When we first moved into our first apartment for ourselves on June 30th 2012....We couldnt even afford the first months rent but the landlord gave us the key anyways and was willing to work with us accepting weekly payments to get caught up. It took us a couple weeks but we did catch up and paid our first months rent. Due to not having it all at once I didnt feel right to complain about things like the black dirt in our window frames that I could not get out when I tried scrubbing it. I didnt fuss about the old carpet having black stains outlined accross the edges because I figured after being steam cleaned so many times the carpet had just had all the extra dirt pushed back to the corners. The carpet upstairs was dirty in general from the moment we walked in. Also when we walked in we noticed a funny, awkward smell. For 26 months probably every single Friday on payday we bought air freshners, stand up ones, plug in ones, candles, sprays, beads. Wall sticker freshners...just any and every freshener you can find at walmart. I did not complain about the fact that my only shower head looked old, dirty, mildewed. I spent probably in total thousands of hours cleaning in that apartment. I am a natural born OCD clean freak. But no matter how I cleaned, no matter how I aired out the house every single morning something in there would always smell.. That black dirt In my window frames just very well may be toxic black mold. I took a sample with a toxic mold kit I received from home depot. The sample within 48 hours went from a couple specs of dirt into a growth of mold and it had overtaken the entire petri dish. Before doing the sample one morning I got on my good old smart phone and did a simple google search mold in ventilation system which lead me to finding things like sick building syndrome and how mold can affect you. I then google searched mold in window frames and black mold since the dirt/ mold seemed to be black. These searches turned up results that were not only frighetning, but heart breaking. All the symptoms listed on so many different website over 90% of them applied to me and the health issues me and or someone in my family has experienced in the last two years. Never in my life have I ever been so sick, so pain ridden, so feeling disabled as I felt the years that I lived in this apartment. The only thing that rings loud in my head until this day is I wish I would have known, I wish someone would have told me because I would have left this place a long time ago! When I did find out on September 9th, 2014 I immidiately began apartment hunting. The next morning by 9am I filled out an application and got the documents we needed to get into a new place. We did move out and into our new place by wednesday September 17th, 2014. I fully believe that that apartment nearly stole my life from me. It actually did completely rob me of my quality of life, the way I was able to live. Every single morning, noon, and night I suffered from various random unexplainable yet constant pains. Pains of all sorts, pain in places that pain has no business going or being! Like random shooting pains through your fingers and into the side of your cheek. Or simply stepping out of bed and your ankle feels like you just lost all strength and were hit with a hammer. During these two years I was diagnosed with and treated for some of the following health ailments: Fibromyalgia, severe arthritis, severe carpal tunnel, gallbladder failure and then removal, ovarian cysts, infertility, endometreosis, circulation restriction. I get tremors in my hands and now even in my shoulder joints. I feel tremors in my reproductive system although I dont know what they are caused by, maybe the endometriosis which is a new diagnoses and I havent researched it too much because I cannot honestly take the depression that will come with that. I have greatly suffered with a FORCED depression. I say forced because I have no needs, reason, or cause to be depressed but I still became depressed sometimes I wasnt sure why and other times was because I was always feeling so unhealthy, always in so much pain. A good day for me in pain cannot be acheived without the help of 1100 mg of naproxen and two heavy doses of opiate pain relievers. Even with those every day I still suffer greatly with pain. My hands are always going numb and getting shooting pains. My toes until this day are always cold especially my right big toe. I have gone to soo many doctors, and specialists, soo many trips to the emergency room I cant even begin to count. I know the types of doctors I have gone to in the past two years have been primary care, OBGYN, pain management, gastro, orthopedic, rheumatology, allergist, physical therapy, have also been refferred to a neurologist and had testing done that they would normally do. I could not even count how many doctors appointments, how many trips to the emergency room. Cannot tell you how many times Ive told my loved ones EVERY DAY there is a new health problem, a new symptom. A new mountain to find the top of! Had I ever known that ALL of my problems could be caused and worsened by the exposure to toxic molds and the fact that the apt. I was living in was actually ridden with toxic mold my life would probably be different right now. I would not be so sick. I would not have to have spent countless hours and late nights online searching for natural cures because after going to the doctors hundreds of times and spending hundreds of hours they could barely even diagnose me, much less diagnose me properly and the hundreds of prescriptions I receieved didnt help much either. Not even the opiate pain medicine. I am only 28 years old....most 28 year olds walk into a local bar or restaraunt and people know them by their name. Not me....I walk up to the pharmacy counter and I promise you they will know my name...even my voice over the phone. So thats the place that I go that everyone knows my name at. Some type of life for a young one like myself. I am not the only one who has had health issues. We have ALL been to the PCP sick several times especially during the winter months. Last winter became a running joke because literally every single week I would have to take myself or a new family member to the dr and she would just keep looking at me crazy like WHO DID YOU BRING UP HERE THIS WEEK? I mean even the doctor was just shocked at how many times we had to be seen with so many different problems. A short quick list of symptoms we all endured that I can quickly recall are anxiety, sinus/allergy symptoms, severe head ache and ear ache, nausea, vomitting, muscle pain, joint pain, stomach flu type symptoms, colds that would not go away, skin fungal rashes, confusion, depression, very easily fatigued (chronic fatigue) loss of blood flow to limbs, the list goes on but it would take me months of randomly remembering problems we had to sit down and compile a full list stating every last issue. My youngest was diagnosed with adhd and depressional mood disorder. She goes to a psychologist at least twice a month, sometimes more. We had experienced hair loss but our hair has actually started to grow again since the last six weeks when we moved out. We had dry and itchy skin from out of this world. Thats why I will only buy GoldBond lotion. I had one job while living there and I had to leave it twice due to health disabilities that stopped me from being able to work. LIke one morning I just woke up with a terrible pain in my ankle and was rushed to the emergency room by ambulance a couple hours later with one of the worst pains Ive ever experienced. That ordeal took months to figure out but it came down to all of the following diagnosis broken bone fragments in ankle joint, arthritis, and a certain type of cyst developed in my foot that is still there until this day and causes pain almost every morning when I get out of bed. The second time I had to leave work was due to my gallbladder failure. At the time of actually leaving the work I did not know what was going on all I knew is that I was in horrid pain and could not work. I was factually having gallbladder attacks and had my gallbladder removed a couple months later. I have been through so much. Much more than I could ever even remember to write down and tell you about now. But I can tell you this for certain no one should ever have to go through what I went through and I would feel complete if people just knew my story and knew how to avoid themselves from being stuck in the same type of problem. Black mold can and will attack every single organ in the human body. It can get into your body through your skin, and your eyes, it can latch onto your food and go into your stomach, because the mold is there and it will spore rapidly through the air. The mold is extremely toxic, is produces carcinogens, the stuff that cancer is made of. I have no idea the full extent of my issues. I have been complaining to doctors about certain things for years and they try to make it the simplest of explaination to justify whats wrong or even according to them CANT be wrong. But I spent years complaining before anyone decided to look at my gallbladder and that scan lead to the immidiate referral to a surgeon. I spent years complaining of lower right ab pain the in reproductive area but since all my huge cysts were on the left side the doctors looked at me like there is nothing there and Youre wrong.....until they finally heard enough of my complaining to say well you have endometreosis most likely and we will need to do a surgery to confirm, and treat that. I am not the only resident who is sick, not the only who has complained about the spotting of mold no matter how small or big. Every neighbor I speak to no matter what building can confirm there is mold present in their apts. I was shocked that so many people KNEW that and didnt freak out and move out. But it seems like a lot of them are afraid to speak up much less just move out because the rent there is fairly cheap. Which is also why I now hate cheap things like the plague because so many times youre getting something for cheap but what other price are you paying in the meantime? Your happiness, your health...possibly even paying with your life! I had my life taken away and I want it back. I want my story to be heard. I am not the only one who has been through this and people need to be informed and aware of the dangers and the possible health risks *which bottom line is your life in itself will be on the line* so that hopefully this can be avoided and another young family wont suffer so much mentally and physically because of the damning affects mold can take on our precious bodies. There is no way I can get all the details and facts of my story into one piece of writing. But I will conclude with this. It is going to cost me over 5,000 dollars to pay American Medical Labs and the National Treatment Center for Environmental Disease to do the proper testing to confirm and then treat the toxic mold exposure. Not only do I want this treatment but I also want to see the govt appoint someone who can inspect for and make decisions based on indoor air quality. Not just everyone in the govt saying that its a civil matter so basically if you ever want to be heard of get justice you will have to come out of pocket first. The government has greatly failed to protect tenants here. Even though they have guidlelines or laws against it I cannot find a soul who is able to or willing to help enforce them other than obtaining my own attorney to turn this into a lawsuit. I think about all the beautiful babies and people I lived with over there and I think about them breathing in that poision. The same poison that always made our throat, nose, and eyes burn. The same poision that caused me to vomit countless times and shed countless tears and feel constant pain. Does someone have to die before people will care and help do something? Or if they die how will anyone know to look for the cause to blame as the mold exposure. People need to know. They need to hear my story and we all need to do something to ensure a better future. If those before my time did not suffer and suffer even more to change it for future generations so that they may not have to suffer as much can any of us imagine how different our lives would be? I am considering starting a go fund me account. I have actually been afraid and if not even ashamed before now to put my story out there. I also have not had the drive and courage I have needed until today. I have always wanted to do it but I feared putting my story out there. For reasons that I do not want anyone to look at me like oh Im nasty I lived in an old moldy house. I really did not know the apt. had mold issues until the end. Most of the mold is located in places like on the inside of the window frames and you will not see it unless you open the windows and get in there and look inside of the frames. Also the mold or dirt in the window frames was not as apparent or so much when we first moved in but the fact that the mold has been cleaned, and grows back, and spreads is a big warning sign of trouble. By the time we were leaving I did see mold on the bathroom ceiling downstairs and that was the most obvious exposure there was besides the window frames. I think my landlord (ex) and the business owner (his own father) think they can get rid of me. Because who am I? What power do I have? The government wont help me. Ive called the governors office, gone to my county govt building and then to my city hall, theres nothing any of them can do. The city inspector did go out and inspect the apt. but if he waits five plus weeks after Ive moved out and theyre already in there cleaning and had plenty of time to clean then what do you think will happen? When he got there they were sanding the window frames....appauling after all Ive explained to them theyre not even willing to replace them. The mold WILL grow back, it HAS grown back before, and the fact that it grows back shows that the apt . has molding issues from the inside to the out. And seeing as there are random holes on the outside of the apts. even one right on my back porch there is no way they have removed all the moisture and solved the mold issues. Their remedy to solve this is by using KILLZ paint. Another resident told me that it what they gave another tenant along with a bottle of peroxide who complained that there is mold in the apts. These buildings are over 45 years old.. Theyre also paid off and their profits have lead them to be able to recently purchase more apt buildings to lease. Nothing but profit over there to them and thats why they dont want to invest a dime into fixing it up. Although I do not believe it is fixable, but perhaps should be condemned. There are more details and facts. The bottom line is they have PURPOSELY concealed, and lied about toxic mold being present. They KNOW, yet are still going to move someone else in there. THAT IS AGAINST THE LAW. And that is NOT a victimless crime either!!!!!!!!!!!! But I refuse to be a victim or cry about the quality my life has had the last couple years anymore. I want to stand up and be heard. Im starting my path to victory. I have to have some sort of purpose in life and if it can be to save anyone even one person from going through what IVE been through my life will be well served. I will have a mental breakdown if I ever find out that a baby has moved into my old apt. I dont want any babies living anywhere in those apts! They could die! Please stand with me in my cause... share my story as much as you can and whoever you are. Tell it to anyone who will listen. I encourage and implore you all to do the research of signs and symptoms of toxic mold exposure. Anyone who has any experience of knowledge of it knows that it can be life threatening and has taken lives already. I found out that the first family who had documented health issues proven to be the cause of toxic mold was first documented in 1986....that was the year I was born.....I cant tell you how many times I looked at my phone charging and it said 86% and I say it was a great year and plug it out. Im simply saying I WAS BORN FOR THIS. Im not going to shy down, cower away. Im going to be heard. Please help me spread my word. Thank you
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 15:30:05 +0000
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