Is Your Apartment Killing You?

Summary of Timeline
Introduction

Timeline

Discovery

From Bad, to Worse

Why Should I Be worried?

Can Mold Cause Cancer?

Summary

FAQ

Appendices

Here are the bare details of my stay with Drucker and Falk. If you have time, I recommend reading the full story.

5-12-961st sewer backup.
9-962nd sewer backup (after hurricane Fran).
3-15-973rd sewer backup. 2" of raw sewage covers ground floor.
3-23-97Develop itch on my lower legs that spreads to the rest of my body.
?4-4-984th sewer backup.
4-13-98Go to doctor for swollen lymph nodes in my neck and chest. Biopsy for cancer is negative.
10-24-985th sewer backup.
11-10-98Go to doctor for severely swollen lymph node in groin.
7-11-996th sewer backup.
7-30-99Go to doctor with severely swollen lymph nodes in neck, shoulder, armpit, and groin.
7-08-00Change air filter and discover (the hard way) that raw sewage had contaminated the air ducts.

Following each sewer backup, Drucker and Falk hired Wall to Wall Carpet to shampoo the carpet and dry it with a large fan. Drucker and Falk refused to replace the carpet even after I complained. Each time, they told me that the problem in the apartment had been corrected. They promised to perform routine maintenance on the sewer every year, then every 6 months, then every 3 months, then every month. My symptoms started on 3-23-97 and progressively got worse. Since the delay between the sewer backup and the symptoms was a couple of weeks, I never connected the two. When I checked the airbox, I discovered that it had been filled with 2" of raw sewage. I had been breathing the dust from raw sewage for 4 years - no wonder I was sick.
  >>Discovery