Our unit Townhouse, tested positive high than the two other units did collectively.  I didn't know what black mold was until heard it from the two residents who unit tested positive for black mold and others.  Mgmt., denied ever having mold or water intrusion, even though our unit leaked in water from the time we moved in to the time we moved out.  When I went to tape my friend’s inspection with the landlords mold inspector, all she did was take air samples. Ok, it was Nov 29th, cold as hell outside although the sun was shining and moisture was little to none, but yet down in the resident basement black mold laden insulation...but hey, did she bother to get a tape lift of that moldy looking insulation?  Heck no!  That moisture sample crap has its flaws and can’t be reliable as they can be manipulated and in the end the residence will still be living in mold and getting sicker and sicker until they die… truly testing for moisture is not the all in all in detecting for mold, whether or not a home actually has mold or not, because her test came back negative for mold.  It’s a joke that people are losing their health and their lives for the almighty buck.  You put down the Home Mold Test Kit, yet in order for mold to grow they have to have 3 elements, continued water source, material in which to feed, and darkness.  These moldy units provide mold the medium in which to grow and fester but one testing their home with Mold Test Kit is downplayed because the Petri-dish has a medium in which the mold grows, so what is the difference?  There isn't any and turnabout is fair play.

Anyways, on the day of my friends inspection my breathing got really bad, I had been diagnosed as having lung disease, asthma, lupus SLE, chronic fatigue (worse than ever) increased memory loss...I couldn't finish the recording so I had to leave my $650.00 camcorder in the hands of a stranger...now you know I was ill to do that.  I couldn't breathe and shouldn't have been down there in her basement with that entire black mold.  I immediately got triggers when I went down into my friends basement...burning sensation around my mouth, in my chest and lungs, intense itching in two triggers on my back area directly under my shoulder blades.  I never was bothered with my back itching until I was exposed to black mold.  I didn't even know what black mold was and I didn't know what it looked like, because if I did then I'd knew not to sit our telephone in the mist of it on the wooden lip where the phone jack was under our basement stairs.  We spent countless hours in our basement play on our gaming system, exercising, eating, looking at videos, and of course washing in that hot basement where our windows was sealed shut.  Other tenant’s windows would be open but our sealed shut.  Anyways, I had to leave my friend’s house and went outside so after while I tipped on over to the other friends house whose was due to be inspected next.  This friends unit (townhouse) had black mold under the carpet in her master bedroom whereby her bathroom pipes was in her closet and that black mold even severely stained the floor underneath the carpet.  I felt even worse over there so I left all together and went to my unit.  I took me an eternity to get my leg in the car because it was that painfully swollen and I couldn't breathe, I felt like I was dying on the spot.  My children were due to be home from school soon so I waited for them to come home.  I couldn't walk or breathe so I took my inhalers and nebulizer and tried to make it to my doctor visit the next day. My sons behavior was out of control at this point, he does have ADD but this person that I had been living with over the past six months was not my child.  I had went grocery shopping prior to my friends inspection and the groceries were still in the archway because I was too darn tired to put them up and son was acting like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide. I had to go downstairs to the basement and put the groceries away, but I had great difficulties walking back up from the basement, but my daughter help me up to the first floor.  My son gave me leg rub because my right leg was hurting oh so very much, I was moved to tears. I decided to drive to the emergency room and went upstairs to the get my clothes and wash up, but I literally was too tired and was not able to walk the rest of the way upstairs.  My children were upset because most likely they'd miss school the next day if I went to the E.R...I then decided I'd wait unit tomorrow to go to my doctor visit.  The next thing I heard was the Father as clear as if my natural Daddy was standing right there beside me saying, "If you do not get your black azz to the emergency room you will be dead tomorrow."  I told my children to pack it up because I'm going to the emergency room.

The E.R. doctor told me had I not came in when I did; I would have been dead tomorrow. I had three massive blood clots one in my right leg and one each in each lung. I was in the hospital for nearly two weeks, I developed high blood pressure, and a rapid heartbeat as a result of my blood clots and I am still on warfarin to day.  My blood clots and DVT can't be detected today and I have no damage to any of my arteries and veins.  Blood clots are very, very painful and I will never forget that pain as long as I live.

Residence no 2 - not section 8 just a regular apartment.  I asked if they had problems with mold, water intrusion and or bug and the staff denied all of these things.  After being there approximately 3 months my daughter rashes and painful blister had eased up a great deal and her dandruff subsided, and eventually she had very little headaches, fatigue (except when play her instrument) but her memory still affected.  My son's erratic behavior was a thing of the past, no outbursts, no hostile tendencies, no yelling and mom and putting his hands on mom, I was thankful to have my son back.  He still experience memory loss, fatigue and asthma (but only use inhaler rarely) except for marching band and playing his instrument.  He couldn't reach the high notes on his trombone which in the lower lobes is where he had to get his air from, but now he is able to accomplish that.  He memory is still affected at this point, but we are all adjusting.  I was able to remember one or two things short terms and I felt pretty good and satisfied in our unit except for the dirty vents in our furnace utility room...I bought two Ionic Breezer Air Purifier and relied on that to do the job and keep our lungs healthy.  I wore my braces for two days after we moved to our new apartment (we lost 99%) of our personal belongings and were sleeping on the floor because we had no furniture.  We had to replace everything.  Because I was so short of breath and I had volunteered to chaperone my daughter’s trip my doctor recommend that I be put on travel oxygen to ensure that I have what I need to breathe and maintain healthy tissue.  After wearing my braces for my wrist the last time, my wrists hurt so bad, it was excruciating and that was the last time I ever had to wear them again. I was carpel tunnel free and was loving it.  I actually threw them in the trash, that’s how good my wrists felt.  I didn't have the usual symptoms mold triggers so I was convinced that all was good.  I went to my Occupational and Environmental Physician and my PFT was not looking good.  He asked me if I thought we had mold and I said, no.  We are not having any symptoms or triggers, and that was that.  My next PFT was great and my doctor said if the next one is good then I can come off my oxygen.  I went from travel oxygen, to home concentrator with oxygen during exercise then to oxygen24/7.  I still hadn’t taken a mold test, I guest i was in denial and I wasn’t looking for mold either. Approximately in February 2010, I began getting fatigued, my mouth began to burn, my chest and lungs, difficulties breathing with my oxygen, restarted using nebulizer, memory loss greater, getting loss, running red lights, nearly hitting cars in the rear, time and space began to blur, running up on curbs, confusion....at this time my oxygen supply company changed me oxygen system and refused to fulfill my whole prescription for my oxygen which my doctor had just increased it from 8 hours during the day to over 15+ a day and I was already using the home concentrator at night.  I was and still am ambulatory not letting my setbacks get me down.  My children are in the marching band and I had to get to the football games, but was running out of oxygen on the outside, so my doctor increased my oxygen.  I complained about not getting all of my oxygen and I noticed that my memory and odd peculiar things about me was happening but I couldn't figure what was going on with me, I was changing subtly and that I had developed problems spelling words that I used every day, liked unusual, or convenience...words like these, having difficulties solving word puzzles, playing scrabble and forgetting how to spell words longer and or not over five letters, I couldn't remember directions and forgetting my sisters address (we are over their often and more often now that my Mother has past) 1/2009, getting lost going to familiar places, feeling odd and alone.  This oxygen supply company gave me and my doctor hell.  I tried to be seen at the VA because I am a Veteran, but unfortunately I am NSC and they were giving me hell about my eligibility...needless to say that service went downhill.  I switched to another oxygen supplier and they were worse than the other one, they claimed they fill my doctor prescription but only provided me with 3 3 hour tanks and my script was for 15+ hours of oxygen a day...that was 6 hours less oxygen, so I had to start compensating for my oxygen to last me all of the hours I was outside of my apartment. It was difficult and I was getting sick and lightheaded because I had to compensate all the way down from 2.5 liters to 1.0 liters especially if I was at the football games...I like too whoop it up and show my team spirit.  I learned at my doctor off visit in March that he never authorized alert medical to change out my system.  They changed my system to the Home Fill System from the standard tanks.  The misrepresented themselves stating that my doctor approved the change when in fact he had not and if I hadn’t mentioned it to him he'd not known the differ.  Anyways, my PFT was off the hook and I was looking forward to being oxygen free.  I went back to my doctor visit in May, and low and behold my PFT was terrible...he urged me to get a mold test.  I really didn't want to, because it was going to be hell if we had mold. I had not too long sign my lease and if we had mold, all heck was going to break loose, but the symptoms do not lie.  I could feel the burn and my back started itching profusely.  I had to have my children scratch my back in the grocery stores or wherever we were. I had to buy me a back scratcher and carry it around with me because my children was tired of the stares from people when they had to scratch my back...I started gouging my back and my back of my had begun to itch and my skin crawly, chest pain.  The fatigue was overbearing at times...I finally too the darned test and low and behold we had high levels of mold TNTC.  Two red fuzzy circles were growing on our living room wall on the wall that connected to our next door neighbor.  the corner near the patio had a water stain that maintenance painted over, our bathroom ceiling began drooping, yet they claim no water damage...when i took management a copy of our mold report upper management came out to inspect my unit the following week and with their HVAC person looked into our furnace utility closet, she exclaimed. OH MY GOD!!!" she went on to express who much mold was in our furnace closet and how mold is just everywhere.  The person with her was trying to get her to not say it was mold, but she kept on saying it was because she knows how mold looks.  She saw the two red fuzzy circles growing on the living room wall and filthy vents in the kitchen and bathroom.  She said they'd be out wed Sept 9th to clean out our closet.  No soon they left I left and went down to Lowes and got me all the mold test kits I could.  I took sample after sample after sample. I got me a flash light and oh my god, I couldn't believe my eyes, all three vents were totally caked with mold and dust and debris...cobwebs could be seen growing and crawling everywhere.  It brought tears to my eyes.  I couldn't figure it out at first how the vents went considering they weren’t attached to the furnace ((if I could I love to show you those photos and the photos of the unit we currently live in, but that’s in the next story)).  I was dumbfounded and flabbergasted...those liars...I could’ve choked them myself just kidding...These vents obviously had not been cleaned in years.  In September 2009 I got double pneumonia and almost died.  our fans cooled our apartment because the our apt had these great big half-moon windows over the patio and sunlight stayed in our unit well after 2:30 -3:00p and our air conditioning would be on all day and night and it was still smoldering in there.  Rainwater would flood into our unit soaking into our carpets (carpet in living room tested positive for Aspergillus).  After maintenance came in a cleaned up the mess, they had the audacity to write me a letter on 9/22 stating that their maintenance employee saw no matter of mold and or water leaks and some crap about my not being happy with my unit would be let out of my lease early...you think.  I wrote them a letter for them to remediate our belongings that I had just purchased during Christmas 2010.  Fortunately for me i hired a FHA home inspector who is certified in mold testing and our unit showed normal mold levels...but how much mold is too much Mycotoxins for people who are all allergic to mold and these Mycotoxins are in all of our bodies?  No wonder i caught double pneumonia...it was truly by God’s grace and mercy that I am here today.  my memory gotten so bad that i can’t even remember what my children wear to school...i can’t remember my license plate, i forget my own address and phone number, i am irritated and curse like a sailor even though this is not my demeanor.  i still get short of breath, started getting headaches again.  Eye hand coordination is way off, i have grave difficulties understanding what i read, can’t even follow instructions to put a simple toy together.  My doctor diagnosed me with the early onset of dementia 2/2010 secondary to depression...my depression has been therapeutic for years i got a second opinion.

i have hypersensitivity pneumonitis secondary to bird dander exposure (first residence) birds living in vents...dander flying about freely in our unit))  my had would shake so bad, I couldn’t no longer draw.

In second unit, tenant downstairs below me, water leaking into his master closet from our washing machine. He had birds living in his dryer vent that was actively nesting, but he had to go through my dryer vent from my apartment to get to his dryer vent.  Birds had left, so he removed the nest from both our dryer vents but didn't bother to sanitize it....bird poop and pee can be deadly to humans...duh.  Anyways, i was nosey so i went to the tenant apt under us to find out what exactly was going on because we couldn't use our washer and we had to go to another building to be our clothes.  I learned from this tenant that his condo has a severe case of Stachybotrys and this fool is going back and forth bringing his molded furniture and clothes and stuff like that to his apartment where we live...what is this man thinking...he isn't.  his son told him on his last trek to their condo that his around his mouth was burning really bad and that his chest hurt and he couldn't breathe....more importantly than that, maintenance is trampling though his unit and then coming up into our unit bringing with me black mold and god knows what else into our air environment and i was outdone.  Oh yeah and these people had an infestation of silverfish...i was totally upset.

Where we are living now...i asked the same question that I asked the other bozo's do you have problems with mold, water damage, infestations she said no. i show my children our unit and we all moved in, but not before we eradicated that mold from the belongings we brought to our new unit.  Right from the start we had problems…our refrigerator was leaking from the inside and water running under fridge and we had a leak under our kitchen off and on for over 3.5 months.  Then I had to call the fire department to make these people clean our dry vents because we could smell something burning when we dried our clothes.  Our hot water kept running cold so finally these people tell me that we don’t have a furnace but a Hydro-Heating Unit, where the hot water circulate through the coils and the mist heats our unit.  When I initially typed in what is a hydro-heater, Legionnaire’s Disease pop up and this disease can be deadly.  I had been having chest pains, shortness of breath and other symptoms that felt like I was having a heart attack and had to go to the emergency room.  The boobs when they came to replace our hot water tank evidentially didn’t remove all of the hot water because when we came home later that evening and I looked in the utility closet only to find the hot water tank leaking and the concrete floor wet.  One could see the water damaged wall where it look the scalding hot water gushed out sear the paint right off the bottom portion of the wall and on the little door that house our bathroom pipes.  I could see what looked like black mold and yes I got samples and plenty of photos of their deceit.  I phoned maintenance later this evening and reported the water leak of the tank.  Maintenance come out and stated he saw no active water leak and no water residue and low and behold he even painted over the wet baseboard and floor…these people are inept to the third degree and they are causing people to lose their health and even their lives.  Anyway, maintenance left the hydro-heater jarred open and one could look straight up into the hydro heater.  I could see caked up mold and debris hanging out of the side of the hydro-heater….when our stove was leaking gas…maintenance and the office rep came down and they claimed the looked into our utility closet and saw no mold.  They also claimed they never got a mold report in the first place so why are they looking in our utility closet for mold. I did notice though that the caked up mold is no longer hanging from the hydro-heater, but that’s ok, I got plenty of photos and samples for later use.  While I was lying on the floor taking samples the God of Israel told me to look up and I couldn’t believe what I had thought I’d seen.

Peep this…..when I zoomed in on my video camera, I was truly dumbfounded and lost for words.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing…you have got to see these photos….there is visual water damage to the dry board at the ceiling and right by the hydro-heater there is about an ¼” opening immediately adjacent to the hydro-heater and mold can literally be seen crawling down on the underside of the ceiling from above the ceiling.  I don’t know if this is the attic or the outside, but it’s no wonder why our unit have Mycotoxins TNTC in Aspergillus.  My face is burning as we speak.  I brought me some N95 disposable mask and donned my gloves and got busy taking samples; gather in evidence for future use.  I know we have to move, and this is our third time…I feel defeated and depressed.  These people have stolen my ability to trust any landlord ever again.  I am seeking to buy us a new condo and yes I know mold is everywhere, but any fool should know that it takes more than changing a furnace filter to make everything alright.  I told that lady, well considering you are not a mold professional you don’t know what mold looks like and like I said prior to our actually physically living here when we moved signed our lease end of September…we were still remediating our belongings at our other residence (Apartment) and I took a mold test that tested positive for 2 raw counts Aspergillus, and 1 raw count Chadesporum and management offered no manner of assistance to my family and me, now those spores have escalated out of control.  My face is constantly burning and my throat and chest is on fire.  My right eye has been twitching for the past three weeks and its driving me bonkers.  I have made over a hundred errors just trying to type this small book, loll.  My life is out of control and I have no control over it.  I feel dumber than my 4 year old great nephew.  I have never had problems walking down the stairs now, I fear walking down the stares at the mall and at other places like in Lansing at the State Capitol Bldg., I get fearful of going down the escalator at the mall and even had great anxiety just crossing over between the two glass areas at the mall on the upper level.  I literally couldn’t do it.  I let my children go off and shop by themselves while I made purchases for their Christmas and when I went to pass through the middle to get to the other side I thought I was going to pass out right then and there…I was actually scared to cross over…why is this happening to me?  In my mind I feel like a child, and I can’t seem to make the best decisions for my children.  My children blame me for picking the places that we have lived and have exposed their bodies to Mycotoxins for the past 5.2 years and they let their frustrations be known.  I didn’t bring about the mold in these units and I took these people at their word and this has been a terrible mistake.  I guess we all are at level three in this current exposure because we all feel defeated and are coming to the conclusion why should we move? Every last one of our units had/has high levels of mold…we can’t escape it so why move...mold will probably be there too.  I hate all of this…we have all lost so much that money can’t buy or replace.  What can I do when the official is our crummy state doesn’t care enough to protect the people whom they claim they serve?  How hard is it to stop a water leak?  How hard is it to hire a company to come out and do whatever it is that the person isn’t educated to do?  When the one Caucasian maintenance man claimed to have over 12 years of experience when he was trying to convince me that he knew what he was talking about when our hot water kept running cold.  I am no dummy and I do have common sense, yet the loser came out to our unit to fix the leak under our washer in our little laundry closet only to fix the hose and leave all of that stagnated water under the washer.  He have the unit pulled out yet he leaves all that water with green slimy gobs of what look like black mold under the washer…now this doesn’t sound like an experience maintenance man with 12 years of experience.  I am becoming tired again, just to take a shower, our dining room table sits in front of our heater utility closet.  I opened the vent to the furnace because the vent itself is bowed and the Mycotoxins comes right out from the sides of the filter and comes through the filter as well and you can see mold and debris gathered on the vent in front of the filter…what good is it doing us?  Not one thing.  I brought a Hepa Air Purifier that I paid a little over $350.00 for and it kills 99.99% mold and allergens…when I went to clean the filter it was caked up with the mold from the hydro-heater utility closet.  I had to clean the filter, but now it is all messed up, thankfully I got the Ionic Breezer too, and I paid the same for this air purifier.  Now I got to go buy a heap filter for the Honeywell Air Purifier that costs nearly a $100.00.  I can see mold trapped in the front of the air purifier grill sort of speak and mold can be seen on the internal filter that began to come through the filter that is removable.

My family and I need a new home if we want to live and as I write this letter my face is burning like it just got burned by fire.  My dehumidifier is caked with mold and debris that I just stop running it.  I don’t even see how I would be able to ride the blades of the mold inside without damaging the unit itself.  The mold was so heavy at our second residence that it burned out my laptop and now I am seeing the same thing here...oh before I forget when the two maintenance men came out to replace our old water tank, they wet the carpet from the dining room to the front door, and we can see an orange type streak in our carpet.  I had just recently shampooed our carpet and now these buffoons have made it worse for wear.  Our complex has nearly 200 units and they only have three maintenance men that are all half stepping and it’s costing us our health.  I went to ears nose and throat and there is a lot of mucus in my throat from my lungs.  A church member and friend of mine just very recently died of emphysema due to black mold exposure…I don’t want to die like that or anytime soon…you all are probably well to do, so could you show my family and me some love and buy us the 3 bedroom condo we want?   Well I got a heck of a headache coming up, got to go. 

I have been typing this information out for the past three hours…I make so many errors when I type now, I don’t even like to type anymore. I use be quite electronic savvy, but now I can’t even remember how to hook up our WII system from one week to the other.   I am scared of a lot of things and have my health to worry about and now my children hold me responsible for their health being damaged too…its all too darn much!!  I just want it all to be over once and for all, and I truly believe that new house from the ground up is what we need, the problem is, if we didn’t have section 8 housing we’d be living on the streets and that’s pretty much where we stand now.  The other units that are subsidized look a great deal like our first residence (town houses) and they just look like mold is growing in them…I am not looking forward to moving to another rental, I have no more trust is landlords.   Can you help me sell my art so that I can buy us a house or if you can help us please do, because if I don’t get up from under this mold…I will die.  My left lung has increased in inflammation and although I can’t blame the mold for causing the inflammation by itself, I definitely think that if I’d never been exposed to that first exposure my lungs would not have the problem that it has today.  My right lung healed itself, but my left lung is getting worse. 

Thanks