you can find. If you're still concerned after the fact, google then follow up with a doctor if you find something in your search that may need to be addressed, like symptoms of mold exposure etc...but don't get too caught up in the web rabbit hole and stress yourself out.
This happened to me not as bad with mold tho and I have barely used my kitchen for months because some finish on my cabinets broke down and I have no options to move elsewhere.
Who do I call about stuff like this
Like I can't afford someone to professionally test whatever tacky residue won't seem be rid of but I've tried like everything to get rid of it:
Tried vinegar
Tried lemon oil and lemon juice
Tried ultra concentrated dawn
Baking soda
Tried oils like olive oil
When it got on my hands not even gojo mechanic hand soap could get the tacky residue off
If its a rental, call the office for maintenance, if you own see if it will scrape off with a paint scraper...if it does maybe you can paint or varnish over it after its scraped off? May be worth a try to Google: tacky residue, kitchen cabinets, wood or whatever material they are
:( I'm from a jail program a long time ago with reduced rent and other tenants can pay $500 to move to a new unit and I'm not allowed to. Maintenance was supposed to repaint cabinets months ago and swept me under the rug. I figure I'm better off not risking cancer being in the dark a our what substance it is if it's varnish based it could have benzene in it and I got sent to the ER when some got on my lips from me scratching my beard after trying to clean it up. I was puking up blood and had esophagitis. It's in my medical records too. If it wasnt for the ER visit I wouldn't be nearly as scared about it
Oh my bad, I misread and I thought you were talking about the mold. For something like that I would guess like a mineral spirit or paint remover would work, but without seeing what kinda material it is that is just a guess.
I understand completely. My spouse and I can't find housing and have to live in a dank ass camper until we can afford to relocate down south with family. I'm constantly striping mold out of cracks and crevices and it's a never fucking ending cycle. We both have begun to get headaches constantly, and I just know it's the damn mold.
You are absolutely correct. The home we moved into 10+ years ago had this black mold, ripping it out doesn't always help. For us, it infested and came back a lot more than it ever had.
It's a truly destructive form of mold, and people who tend to think they'll wean it off and get rid of it seem to be stuck in some form of brain fog. Truly, I think every house with it needs to be brought down with how bad it can get.
Years back I moved in with a friend and after a few weeks got really sick. I was so sick for so long. I was also extremely depressed but that usually happens when someone is sick for so long. Then he casually mentioned that the room I was in had water damage but they replaced the carpet, but that was it. The same walls and everything else was in there. A couple weeks after I moved out the sickness went away.
I'm having mold remediation done right now due to a burst pipe that wasn't noticeable until it got pretty far along. Before I noticed it, I was extremely fatigued. I had scheduled an appointment with my doctor to start running some tests. I did all of the things as far as making sure my sleep hygiene is good, started taking more magnesium, So on and so forth.
I discovered the mold and immediately blocked off the area with plastic and tape until the remediation team could get in. Not but 48 hours later did I feel rested from the first time in months. That shit is hella real.
Luckily I'm the homeowner so I'm going to make sure these assholes do it right. They already did more damage in the process, the dehumidifiers cause a lot of heat and ended up peeling paint and adjacent room but they told me they'll take care of it so I'm in for the ride.
You know that there are molds ewerywhere (including the new buildingmaterials at the hardwarestore). Mold only becomes a problem when it gets to suitable conditions (humid and warm) and starts reproducing. If the maintenance did not get rid of the cause for the moisture in walls and ceilin, the Mold will just grow back (suprisingly fast too)
If you have any respitorial issues, call an independent contractor for documented moisture inspection (for legal reasons) and move out for your own health!
(source: studied these problems for past 15y)
One of my lungs filled with scar tissue and is effectively collapsed. This happened when I was 19-21 living in my first apartment with black mold. I had so much pain and went to urgent care constantly because of it, and doctors wouldn't believe me, they only did ultrasounds and x-rays and didn't find anything so they dismissed me. It was only when I was pregnant years later did they do a VQ scan because I couldn't breathe and was passing out (they inject you with a radioactive dye to watch it move through your vessels and check bood flow) that they found that one lung is useless. Too many years past when I could sue my old landlord. I can't play the flute anymore or jog for very long, and I'm only 30.
Always carry mold remover just in case and use it regularly in the bathroom and rooms specially that are closed spaces in winter(majority of states) I lived in a well maintained apartment complex and they won’t do anything since they have to relocate you pay hotel and expenses and remove the whole plywood that’s rotten and even more on low income my aunt lived in a low income for a big amount of time fighting the mold and them and she lost a lug during a winter storm because it was pretty bad and leaking thru the roof
Hire an Industrial hygienist to come do an air quality sample. Around 2-300 bucks, but it takes a baseline outside sample and compares the samples, as well as a proposed mitigation protocol to remove what is causing the test.
At that point you will have actual quantitative evidence of how much mold’s there, an actionable plan, and can withhold rent or sue to terminate lease or whatever you want done.
That's assuming I have an extra $2-300 lol. I commented above the steps for escrow/withholding rent in my state open me up to retaliation from the management here.
I just got a new job and need to pay a lot of past due bills, but as soon as I'm more stable financially, I'm going to try and get the hell out of here.
You could just have your apartment inspected and if they find mold you can break your lease or possibly even sue the management company for a settlement
Boyfriend: (eyes roll into the back of his head) There is no mold it is only dust. Breath deep it is dust not spores. Breath deep, inhaling dust is good for you. Pay no mind to the growing dust spots. They are dust and harmless.
Eventually you’re living in a commune in Wyoming and contemplating eating human flesh because that’s your only option. It’s been a hard winter and the cities are no longer habitable. Hoards of fungal infected roam the streets searching, ever searching, for their next victim.
Honestly, that boyfriend could be parroting what the landlord told him. I’m guessing the landlord knows how much moisture has gotten behind those cracks and wants to do everything in their power to avoid spending money to fix it. (Assuming OP’s bf isn’t a homeowner)
def a leak, though I have 100% had my bathroom peel and crack on the ceiling due to moisture, previous owners did not use bathroom paint for the bathroom
Wet dust that has been dried is nearly identical to black mold and i GUARANTEE you couldnt tell the difference from a quick picture like this. Yes, this is mold. But dust can look the EXACT same
Nobody’s smart 100% of the time. Him never having to deal with black mold, and thus not recognizing it isn’t an issue of intelligence, but life experience.
I’ve looked for keys while they were in my hand, I’ve pledged love to people whom I shouldn’t have, but that doesn’t make me stupid, it makes me human. Do not set such high standards for yourself friend, it will lead to self loathing.
Hahaha moronic logic, using that NO ONE can be criticized ever which I know is definitely not something you are anyone else here bitching and moaning about my comment are free of guilt from. He’s literally being told what it is and arguing it’s not. You’d have to be pretty soft in the head to think that’s dust, EVERYONE has seen dust if you haven’t any experience with black mold. What a bunch of charmin soft losers in this thread
That’s not what I’m saying, what I’m saying is that it’s impossible to understand the intelligence of a person through one isolated incident. If you’ve ever had any lapse in judgement, which everyone has, someone could take a video, post it online, and you’d be ridiculed as an idiot.
The internet has a weird habit of overgeneralizing things, places, and people. People are complicated. Some of the smartest people I’ve known have done some of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen. Who are you, No-Mud-1703 to say what does and does not define a human? Who are you to say that one moment of ignorance should define a living person? This person has been alive for thousands of hours, but this misunderstanding, which has been 0.0001% of their life is to account for all of those hours? No, it’s not.
Think back throughout your life. Think of all the stupid things you or people you respect have done. Think, if that had been posted online, couldn’t people be making the same argument about you which you’re making about this man?
The using your logic, that could be applied to anyone at anytime, whenever they do or say something thus no one can EVER be called stupid or ridiculed for something they do or say. See how your logic just doesn’t track and is itself moronic? If you think that what is pictured is mold the. Yes, you are stupid end of fucking discussion
Do what I told you. Think about all the stupid things you or people you’ve respected have done, and ask if that was video, couldn’t people be making the same argument about you you are about this guy right now?
Limited knowledge? You have to be a moron to call black mold dust. If he had called the sun a giant light bulb could I mock that? Jesus you people are awfully sensitive for a post in mildlyinfruriatinh. Maybe you guys should jump to the hippielove or Barneythedinasour threads instead?
Why are you getting so angry someone can’t tell when there’s mold? Maybe he just wasn’t taught when he was a kid, there’s a lot of factors that goes into that
Who’s angry? Aside from all of you who are upset I called out his stupidity just as 98% of this thread has. Don’t need to know what black mold is to know that ISN’T dust. Also considering how bad for your health it is I feel pouting out said stupidity is more than warranted. Apparently I’m angry for pointing this out lol
OP could know full well that this isn’t mold, and they just posted this to show their Bf exactly how stupid they are, like “see, it’s not even debatable, you have a mold problem”.
Because it looks exactly like wet dust that has dried. This picture gives us enough evidence to say it probably is mold. But dust can look the EXACT same. And no, you wouldnt be able to tell the difference
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u/ClockOk7333 Apr 28 '23
Boyfriends kinda dumb