Affordable Housing Institute : US

When mold first appeared as a new risk a decade ago, I was a skeptic. 

 

And grumpy too

 

I’d seen the questionable science of ‘connective tissue disease,’ and radon before that, and the grand-daddy of them all, the asbestos-remediation hysteria.  (Yes, asbestosis is a hideous disease, caused by the buildup of insoluble asbestos in the lungs, and yes, if you work at Johns Manville for twenty years assembling friable asbestos insulation, you can die of it, but no, if you’re working in a normal office building with vinyl asbestos tile or an asbestos popcorn or insulation ceiling, your odds of expiring are really low.) 

 

I had to be convinced that mold was real.

 

Over the ensuing decade, I became convinced it is real.  Mold affects maybe 5% of the population, but for some of those affected, it can be a hell.  For when I noticed a Washington Post story on one family’s struggles with in-home mold, I was prepared to be convinced either way.

 

A blogger’s representative audience: impatient and bored

 

In the interest of opening with a grabber, the Post’s article jumbles time; in the interests of providing education, and placing readers in the blogospheric jury box, I’ve unjumbled it.

 

For those of you who can’t make head or tail of it

 

There are eight scenes and a moral.

 

1. In 2005, the family bought a house

 

Wendy Meng said their new home sat on the premier lot in the neighborhood, on half an acre, with a pretty pond behind it. She and her husband loved the wrought iron staircase, Brazilian cherry flooring, high ceilings and three fireplaces.

 

“We were so excited. This was my dream house,” she said. “I used to come down in the morning and pinch myself. It was so beautiful.”

 

From the Washington Post:

Paul and Wendy Meng, at their mold-filled home in Chantilly. Family members have suffered migraines, nosebleeds and other problems.

 

Before moving into their new 5,900-square-foot house in the Tall Cedar Estates subdivision in November 2005, the Mengs said, they asked the Drees company to fix a few problems, including leaky windows in the basement.

 

Such minor touchups – punch-list items, they’re usually called – are a common enough feature of brand-new homes in new subdivisions.  Smell details are overlooked.  Some screws are left untightened.  Soil conditions may differ slightly from what was expected.  Houses settle. 

 

2. The family got sick

 

We think of the home as a haven, so it’s more than unsettling to discover that the house is insidiously attacking.

 

Honey, maybe we should just rent before buying?

 

The migraines began three months after Wendy Meng moved into her new Loudoun County house.

 

Unlike the case I posted about in the problem with owning, where the ‘latent’ defects arrived seven years after the families bought their houses (at bargain-basement prices, too), these arrived quickly – and had severe effects.

 

They lasted for hours, forcing her to sleep in her closet because she was so sensitive to light.

 

I’m also wary of psychosomatic effects, but again, these effects are serious.

 

Then her heart rate started spiking.

 

Mold affects roughly 5% of the population, but for those severely affected, it can be a hell.

 

Before long, her 8-year-old daughter, Emma, started having headaches, feeling dizzy and suffering nosebleeds. Wendy’s husband, Paul, a runner on the track team in college, was short of breath after climbing the stairs. A raft of tests by doctors came back negative. The Mengs were chronically ill, and they had no idea why.

 

Terrifying.

 

But over the next year, they noticed a pattern: The more they were out of the house, the better they felt. After doing some detective work, they discovered that the source of their pain was the place they called home.

 

Everybody may now chant, correlation is not causation. 

 

“Correlation is not causation Correlation is not causation Correlation is not causation …”

 

In February 2006, the migraines began. “We were very scared. I was in bed 95% of the time,” said Wendy Meng, 37. “All we ever wanted was to be able to have a home.”

 

Adding to mold’s insidiousness is its imperceptibility.  You don’t see it, you don’t feel it, you don’t smell it.  You just get sicker and sicker of it.

 

On March 30, 2006, she went to see her family doctor in Herndon, who noticed one of her pupils was dilated. The doctor called an ambulance, and she was rushed to a hospital and given a CAT scan, she said. She was given heavy painkillers, referred to a neurologist and released, she said.

She was readmitted to the hospital for four days in April with a racing pulse and high blood pressure. She was referred to a cardiologist, and another battery of tests was inconclusive, she said.

 

The Mengs are experienced the kind of terror routinely suffered by urban dwellers In the nineteenth century, who would come down with typhoid, cholera, or diphtheria without knowing whence came the disease or how to stop it.

 

Infectious diseases have long been mysterious

 

Because mold sickness is a byproduct only of a highly technological (hence affluent environment), its epidemiology is still being discovered. 

 

The pattern of tests, referrals and failed treatments would continue over the next year, Wendy Meng said. She was hospitalized seven times and experienced memory loss, heart palpitations and difficulty breathing, all without knowing why, she said. Meanwhile, the rest of her family was getting sick, too. Emma, now 11, had her nose cauterized with acid three times to prevent the bleeding, Wendy Meng said.

 

Good gracious.  Imagine your fear.

 

Paul Meng, 48, and daughter Kaleigh, 12, developed asthma.

 

(Asthma is another urban-society whose epidemiology is mysterious.)

 

During trips to the emergency room, Wendy noticed that her pain would often subside. Just a few hours out of the house was often all it took, she said.

 

In the mid-nineteenth century, the miasmatic theory of disease transmission was all the rage (and to be fair, lots of diseases are airborne).  Ironic that now, ‘miasma’ is as good a name as any for living in a moldy house.

 

Cholera as a miasma sweeping over the battlefield

 

“My husband could see it on my face,” she said. “He could physically see the pain leave.”

 

3. The house had nasty mold

 

In January 2007, the company had the basement windows repaired, and Paul Meng bought a home testing kit for mold and radon, on a hunch that air quality might be a factor, the Mengs said.

 

He sent the samples to a lab, which reported finding “unusual mold conditions.” The couple then hired professionals to repeat the tests, with the same results. Drees was informed, and in February 2007, the company hired a contractor to do an inspection. The inspection turned up mold, and the contractor made recommendations for removing it.

 

The next month, the Mengs received a letter from Drees saying the company was not responsible for carrying out the recommendations, according to court papers filed by the Mengs.

 

Not my fault!

 

In researching this post, I found that the Mengs have now created a Web site, www.donttrustdrees.com. 

 

A Drees executive told Paul Meng that the illness was “all in your wife’s head,” Paul Meng said.

 

Ack!  Recall this is the plaintiff talking, but even so – ack!

 

The Mengs have posted a two-page pathology report of Wendy Meng’s condition.  

 

Shoddy construction and unmended leaks had let moisture in, allowing toxin-producing mold to grow and spread through the three-story house, the Mengs said.

 

The Mengs in front of their house

 

[Continued tomorrow in Part 2.]

 

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