My black mold story begins in dublin mid 2011. My partner & i shared a house which was split into four flats.
Myself & partner had a ground floor flat,a female above us had two kids she also had a very heavy alcohol prob,as she lay in a drunken stupper her kids ran wild jumping off kitchen work tops,her kids would constantly come down to my door & ask us strangers for food or blankets. Many a time her two kids would flood her bathroom until water started flowing down over the light fittings of my bedroom,this carry on went on for months until i found out i was pregnant.
I was 13 weeks gone when i pulled the wardrobe away from the wall only to find a huge mass of black mold. 8 weeks before finding this filth i had been so run down not able hold anything down never mind eat,i had major shivers sweats i could not lay down flat as it felt like i was drowning,the amount of mucus i was coughing up out of my lungs was disgusting my eyes nasal cavity & throat felt like they were burning my face had a blotchy rash around my nose & brows. Yes i did drag myself to my doctor & said all symptoms i had,he informs me my lungs sound crackily,i also tell him i have a feeling am pregnant,he do on the spot test,am right,he gives antibiotics.
Back home i call the landlords agent,a mr stephen mooney to tell him of the black mold in my bedroom adding am pregnant also adding the chaos leading up to the black mold being in my bedroom & how it occurred.
I was told it would be fixed asap. The female & her kids were put out,five weeks three days is when builders came to work on this black mold saying it would only take a few wks so they said,this work went on for the rest of my pregnancy,every day at 7:30am to 6pm hammering drilling sanding fitting fire alarms smoke detectors & heat censors, it felt like we were living on a building site. I wasn’t going to ask my partners family for help,his parents like to drink,get roudy & i didnt want any part of that,i couldn’t ask mine,they in uk.
I had to be admitted to the coombe maybe 5 or 6 months into pregnancy,i was told i’d contracted double pneumonia,i was so scared & worried for my baby,my options for suitable accom were at worst limited, option 1; my flat (the frying pan) option 2; his parents (the fire). If i had been made aware of womans aid then i would have jumped at the chance,i was in the coombe 5 days on a nebulizer every 4 hours & other meds,may 2012 i had a tiny girl.
I never fully recovered from my illness & in 2013 i contracted the illness again & in november of 2014 i contracted it yet again from a dodgy landlord that only loved to ‘count the money’. I made him aware of my health due to black mold growing in both bedrooms,only on external walls above both windows spreading down the walls,looked like a penatrating damp problem coming in via faulty repair work or roof probs of a 2bed house in Strokestown.
In 2014 this illness almost killed me & in a dispute with a money hungry landlord that house sits between two derilict houses that nature has reclaimed.
Now where i am,shared accom, am here from august 2015 & i know by now the distinct stink of damp & black mold,the second week of my being in new place i smell damp & tell landlord,am shouted at (there is no damp) this landlord scares me,its now october 2015 & i can taste it in the back of my throat yet again, but this time i take photos with my phone & show him black mold photos adding i had pneumonia alot due to these spores & last time it near killed me,again i’m met with anger & denial. Aaaaaahhhhhhh!
Please advize me,please don’t point me in the direction of citizens info, been there done that.
Questions:
Why in shared accom are we not covered by the same legislation as private tendency legislation.
why does it seem that in shared accom the landlord can wrecklessly endanged the health & well being of the tennant,are we paying them to quietly kill us off,we work,we pay taxes,why are we maginalized.