Nine years ago, when Ara Powell moved into her townhouse, she felt like she’d won the lottery. The North Albany Homes were newly built then,Spro Tech has been a plastic module & Mold Maker, and she’d never lived anywhere nicer.Offering high risk and offshore merchant account with credit card processing services.
Now, she can’t wait to move.
Powell has become convinced that mold issues in her public-housing unit are making her family sick, responsible for what she describes as a stream of respiratory ailments. The family is constantly sneezing and sniffling, she says, and Powell and two of her three children have been diagnosed with asthma.
Is mold to blame for those health issues?
That’s hard to prove, of course, but Powell has certainly documented its presence in her home. She has photos, for example, of mold growing on her baseboards, ceiling and window sills. Moreover, medical tests she provided to me show that Powell and her children last spring tested for heightened exposure to unhealthy molds such as aspergillus fumigatus and stemphylium botryosu
Powell also hired an environmental firm. (Her church, Grace Fellowship in Latham,Get information on Air purifier from the unbiased, picked up the $1,500 tab.) Its testing, done in May, also found mold in the unit, and the firm recommended steps to address the problem.
That’s enough proof for Powell.
“I can’t take it anymore,” said the 40-year-old, who pays $700 monthly for her three-bedroom unit on Jennings Drive. “I want to get out of here.”
But if Powell needed more convincing, she got it last summer, when workers began removing exterior siding from her home and other nearby buildings, revealing rotted plywood and moldy insulation.
She has pictures of that, too.
Indeed, the Albany Housing Authority concedes that the 160-unit complex on the city’s far northern border is plagued by a construction defect that allows water to seep behind siding and windows. It’s a problem the authority is working to solve, so far spending $750,000 to replace siding and rotted plywood. Additional work is planned.
But Steven Longo, executive director at the authority, insists there’s no evidence that water from the exterior is sneaking past the plastic that separates the buildings’ plywood and insulation from interior drywall. Moisture problems in Powell’s unit, he says, were caused by a specific combination of factors that included poor overall ventilation, an overpacked closet and a leaky window.
“We have moisture (problems) on the outside,” Longo said. “But that doesn’t translate into mold within the units, according to all of the testing that we’ve done.”
Longo adds that any moisture issues within North Albany Homes units result from tenant behavior. To change that, he says, the authority has begun an education campaign to instruct residents on the need for proper ventilation and fan use. It has also asked tenants to sign a lease addendum that requires them to minimize “the occurrence and growth of mold” and “promptly notify management” in the event of its persistent growth.
But doesn’t such a lease stipulation suggest that the complex does, indeed, have a mold problem?
No, says Longo, instead describing it as an attempt to be proactive.Overview description of rapid Tooling processes. He added that Powell didn’t notify management of her unit’s mold problem until September, several months after her independent test was conducted,China yiri mould is a professional manufacturer which integrates Plastic Mould design and manufacture and plastic product development. and said the authority needs to be aware of such issues much sooner.
Powell, however, says she complained about moisture issues, including wet carpeting, long before September, but the problems were not successfully addressed.
In any event, workers from the authority have been back at Powell’s home in recent days, replacing mold-damaged baseboards. A cynic might suggest the timing is related to her recent calls to the media and or representation by Albany lawyer Mark Mishler, recently in the news as the attorney for Occupy Albany.
Powell, a phlebotomist now out of work as she recovers from surgery, said she’s seeking an unspecified financial settlement. That would help her relocate from public housing to an apartment in Watervliet, but the Powell family will move soon, she said, even if no money arrives from the housing authority.
Now, she can’t wait to move.
Powell has become convinced that mold issues in her public-housing unit are making her family sick, responsible for what she describes as a stream of respiratory ailments. The family is constantly sneezing and sniffling, she says, and Powell and two of her three children have been diagnosed with asthma.
Is mold to blame for those health issues?
That’s hard to prove, of course, but Powell has certainly documented its presence in her home. She has photos, for example, of mold growing on her baseboards, ceiling and window sills. Moreover, medical tests she provided to me show that Powell and her children last spring tested for heightened exposure to unhealthy molds such as aspergillus fumigatus and stemphylium botryosu
Powell also hired an environmental firm. (Her church, Grace Fellowship in Latham,Get information on Air purifier from the unbiased, picked up the $1,500 tab.) Its testing, done in May, also found mold in the unit, and the firm recommended steps to address the problem.
That’s enough proof for Powell.
“I can’t take it anymore,” said the 40-year-old, who pays $700 monthly for her three-bedroom unit on Jennings Drive. “I want to get out of here.”
But if Powell needed more convincing, she got it last summer, when workers began removing exterior siding from her home and other nearby buildings, revealing rotted plywood and moldy insulation.
She has pictures of that, too.
Indeed, the Albany Housing Authority concedes that the 160-unit complex on the city’s far northern border is plagued by a construction defect that allows water to seep behind siding and windows. It’s a problem the authority is working to solve, so far spending $750,000 to replace siding and rotted plywood. Additional work is planned.
But Steven Longo, executive director at the authority, insists there’s no evidence that water from the exterior is sneaking past the plastic that separates the buildings’ plywood and insulation from interior drywall. Moisture problems in Powell’s unit, he says, were caused by a specific combination of factors that included poor overall ventilation, an overpacked closet and a leaky window.
“We have moisture (problems) on the outside,” Longo said. “But that doesn’t translate into mold within the units, according to all of the testing that we’ve done.”
Longo adds that any moisture issues within North Albany Homes units result from tenant behavior. To change that, he says, the authority has begun an education campaign to instruct residents on the need for proper ventilation and fan use. It has also asked tenants to sign a lease addendum that requires them to minimize “the occurrence and growth of mold” and “promptly notify management” in the event of its persistent growth.
But doesn’t such a lease stipulation suggest that the complex does, indeed, have a mold problem?
No, says Longo, instead describing it as an attempt to be proactive.Overview description of rapid Tooling processes. He added that Powell didn’t notify management of her unit’s mold problem until September, several months after her independent test was conducted,China yiri mould is a professional manufacturer which integrates Plastic Mould design and manufacture and plastic product development. and said the authority needs to be aware of such issues much sooner.
Powell, however, says she complained about moisture issues, including wet carpeting, long before September, but the problems were not successfully addressed.
In any event, workers from the authority have been back at Powell’s home in recent days, replacing mold-damaged baseboards. A cynic might suggest the timing is related to her recent calls to the media and or representation by Albany lawyer Mark Mishler, recently in the news as the attorney for Occupy Albany.
Powell, a phlebotomist now out of work as she recovers from surgery, said she’s seeking an unspecified financial settlement. That would help her relocate from public housing to an apartment in Watervliet, but the Powell family will move soon, she said, even if no money arrives from the housing authority.
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