Question: Apartment Mold and Illness/Landlord issues

[Guest guest]

Hi! I just have a few questions. This past weekend I was cleaning

out my apartment that I have movied out of four months ago (but was

still paying for) and decided to check under the bed before I left

for good to see if there were any socks or stuff and as I pulled the

bed away from the wall I discovered that the entire back corner where

my bed had rested was COVERED in mold. It was on the walls and fuzzy

and growing from the carpet etc. I called my landlord immediately

and told him that there was mold there and he gave me a huge talk

about how it's an organic issue that it's not my fault that I won't

be charged for anything etc ect...then I remembered how I had been

sick for literally the entire time that I was living in the

apartment. I had a cough that wouldn't go away, and I figured it was

just me sharing illness with my roomates because it was winter. I

had also had an ear infection that resulted in a ruptured eardrum and

my doctor kept prescribing stronger and stronger antibiotics but it

wouldn't go away. I finally moved to Chicago and literally within

two weeks of moving I was much better. My ear infection healed and

my cough was gone. When I mentioned this to my landlord he

immediately turned nasty telling me that it was because I always had

clothes lying around my room and that if I was going to make up

imaginary illnesses hewould see me in court. He went on to say that

ear infections have nothing to do with mold and that we live and

breathe it every day so mold wouldn't make us sick. I asked him to

come in and look at the mold that day please even though it was a

saturday and he refused to saying that because it was a weekend he

didn't come in on weekends. I reminded him that because I was only

in town for the weekend I wouldn't be here when he DID come inspect

it. He wouldn't come in.

I then called one of my roomates and I told her that there might be

some trouble because (that's our landlord) was blaming me for

the mold and he wanted to evict us. That's when she said, no there's

mold behind MY bed too! That's when I wondered if maybe was

wrong about there being mold because I had clothes lying around (I

mean who DOESNT have clothes lying around, and plus they were never

dirty clothes and they a) were never wet and were nowehre near the

back of my bed) la (my roomate) had also been sick all year

long with the same cough (which was why we thought we were just

sharing a cold). I decided to cal the nurse practitioner at the

nearby hospital and I told her what was going on. She told me that

a) I needed to get as far away from the mold as possible I might

have a mold infection? and c) that one could live in the messiest

dirties house and not have mold. It has to do with the construction

of the building mostly and water.

So then la called and told him that she had mold behind

her bed too and he told her that it was because we all lived like

pigs and that there wasn't enough air back there and that we didn't

vaccum enough behind the beds. la was the cleanest out of all

of the roomates and she never had dust in her room either. She

menitoned being sick also and he told her basically that she was

making it up and would see her in court too.

Finally we called Carl (our third roomate) and he went and checked

behind HIS bed and it was the worst of all of them. The mold span

was about 6 feet wide and three feet tall. It was growing up from

his carpet on the wall and past the mattress. Carl had ALSO been sick

all year with ''la and MAria's cold''. Carl called and

basically said ' the girls aren't overreacting there IS mold and

it needs to be taken care of'

came in the next morning while I was gone and sprayed the walls

so you couldn't see the mold anymore. He told them that they

wouldn't have to pay for the replacement of the carpets. la

and Carl were like ok fine and forgave everything. But here's where

my questions come in:

I want to file a small claim against my landlord because I have a

horrible allergy to mold ever since I was young and I had to go to

the doctor probably 6 times from september to December because I

thought I had a cold that wouldn't go away, not counting doctors

visits for the ear infection and antibiotics prescriptions. I had to

pay for each of these and la and Carl don't because they were

students and got to go to the doctor through the university. I know

that the mold contributed if not initiated my illness this past year

and I was wondering what I should do? My roomates told me basically

that there weren't going into the doctor to get checked for any sort

of mold infection because they didn't really care because ''i

mean...we can't see the mold anymore''. And because I've been out of

the apartment for 4 months I'm not really sick anymore. I'm

SERIOUSLY hoping someone has some advice for me because I'm stuck.