The 'slow fire' of toxic mold

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http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2003/09/16/jhnewmol.htm

September 16, 2003The 'slow fire' of toxic moldFamily's home life destroyed By HorriganTimes Herald-Recordjhorrigan@... New Paltz – The house at 166 Plains Road is no longer a home – it's a tomb. When Teri and Jeff Chandler bought the handsome '60s-era Cape Cod four years ago, they never dreamed they were embarking on a nightmare from which there's been no awakening. That was before a bloom of invisible toxins robbed them of the life they used to live. It began innocently enough two years ago, when the Chandlers hired a contractor to renovate their outdated bathroom. In the year following the renovation, their son , now 16, began getting massive headaches. His hands started to shake uncontrollably. He could no longer concentrate in school and his grades plummeted. He came down with a staph infection he couldn't shake. Doctors offered chilling diagnoses: Lyme disease. Mononucleosis. Multiple sclerosis. wasn't the only one being ravaged by health problems. Daughter Bianca, now 12, developed bloody pimples on her forehead. Teri developed food allergies and intestinal complications. Jeff was getting migraines that would last for days. The family was exhausted all the time. It was as if some kind of biblical scourge had descended on the family. A year after the renovation, Jeff discovered a water leak in a crawl space beneath the bathroom while he was installing insulation. Peering into the space, he could see water and mold. At first, the Chandlers thought they merely had a plumbing problem. But another contractor who inspected the bathroom in early February told them he believed they had a mold problem. They took his warning seriously and found to their dismay that others – many others – are faced with the same problem. A national phenomenon Legal and environmental experts have called toxic mold infestation the 21st century equivalent of asbestos in its potential for both litigation and health problems. Some environmental inspectors have estimated that at least 10 percent of houses in the United States have enough mold contamination to make their occupants sick. Whether various strains of mold actually cause illness is a hotly disputed question. The increase in litigation has been blamed on everything from increased attention in the news media to hysteria among its purported victims. The Chandlers' case appears to be the most extreme example of a private homeowner mold crisis in the mid-Hudson region. But it is by no means the only one, with schools in Sullivan, Orange and Ulster counties and even a parsonage in Middletown experiencing mold problems over the past 10 years. The potential for more toxic mold problems has been compounded by the summer's wet weather. Homeowners have flooded the Cornell ative Extension in Ulster County, for example, with questions about mold in the home. In general, mold is neither uncommon nor automatically a health hazard. It's a form of fungus that needs only moisture and organic nutrients – everything from paper to wood to even a fingerprint – to grow. Some cases have garnered big headlines. Celebrities such as Brockovich, Ted Nugent and Ed McMahon have seen their luxury homes turned into disaster areas. Some have fled, while others settled multimillion-dollar lawsuits. In New York state, spokesmen for professional and independent insurance agents said the impact on their industry has been much less than in places such as Texas, where one jury awarded a family $32 million for mold damage to their house. But, as the Chandlers discovered, if you suspect your home is infested by toxic mold, there aren't many people you can turn to for help – unless they hold a law degree. Nowhere to turn The Chandlers found out the hard way that mold can take more than your health – it can ruin you financially and psychologically as well. Their homeowners insurance didn't cover mold problems. The bathroom renovators agreed to repair the leak and paid for an inspection. But when the renovation company turned the matter over to its insurance carrier, the Chandlers said matters went from bad to worse – with delays, unreturned phone calls and broken promises. The Chandlers had their best luck with the Ulster County Health Department, which conducted a surface test of their home in February. That test showed the Chandler house had high concentrations of several types of mold, including aspergillus, penicillium and stachybotrys. The latter has been linked with illnesses ranging from allergies to pulmonary-bleeding fatalities in babies. Chip Schoonmaker, environmental health manager at the Ulster County Health Department, said the person who used to conduct samplings for country health departments in the region has retired and has not been replaced. The Chandlers were among the last to benefit from that service. Teri Chandler said she was told by the health department in late February to vacate the house "and not take anything with us." When they looked for help from state and federal agencies, the Chandlers said they were told repeatedly that since no bureaucratic "protocols" existed for handling toxic mold complaints in the upstate area, nothing could be done. With the bills piling up and their health getting worse, neighbors and friends took and Bianca into their homes in early March of this year. In late April, the family was able to move into a rented 30-foot recreational vehicle that the insurance company paid to put in their back yard. They've been living there since and, while the quarters are cramped, the symptoms the family had been experiencing improved markedly after they left the house. A month ago, in a move that the Chandlers say has been typical of their ordeal, the insurance company stopped paying for the RV. The family finds itself today facing health bills totaling $70,000. They still must pay a $1,500 monthly mortgage and tax bill for a home they can't live in. Jeff Chandler's business as a tanning bed installer has taken a beating – with lost time and attention due to sickness – from which it may not recover. "It's been like some kind of slow fire – our house might just as well have burned to the ground," Jeff Chandler says. The Chandlers have retained legal counsel but have not filed suit – yet. "We're hoping they [the insurance company] will do the right thing before that has to happen," Teri Chandler says. A longing for what's lost There's a ferocity in Teri's manner, a determination about her that sometimes melts into weariness. Their belongings – clothes, furniture, books, the children's baby pictures – have become hazardous materials. They've been bagged and piled in a black plastic heap on the back porch. Beside the back door, dangling from a nail, is a face-mask respirator that allows them to enter what once was their dream house. Teri no longer feels safe entering the house, with or without a mask. She yearns for it all to be over. She longs for a return to normalcy, though she knows so much of what had been her life can't be returned or regained. She stares at and motions toward the plastic bags on her porch. "That's our lives lying there, our history, all our memories," she says. "No one's ever going to be able to bring that back to us." A brief history of mold There's nothing new about mold. It's older than mankind itself. All it needs to breed are two things: moisture and organic nutrients – which can be the wall of a cave or the wallpaper of a mansion. Advice about how to deal with mold is as old as the Bible. Leviticus 14:33-45 says a house that can't otherwise be cleaned by the ministrations of a priest or by scraping the walls "must be torn down – its stones, timbers and all the plaster." Approaches to mold control haven't changed much since then, even though the Internet contains hundreds of thousands of references and Web sites aimed at providing such answers. A glance at those sites can be chilling. Worst-case scenarios rule. Mainstream scientific sites take a conservative view of the situation. The Centers for Disease Control, for example, notes that standards for "acceptable, tolerable or normal mold have not been established." This conservative approach may be safe, but it's not very helpful. The official CDC answer to when and whether a home should be vacated due to mold exposure is a decision to be made individually, in conjunction with a physician.