In
1993, Lauren Martin was doing well, with a terrific,
rent-stabilized apartment on Manhattan's fashionable Upper
West Side, a boyfriend, a dog and her own psychotherapy
practice. But things changed. Nine years later, she found
herself sick, alone and virtually homeless, a victim of toxic
mold.
The problems started shortly after she moved into the
20-unit, turn-of-the-20th-century building. First came the
migraine headaches, then the sinus and respiratory problems,
nausea, constipation and severe joint pain. Doctors didn't
know what was going on. By the time Martin fled the
leak-plagued building last summer, she had been diagnosed with
mold-related immunologic problems, impaired thyroid and
adrenal function, chronic fatigue and memory impairment.
"I'm feeling like a refugee," Martin said in her downtown
office, where she slept three nights a week for eight months
until she found an affordable, mold-free apartment. The other
four nights, she spent with friends.
"The biggest tragedy for me is to be this bright, competent
professional just trying to establish my practice, to be sick
and feel stuck."
Since 1999, when USA WEEKEND Magazine first published the
story of a mold-stricken family in Dripping Springs, Texas,
reports of mold-related illnesses and insurance claims have
skyrocketed from California and Texas to Louisiana and New
York. Families have abandoned mold-plagued houses. Affected
schools have closed and relocated children. Insurance
companies hit with mounting claims for moldy homes have raised
premiums and, in some regions, stopped selling homeowner
policies altogether.
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The next mold front
It seemed only a matter of
time before yet another mold front surfaced: the nation's
apartment buildings. What is surprising, however, is the
apparent scope of the problem -- and the uniquely intractable
challenges faced by those who live in contaminated buildings.
Tenants often find themselves pitted against landlords who are
unable or unwilling to take on the trouble and expense of mold
removal.
Toxic mold has been found in buildings old and new, from
Sacramento to New York. No one knows exactly how many, but
experts say the problem is nationwide, affecting everything
from the most exclusive new apartments and condominiums in
Washington, D.C., to old, neglected tenements in Harlem. An
article posted on the Web site of the National Multi Housing
Council, an association of real estate owners and developers,
some of whom face millions in remediation costs and lawsuits,
calls mold "the next environmental quagmire facing commercial
property owners."
Among the affected: the upscale new Residences at
the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Washington, where basketball star
Michael Jordan owns an apartment and where, it's been
reported, men in moon suits soon will tear out walls in
one-third of the 162 units to clean up dangerous mold caused
by leaky plumbing; and downtown Manhattan's Henry Phipps Plaza
South, whose owners were sued by hundreds of tenants reporting
a variety of illnesses (among them was a family that blames
mold for the death of a 7-year-old daughter).
A common part of nature, molds become a problem when they
start growing indoors because of water leaks or condensation.
Occasional growth of common molds, like Cladosporium and
Alternaria, rarely poses a significant health threat. But when
a leak goes untended and timbers or wallboards become
saturated, it doesn't take long -- a few weeks, perhaps -- for
mold to grow and fill the air with spores.
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Toxic mold exposure symptoms
Molds have been
linked to several illnesses. They are primary suspects in
the tripling asthma rate over the past 20 years. In 1994,
researchers at Harvard University's School of Public Health
studied 10,000 homes across the United States and Canada. Half
had "water damage, mold and mildew associated with a 50% to
100% increase in respiratory symptoms," Harvard researcher
John Spengler told USA WEEKEND. Recent studies suggest the
same problems exist in apartment buildings. A 1999 Mayo Clinic
study pegged nearly all of the chronic sinus infections
afflicting 37 million Americans to molds.
When toxic molds such as Stachybotrys, Aspergillus
versicolor and some species of Penicillium are involved, it's
another matter entirely. These molds -- which grow in damp,
dark places and often are hidden behind walls, under floors
and above ceilings -- produce dangerous airborne "mycotoxins."
Many doctors believe they cause a raft of serious ills,
including flulike symptoms, chronic fatigue, memory
impairment, dizziness, and bleeding in the nose and lungs,
while others say the science isn't there yet to make that
claim.
In Benson, Ariz., Michael Gray is a lone voice against
state health officials. "We are just seeing the tip of the
iceberg," says Gray, a doctor who is medical director of the
Progressive Healthcare Group and a former state medical
directions commissioner. According to Gray, mold attacks
several main body systems, acting like a double-edged sword to
the immune system, which becomes excessively activated in
response to invading spores, while mycotoxins cause immune
suppression, making the body vulnerable to infection. Mold
spores lodge deep in the lungs, resulting in airway
obstruction and infection, Gray says, while mycotoxins attack
the brain, causing memory loss, seizures, movement disorders
and other cognitive deficits.
One of Gray's patients is 28-year-old Kari Kilian, who says
she was exposed to high levels of toxic mold in her Scottsdale
apartment for five months between 1999 and 2000. She says the
smell at the GlenEagles Apartments was there from the day she
moved in to the day she moved out. The building has since
undergone extensive mold repairs and has been sold, says
current building representative Melanie Graham, who adds,
"There is currently no mold problem at GlenEagles, to the best
of my knowledge."
Today, Kilian, a former Miss Wisconsin American Coed, has
been diagnosed with mold-related "mycotoxicosis" and lives in
a motel on disability. She takes medication to suppress
recurring seizures and suffers from a movement disorder.
"I have episodes where my face starts twitching, and I have
uncontrolled upper-body movements," she says. "I always had a
very active lifestyle. This is not the place I had ever
envisioned my life as being."
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Widespread: NYC to Calif.
In New York City's
Spanish Harlem, a group of nuns has taken on the mold fight.
The Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Service
works with landlords -- or, if necessary, testifies against
them in court -- to clean up moldy tenements where the asthma
rate is double the norm, according to epidemiologic reports
provided by one of the nuns, Susanne Lachapelle.
More affluent tenants are hiring lawyers who specialize in
mold-related suits. Thirteen families in the prestigious,
838-unit Pavilion apartments on Manhattan's Upper East Side
are suing Glenwood Management Co., claiming health-related
illnesses. At Henry Phipps Plaza South, a toxic mold lawsuit
lodged by 400 residents was settled for a reported $1.2
million, and the landlord has agreed to spend $25 million more
to rid the building of mold. Lauren Martin, the therapist who
slept in her office, is suing her former landlord, Pablo
Llorente, who is under a court order to clean up the toxic
molds in his two buildings on West 80th Street.
Across the country, at the Fairway Apartments in Citrus
Heights, Calif., outside Sacramento, legal battles over mold
have been raging for years. Among those suing: former
California health insurance executive Sylvia Lobland, who
blames her health problems on mold at the upscale golf
community, where she lived for a year. Lobland, who now lives
elsewhere and is on disability, recalls waking up in the night
feeling "like somebody was sitting on my chest." Often she
would sleep for days, she says.
Newer buildings, whose elaborate heating, ventilation and
air conditioning systems are prone to leaks, are not immune.
"Some of the most famous buildings in New York have serious
mold problems," says Bill Sothern, an industrial hygienist at
Microecologies, an environmental investigation and cleanup
company. Sothern has worked on more than 1,000 high-rise
apartments. In half, he says, the health complaints have been
due to mold. "Any building that has sustained water problems
that haven't been promptly addressed will have serious mold
problems."
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Why don't people just move out?
Some who can
afford to, do. A 10-year resident of Martin's former building,
anesthesiologist Steven Stein, and his wife, Laura, a nurse,
left last September, when high levels of Stachybotrys were
discovered behind the walls in the bedroom and bathroom,
industrial hygiene reports show. Their rent went from $1,800
to $4,000, but for them it was a no-brainer: At the time,
Laura was eight months pregnant.
"We knew about pulmonary hemorrhaging in infants with this
mold, and there was no way we could live in that apartment
with our new baby," says Steven Stein, 35, who developed a
thyroid disorder usually found in genetically predisposed
women while he was living in the building. He has no history
of the disease in his family.
Deborah and Brian Chenensky know they should leave their
$1,600-a-month, two-bedroom Pavilion apartment in New York,
where they have lived for 15 years. But anything comparable in
the neighborhood would cost $5,000. "Their whole life is built
around this neighborhood," says their attorney, Steven
Goldman. "Their friends are here, their son's school -- it's
all here." In a written statement, Charles Dorego, vice
president and general counsel for the Pavilion's landlord,
Glenwood Management, said that the mold has all been removed
and that the building "has, and always will, respond
immediately to remedy problems of this kind."
Still, says Deborah Chenensky, "I'm scared." She suffers
from chronic headaches and sinusitis, diminished lung
capacity, fatigue and memory problems. Her husband, Brian, has
similar symptoms and was recently diagnosed with asthma at 45.
Son Dean, 7, also has been diagnosed with diminished lung
capacity and allergic rhinitis from mold exposure. Deborah
would like to move to Florida. "I know we should leave," she
says, her voice raspy and breaking. "I say to Brian, 'Please,
let's go tomorrow. It's in my chest. I can feel it, burning.
We should just get out.' "
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