INVASION OF TOXIC FUNGUS

[Guest guest]

INVASION OF TOXIC FUNGUS

By DENISE BUFFA

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FUROR: Fonseca shows the inhaler prescription for her asthma,

which she says was caused by mold in her home.

Photo: Farrington

New York Post Sun, 16 Oct 2005 11:19 PM PDT

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/55544.htm

October 17, 2005 -- Fonseca shows the inhaler prescription for

her asthma, which she says was caused by mold in her home.

Fonseca is living a sci-fi thriller in her Bronx apartment,

where mold keeps coming back no matter how often she washes it away.

" This is a disaster, " Fonseca said. " Fungus all over. "

" It's like a fungus you can't kill, " said her Manhattan lawyer,

Lesch.

Fonseca, 55, blames the mold in her Townsend Avenue apartment's

master bedroom, master bathroom and guest bath for the chronic

asthma and dermatitis she's suffering. And she blames her landlord

for the mold, which thrives on moisture, in a lawsuit recently filed

in Bronx Supreme Court.

She says she now relies on a respirator and inhaler.

''I'm always short of breath. It gets to me, " she said.

And she says she has to down teaspoon after teaspoon of a syrup

called hydroxyzine to stop the itching on her back and neck.

" I'm always scratching. I can't help it. I put lotion. I put

alcohol. I can't help it. Mentally, it's getting to my head, "

Fonseca said. " It's not a normal itching . . . I want to rip my skin

off. "

In February, Fonseca's landlord tore down walls in the master

bedroom and tiles in the guest bath, revealing colonies of mold,

said Fonseca, who showed pictures of the work.

Landlord Selechnik promised to pay his tenant another visit.

" Sometimes they don't open the windows and let the walls breathe, "

he said. " Let me see what she needs, and we'll comply. "

A Manhattan mold assessor, whom Lesch hired, found the molds in

Fonseca's apartment have contaminated the air, making it hazardous

to human health.

The expert, ce Molloy, identified one of the molds as

Stachybotrys, which could be toxic.

" It is an opportunistic pathogen that is highly allergic, " Molloy

wrote in a report on Fonseca's home. " Some specialists consider the

presence of any amount of Stachybotrys to be hazardous. "