This is the timeline of what transpired and why I feel I am being unjustly persecuted by All County Polk Property Management: November 2010 – Moved in – Rental company: Crouse & Associates A couple of months later I noticed a stain on the carpet and mentioned it to the rental company. Slowly health problems started creeping up for me and my dog. For me it was burning feet, itching feet and body, breathing problems, allergies, headaches, chronic coughing, sinus infections, nausea, diarrhea, chronic fatigue above and beyond my normal fatigue, nosebleeds (some that would last 10 minutes), and skin rashes. For my dog it was constant eye infections, constant skin infections, vomiting, and lethargy. This all lasted throughout the rest of the time renting the house. I had one skin rash on my leg that was there for over a year and a half that I tried several different medicines for, but nothing would cure it. I went to the doctors several times for it. It cleared up a few weeks after I moved out. October 2011 – Renewed Lease – At this point I didn’t know it was the mold in the house that was causing all of this. But to note, the carpet had gotten worse, with a few more spots popping up, no matter how much I vacuumed it. And it seemed like the more I vacuumed, the worse it got. I mentioned it to Mindy at Crouse & Associates several times throughout the year. I also explained to them what my neighbors told me about how the previous tenant had a dog, which she told me that Crouse did not know about, and that the dog was tied to a pole outside most days due to the fact that it made a mess in the house. October 2012 – Renewed a 6 month lease because they knew I wanted to move out because of the carpet and told me that it was doubtful that the owner would fix it, but there wasn’t anything on the market in my price range, so was told to wait another 6 months and the market would be better. After speaking with Crouse & Associates about my concerns with the carpet, they advised me to get it cleaned. November & December 2012 – New Rental Company took over: All County Polk Property Management. I met with Tim Davis, the owner, at my house and explained to him what was going on with the carpet, by that time there were spots in every room. He seemed genuine and said that he’d look into taking care of it. I knew it clearly was not my fault, nor my dogs, and I just wanted it to be fixed. So he said he’d give me a call back and let me know if the owner would approve getting the carpet replaced. By that time I had noticed black mold in the garage on the air conditioning ducts and pointed it out to him and mentioned that it might have been what was causing all of my health problems. His excuse was that it was Florida and it happens. Normal mold, sure. But toxic black mold on every window in the bedrooms and nasty green mold under the carpets by the sliding glass doors? I don’t think so. Of course I didn’t see all of that until later upon moving out. January 2013 – I finally called back to ask Tim if they’d gotten approval for the carpet to be replaced. At this point I told him that if he’d take care of that, I’d stay and not move out. He said the owner said no, that it was my fault and I would need to clean it. After that, our conversations got heated and contentious. He said he’d send one of his maintenance guys out to check out the carpet and mold. The maintenance man came out and said to me that the carpet looks as if whoever cleaned it initially when I first moved in, did a horrible job and left dirty water in the padding and it stained the carpet. He pulled up the carpet and we didn’t find mold in the cement underneath, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t in the carpet itself. But we did find green mold by the sliding glass doors under the carpet and some black looking mold on the sticks that hold the carpet down, but it wasn’t near the main spot that I was complaining about. February – 2013 – After waiting a week or so for a call back, my brother called Ronnie and Claude Bryant from Ronnie’s Carpets to come out and check the carpet to see if they thought it needed to be cleaned or replaced. They checked with their meter and found random spots throughout the house that the carpet had wet signatures, which didn’t shock me because it always felt cold and wet in those spots, but I could never find standing water. It was in every room of the house. They suggested that it could be a broken pipe under the flooring causing this. After finding the mold on the air ducts I decided at that point to go buy a mold test to check the carpet. I did two different tests, an air test, and an air conditioning vent test. The air test was, following the directions, left open a few feet away from the biggest spot on the carpet, plus I scraped some carpet fibers and placed in the Petri dish. The air vent test was taped to the furthest vent from the AC unit per the directions. Both came back with several disgusting mold spores, but the one near the carpet was the worst. February 19th 2013 - I took this information as well as what the employees at Ronnie’s Carpets had to say up to Tim Davis. From the moment the secretary mentioned my name, I heard him sigh from his office. He immediately was argumentative and confrontational, which only made me so as well. He went straight into denying the allegations I’d shown him, and blamed my dog. He asked why I didn’t get the carpets cleaned last week when his maintenance guy had checked the carpet for mold, and I told him that the maintenance guy told me that he was going to come back and clean them because he could tell that the spots had been there awhile and that it was probably a result of the original carpet cleaners not cleaning it properly. He said that the maintenance guy didn’t tell him that, and instead put the blame on my dog. I told him if I had to get a DNA test for my dog to prove he didn’t pee in those spots, I would gladly do it, and he just laughed at me. He was arrogant and belligerent, and continuously blaming me and my dog for the mold and I told him that if they tried to keep my security deposit and refundable pet deposit, that I would take them to court. He also asked why I stayed for over 2 years and didn’t move out when my lease was up if I knew there was mold. I honestly didn’t suspect the mold until a couple months prior when I saw it on the AC ducts in the garage. I was also under the assumption that they might work with me to get this cleared up to keep me as a loyal renter. I had previously asked a couple of months prior if they’d replace the carpet and he told me “no” that he wouldn’t, so when I asked “Well is the next tenant going to have to deal with burning feet and breathing problems?” his reply was “No, because we’ll replace the carpet your dog destroyed.” So instead of keeping a steady paying tenant and replacing the carpet when I asked, they decide to wait until I move out and replace it. This was all said in front of their receptionist Sandra. March 2013 – I had called Ronnie’s Carpets back up to tell them what Tim said. Ronnie said that Tim had called them and couldn’t believe what they were saying, and that it was most definitely the dog that was causing this. He was constantly denying any other reasoning. I had two carpet professionals, his own maintenance man, and multiple witnesses over the 2 years of renting that could prove that my dog did not pee on the carpet. Claude from Ronnie’s Carpets even got down on his hands and knees and SMELLED the carpet and said, “That’s definitely not dog pee!” But Tim still would not believe me. I did some Google searching of his company, and he clearly has a reputation for this type of behavior. He even had a tenant go to the Better Business Bureau over the exact same thing. April 2013 – I handed in some of my keys in on the 23rd of April. I spoke to the receptionist when I handed in the keys if I could speak to Tim Davis. She said he was no longer over that property, that he doesn’t do that part of the job anymore, and that I would need to speak to Roxanna. I got her number and called her several times over the next 4-5 days. I called the receptionist back and they would give me excuses like she was sick, or a family member was in the hospital. On the last voicemail I left her, I was quite perturbed and reiterated that the carpet was not my fault and I wanted to go to the house and do a final walk through and explain things to her. About a week went by from my initial call when she finally called me back. She denied me the final walkthrough and so I asked about the refund process, and she said that I’d have to wait a few weeks then speak to bookkeeping. May 2013 – I waited and I called back and got the runaround again. During my packing up in preparation for the move, I turned on the sprinklers one day. I was pulling some boxes out of the spare room’s closet when I felt something wet. Sure enough there was standing water on the carpet, quite wet, but I couldn’t find where it was coming from. So I called up Tim Davis. He said he’d be by Monday morning (it was on a Saturday when I called) to check it out. By the time he came Monday morning it was all dried up but crispy feeling like it normally feels after carpet dries from being wet. I had told him previously that Ronnie’s Carpets had mentioned that it could be a water leak under the house causing all of this, but he said it was doubtful, but I figured this would prove it. So I told him that I’d turn on the sprinklers again and he could come back later and see, and he told me not to, because one of the sprinkler heads were busted. Point being though, is that I finally had proof and he didn’t want me to show it to him. June 2013 – I called on June 3rd multiple times and could not get through to the receptionist. I just kept getting voicemails. I finally got a hold of Roxanna and she told me that she was no longer over the property, and that Tim was over it again. At this point I just laughed and said “Of course.” I tried his phone number several times to no avail. I didn’t leave messages, because I knew he wouldn’t call me back. It always took me going to their office to get anything done. June 10, 2013 – I received a letter in the mail stating that I owe All County Polk Property $1911.25. $187 of that for cleaning, which my brother can attest that the house was cleaned to almost perfection before I left. The only thing I didn’t clean was the black mold that I found upon moving out in the master bedroom windows and blinds. After seeing that, it was no wonder I was as sick as I was. $400+ of it was for replacing the door and frame that my dog had chewed. I actually bought the door and all the frames for replacing, so that they wouldn’t have to pay for the parts. It was a simple job to fix and should not have cost $400. Upon buying my house I had Ronnie’s Carpets install brand new carpet and padding into the home. At that time I told one of the installers of my situation with the previous house, and he agreed with the assessment of Ronnie, Claude, and the maintenance man. I’ve been in my new house for over 2 months and not once has my dog peed or pooped on my carpet. He vomited once the first week we were here, but ever since he has not vomited at all, which also makes me think his vomiting was a symptom of the mold poisoning, because like my rash, it’s cleared up. His skin and eye condition still hasn’t cleared up, but it is getting better. It takes some time to detox from the poisoning, and could take months if not a year to heal. I spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars in doctors and veterinary visits over the past two and a half years to try and find out what was wrong with us. My burning feet has taken some time to clear up, and still burns a bit, but it’s not anywhere near as bad as it was. I would spend many a night tossing and turning not being able to sleep due to the burn. And I itched all over my body, especially my feet. That has also cleared up a bit. The migraines that I were having have lessened, but I have suffered from them since I was a teenager, so I didn’t think that it was a part of the mold poisoning until I noticed how often they were happening there. My breathing problems I had at night were the worst. Right when I would be on the edge of falling asleep, it felt as if my throat would close up. That with the burning feet made sleep near impossible. It’s gotten much better, and I’m getting to sleep much faster and easier now, but it’s still not completely better, but almost eighty percent cleared up. My fear is that I will never be back to the health that I was before, and I fear that it did permanent damage to my lungs, and maybe even my kidneys and bladder, because I’d also had a lot of kidney pain and loss of bladder control.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 18:27:03 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015