Mold Lawsuit Questions and
Answers about
Landlord Liability for Mold Problems
Environmental Law
Q. Are you
aware of any state or environmental laws that require office buildings to
be mold free? We have recently moved back into our downtown office after
the tornadoes that came thru Jackson, TN. last month.
A. There
are no federal or state environmental laws that require an office
building, home, or any other building to be mold-free. Landlords do often
have a state law legal obligation to provide habitable housing to their
tenants. Your attorney can probably make a similar argument as to office
buildings, that the landlord owes an obligation to provide
safe environmentally-safe office space to tenants. The
U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency and most state EPA agencies consider serious mold
infestation in the work place to be an EPA health and safety violation by
an employer.
Mold Sampling
Q. My family
and I have been renting a 3 bedroom town home apartment for about 5 months
now When we first moved in, I noticed that there was a foul, moldy odor
under the kitchen cabinets, primarily where the sink is. Sometimes the
smell is so strong, that you can smell it upon entering the kitchen or dining
room area. The landlord and I looked at it upon moving in, and she did
say that the pipes had been leaking previously, and that she had someone
to look at it before to fix the problem. We noticed that the pipes
underneath still leaked. When I looked closely under the cabinets, I saw
patches of black spots closely together, that looked like mold. We
contacted the landlord again several months later, and she sent someone
out. He then replaced a rubber ring under the sink, however said that he
could do nothing about the mold, except to put lime on it? I have
become so annoyed with the smell and the problem, that I don't even want
to go into my kitchen anymore. I have just started looking up information
on black mold on the internet, and I am alarmed by what I am finding out!
I did not know that this could be potentially dangerous to my family and
I. My question is, does the mold that I have described to you sound like
toxic black mold, and if so, what should we do about this problem, and our
landlords non-caring attitude about it?
A.
Take a sample of the visible mold using the Scotch tape lift tape
sampling technique explained on
Mold Mart
and send it to our mold laboratory for mold analysis and mold
identification. You are very wise to be concerned about possible health
damage to your family. Slow, continual leaks like under your kitchen seek
are perfect conditions to grow the most dangerous of all molds---Stachybotrys
which can destroy the brains of your family members. Even if the mold is
not Stachy, any mold in elevated levels indoors can cause health problems
according the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Most landlords will
not voluntarily spend the funds required for effective mold inspection,
mold testing, and mold remediation. After you get back mold test results
that document the mold health problem your family is facing in the
apartment, you may have to hire an environmental attorney to persuade your
landlord to carry out the landlord obligation to provide habitable housing
for tenants. Visit:
Mold Lawyer. Make sure your landlord does the mold
removal properly and safely by learning all of the steps required for
effective mold remediation at:
Mold Removal. If you cannot get your
landlord to take care of the problem properly, you may need to move as
soon as possible to a mold safe place for your family.
Mold Contamination in Apartment, Bathroom, Carpet, and Kitchen
Q.
In our building in West Hollywood, we all have mold in our
apartments (bathroom, carpet, kitchen, etc...). I have been living there
for 4 years and I keep cleaning but 3 days later it comes back. I didn't
know anything about mold toxicity until my neighbor gave me some lecture.
I just noticed that we all have (my daughter , my boyfriend and I) the
symptoms associated with mold contamination. My daughter is always sick.
She coughs a lot, she gets ear infection, congested nose, nausea,
headaches etc... My boyfriend is getting more and more asthma attacks and
besides all the above symptoms myself I have my eyes always watery and a
blurred vision. I am getting worried and even if I clean which takes me
approximately 5 hours of strenuous work, it keeps coming back. I keep
calling the maintenance because the wall of the bathroom keeps crumbling
because of a leak and every time, they just plaster the wall. One week
later, the water stain reappears on the wall and slowly starts to crumble.
Lately, we have an unbearable smell coming from the patio I think it is a
broken pipe. I would like to know if the landlord is responsible for the
decontamination of his building because I heard it was expensive.
A. Under most
states' laws, residential landlords owe a duty to their tenants to provide
habitable housing. Living in mold infestation is certainly not living in
habitable housing. You can call your local city building inspector and ask
him or her to check out your apartment for building code violations like
mold infestation. You can also hire a mold lawyer to demand of your
landlord immediate professional and safe mold remediation. Visit:
Mold Lawyer.
You can also do your own mold testing to document the existence of a mold
contamination problem to help either the building inspector or your lawyer
to take action against the landlord. Visit:
Mold Mart. Because most landlords will not
honor their duty to provide habitable housing when there is mold present
in the apartment, your safest course of action to protect your family's
health is to move out immediately to a mold safe place to live while the
building inspector and/or lawyer go after the landlord. If the apartment
is mold remediated, you would have to move anyway because you cannot
safely be in the apartment while the mold is being removed. To learn what
is required in effective mold remediation, please visit:
Mold Removal.
For further information on mold lawsuit
claims, mold litigation, and mold legal form
notices to landlords about mold problems, email mold expert Phil for free
answer moldconsultant@yahoo.com.
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