Is Your Apartment Killing You?

Why Should I Be Worried?
Introduction

Timeline

Discovery

From Bad, to Worse

Why Should I Be worried?

Can Mold Cause Cancer?

Summary

FAQ

Appendices

The Owner of an apartment complex will usually hire a professional management company to run the apartment. There are two main reasons for this. First, if you are wealthy enough to own an apartment complex, you probably do not want to deal with running toilets and leaking sinks. Second, professional management companies typically do a better job for less money. I have lived at several apartments and I much preferred the professionally managed apartments.

Let's assume that you are managing an apartment. Your primary goal is to perform the required maintenance and upkeep for the minimum amount of money (maximizing profits) while keeping the tenants happy enough to stay. Now, lets say that you are faced with a backed up sewer line. Problems with the sewer are normally excluded from insurance, so you are going to have to pay for the cleanup.

Choice A
A proper cleanup by a certified industrial hygienist involving (but not limited to) water source evaluation, water removal, inspection of structure and HVAC, checking for moisture in walls, floors, etc, and monitoring for health risks. This can costs thousands of dollars. If a problem is found, cleanup can cost thousands more. In addition, the tenant will likely be very alarmed and might move out.

Choice B
Clean up quickly in a manner that looks clean and does not alarm the tenant. Ignore all heath recommendations and hope nobody gets sick. The cost will probably be less than a couple hundred dollars.

While making your decision, consider some details from my story:
  1. Mold growth from improper cleanup of water damage is often out of sight. Mold can grow inside walls, under carpeting, under flooring, etc. A tenant is not likely to realize that there is a problem.
  2. It took 23 months for me to show any noticeable symptoms and as a graduate student, I was home more often than a typical tenant. Most tenants stay less than 2 years and individual susceptibility varies. It is likely that the tenant will move out before they get sick.
  3. The initial symptoms were mild and easily mistaken for allergy symptoms. Antihistamines seemed to help. How many people who move to a different area experience allergies? You go to the doctor and he gives you an allergy medication that makes you feel better. How many people will suspect that their apartment is the cause?
  4. Even if the symptoms become severe, it is very difficult to find the source. I am a PhD student, my father teaches medical school, and my brother is an MD/PhD. It took us years to figure out what was making me sick. If I had moved out after 3 years, I would have never figured it out.
  5. If you do manage to figure it out, there is nothing that you can do. My mom called everyone in North Carolina from the attorney general on down. The only agency that has jurisdiction is the Minimum Housing Authority (who's major enforcement is keeping the heat on in the winter). When told of my situation, they replied that, if I was still living there, they could make Drucker and Falk clean it up. My mom replied, "It's a little late for that." Minimum housing replied that what Drucker and Faulk had done was perfectly legal [in North Carolina].
  6. By the time you find out, it may be too late. By the time I figured out what was making me sick, there was already a tumor growing in my shoulder.
What about lawsuits? Isn't that what the legal system is for? In North Carolina, in the eyes of the law, raw sewage is considered perfectly healthy unless you prove otherwise. If your apartment was storing TCE (a known carcinogen) in your closet and you got cancer, the burden of proof would be on you to prove that TCE is bad and the TCE in your apartment is what caused your cancer. (Fortunately, the EPA has a different opinion). The only way that I would have a chance of suing Drucker and Falk would be if I had taken samples at the time the sewer backed up and waited around to get sick.

If a basement apartment were to flood with 2 feet of raw sewage, in North Carolina, there is nothing to prevent the apartment from sweeping it up, and moving people back in. There is no requirement to disclose the details of the cleanup, or even disclose that the sewer backup ever happened. In fact, my experience would suggest that maintenance records can be woefully incomplete. Out of 6 sewer backups, only two were listed in my maintenance record. One of the lawyers who looked at my case suggested that this might be intentional.

Now remember, you're the apartment manager, and you have to choose: Choice A for thousands, or Choice B for a couple hundred. Saving thousands of dollars with no risk... Decisions, Decisions... ...

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