Going With Your Gut

This whole mold situation at the old apartment never set well with me. Yes, we had mold in our original building. The moved into building one in the middle of 2017. Things seemed fine when we moved in, but realistically, thats when all the silent issues began to happen. Roughly 3 months into our lease, I was sitting at my desk one night when water started to pour out of our air vent that sat about 5ft from my computer desk. I opened up the utility closet where the water heater and HVAC is placed and noticed a TON of water coming down out of the upstairs unit. I called the emergency number for maintenance after-hours, and ran upstairs and knocked on my neighbors door.

They opened the door, and she immediately let me come in. No more I put one step into their apartment, I was walking on water (literally). They had a considerable amount of water all over their hardwood floor. I turned the corner, and the bottom of their hot water heater had cracked, and leaked the entire contents of the water heater all over. I found the source of the water at least. I shut off the water to their hot water heater so it would stop pouring out. Little did I know at the time, that’s what was going to kick off this whole fucking nightmare.

Maintenance came, but I had already done what they would have done. The neighbors apartment was ruined. Water was everywhere. I didn’t pick up on how lazy the maintenance was until all they did was soak up the water. Yup. Thats it. I stayed in contact with the couple that lived upstairs, and they said that they didn’t do anything outside just replacing the water heater. In our unit, our ceiling was soaked. Water was dripping out of the air vent for a solid week. We had to move my desk out of the way so that no water would damage my computer.

Shortly after, the couple moved out. Their lease wasn’t up, they just left. Which is what we should have done the minute that shit happened. But work was too busy, and I was too focused on that. In 2018, thats when the strange symptoms really started to take off. The rashes. The strange acne getting worse. The same symptoms I’ve had this entire fucking time. Again, though, at the time, we thought it was a food allergy of some sort.

About 2 months after they moved out, a new asshole appeared. I remember the day they moved in. License plates were from Florida. GREAT I said to myself. As I was leaving to go to work for the day, I was walking down the stairs, and his wife at the time said “Just gonna be up front and tell you we are really loud”. I laughed thinking it was just some stupid fucking joke. It wasn’t.

The next 3 months were hell. The symptoms were getting worse, the beginnings of my septic episodes started to happen. The allergic reactions to the point of needing Epinephrine / Prednisone / Benedryl to stop the reactions. I was in the ER literally every other fucking day. Then that’s when the wife and I started to notice more water damage happening from upstairs. It was carelessness, not accidental. Water started to come down the wall in the kitchen, and in the bathroom.

They were overflowing their kitchen sink. I fucking swear these people were fucking retarded, and they were. We called the property several times to let them know that there was water damage coming from upstairs, but they didn’t seem to interested. You could literally hear it coming down the inside of the wall. In the bathroom, their “kid” would take showers without drawing the shower curtain closed, overflowing the toilet several times. I mean you name it, it happened. These neighbors were pure fucking hell. This wasn’t even the worst of it. She wasn’t kidding that they were loud. Every day/night they would be up until 2-3am partying like fucking crazy. This couple mind you, were about in their 50’s.

2019 was when my sinus surgery happened. I was sleeping on the couch to recover, but of course, I couldn’t sleep. Because these fucking idiots kept partying. But thats when the real illnesses started. The rashes became more severe. My asthma came back. I felt so worn down, and tired. The acne was getting worse. At this point we started calling the office telling them of the constant water damage we were getting, and they finally came out. Their repairs weren’t repairs. Just stopping the leaks. No replacing drywall. No anything.

Anies was cleaning out from under the kitchen sink one day, and she found this:

I emailed the property immediately. Told them I was severely allergic to mold. Fuck I wish at this time I would have swab tested this. It’s definitely black mold. But again, here’s stupid me thinking that the property would be doing whats right for the resident. They didn’t cut anything out. Just put killz paint over it. At this point, the upstairs neighbor separated from his wife. The past 4 months were hell. Hearing them yell at each other, hearing them get into physical altercations. I called the cops on them several times.

It was at this point, I started telling Anies we need to move. The property was doing absolutely nothing to fix the neighbor issue, the water damage issues, I should have just went with my gut, and found a new place to live. There was only 1 problem, COVID. When all this was going on, this was when COVID was at it’s highest peak. I never left the house. Seriously, I never left. Anies did all the shopping. I stayed home to reduce the exposure risk of me being out and about. Our lease wasn’t up for another 5 months, so we just had to “deal” with it.

The final straw was Christmas day 2020. I was sitting at my computer, and noticed my bikes seat smoking. I ripped open our patio door, and there was a cigarette cherry sitting on my seat fucking smoldering. I fucking screamed “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK”. I ran inside, and grabbed a bottle of water and doused my seat. But the damage was already done. The upstairs neighbor was pathetically trying to apologize but I had had enough of this fuckers bullshit. Just because your life sucks, doesn’t mean you get to make it suck for everyone around you… especially on Christmas Day. He tried apologizing, but I was so fucking done with his bullshit. About an hour after, he put a note on our door trying to apologize, but I was still too fucking angry.

In his note he went on to talk about how he was going through divorce (not surprised), so instead, I invited him down for coffee. Just to let him talk. Maybe I’ll give him a chance. Maybe he will change.

Nope.

Over the span of the next 3 months, the water damage continued. My illnesses were getting worse, he was partying non-stop at this point, music blaring till 4am. I started to contact the office regarding his bullshit. He kept saying how he was leaving soon and that we wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore, but he never left. Things kept escalating. I was calling the security folks almost nightly. He was smoking weed (not like I care) in his apartment, but it started to come down into our apartment. Our air purifier would constantly be red. I complained several times to the property manager several times, but they did nothing.

Finally I just texted him straight up if he could just please turn the music down. His reply was so fucking hilarious. “You’re making my life miserable man, blah blah blah.” Listen fuckstick, you’re the one being the asshole.

It was at this point I was so fucking sick, and COVID was still happening, I should have just went with my gut and got us out of there.

When early spring came, we bought a yellow jeep. Finally. We can get out into the mountains. The mold damage over the years started to finally appear in the bathroom. The shower tiles were starting to rot. My rashes and allergic reactions were getting worse. I was just fucking miserable at this point.

We contacted the leasing office yet again to fix the mold damage to the bathroom. The bullshit with the upstairs neighbor was non-stop. So I told the leasing office to move us. At this point, I should have just gotten us outta there. The office was useless. Maintenance was useless. Again, I should have went with my gut, and found us somewhere else to live.

But with COVID still happening, I am at the point of can’t do much because of the clots in my lungs, being constantly sick, the property moved us to a different building. Which is the nightmare apartment we just left. No more than we got there, my illnesses got worse, kidney stones became constant.

I don’t know why we stayed at that shithole for as long as we did. I was too sick to think straight. I was just in survival mode.

I’m really glad I had Envirospec come back out and re-rest. Mold levels are still pretty high. I showed the report to Dr Sarid, and he told me that all the molds listed I am reactive to on a class 3-4 level. Which means I would still have nonstop issues if we would have “believed” the bullshit mold report the property did. Safe to return my ass. The difference between the two reports is pretty astounding. So I think I’m pretty much caught the property lying. Envirospec as report shows where the unit was placed with pictures and everything. I spend 2 minutes in that place and I become extremely miserable.

Thankfully we just have a few light things to move, and we are out of there. We will be turning in the keys, mail keys, garage remote, and the community fob in an envelope.

I’ve been instructed to tell any of their staff should they start asking questions, that my attorney will be reaching out to them tomorrow.

As 5:30p came, I went to the old apartment, to collect everything and put in an envelope. We then turned in everything to the leasing office.

No more than that happened, our attorney sent the letter to the property.

Done & Done. Let the real fight begin. I’m just glad we are 100% out of danger.