Tenants complain of mold growing in their apartments
At least five tenants at Emerald Bay Apartments hire an attorney to try to collect damages from the complex's insurer.
By KELLY VIRELLA
Published July 13, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG - In her family's 22 months at the Emerald Bay Apartments, Jana Hinojosa said, leaking water often soaked the carpet and her walls sometimes sprouted yellow, green, brown and black with what tests later showed was toxic mold.
Mrs. Hinojosa, 32, said she has developed asthma as a result and her husband, Don, and their three children have suffered diarrhea and nosebleeds.
"I could just get on a Greyhound and split," Mrs. Hinojosa said last week as they tried to arrange a return move to Fresno. "I want away from here, and California is as far away from here as I can be."
The family's lease ended June 30. But they don't have money to rent a moving truck, put a deposit on a new apartment or stay in a hotel. At the 302-unit complex on 38th Avenue S, they are just one of the families in that predicament.
Sylvia Kennedy is in her lease until November and has no money to move. Kennedy, whose apartment has a gaslike odor she believes is caused by mold, lives at her daughter's apartment, also in Emerald Bay, to avoid it.
Kennedy, the Hinojosas and four other Emerald Bay tenants complained to the St. Petersburg Times recently that Emerald Bay's property managers took weeks, sometimes months, to fix leaks from windows, doors and air conditioners. They think those leaks bred mold in their apartments.
Mary Tolbert, said their delays once turned her carpets into soggy breeding grounds for mold. "I called over and over, and when they finally came, they would suck the water up with a big blow dryer and leave a fan in the middle of the hallway and say, "Leave it on. Don't step on it and it'll get dry.' "
The tenants also said the property managers were slow to remove mold or had refused to do so. "They just come in here and paint over it," said tenant Antonio Weaver, 36.
Part of the problem is the complex has changed owners so many times, Weaver said. "That's sad that every time we report something, we pop up and get new owners and it's like we never reported anything," he said.
At least five Emerald Bay tenants, including the Hinojosas, have hired an attorney and are trying to collect damages from Emerald Bay's insurance company, Nationwide Insurance.
But Emerald Bay's current property manager, Tammy Walker, denies that there is any mold in the Hinojosas' apartment.
"We went ahead and cut out a portion of their wall, and there was some moisture back there," she said. "But there was absolutely no mold."
She said maintenance workers replaced a portion of their wall in May and cleaned part of the apartment's air conditioning system in June, as directed by an environmental inspector from the Pinellas County Health Department.
"We have done everything that has been demanded of us and gone beyond it," Walker said. "We even offered to relocate her to another apartment in the complex at no cost." The Hinojosas refused that offer.
The Hinojosas moved to St. Petersburg in September 2001 so that Don Hinojosa could take a job as night auditor at the Tradewinds Sirata Beach Resort. They drove from Fresno in a U-Haul, going directly to Emerald Bay, where their application for an apartment had already been approved.
They had selected the off-white, green-trimmed garden apartments from a brochure that marketed the fitness center, neat lawns, weeping willow and palm trees.
Within two weeks of their move-in date, the problems began, they say. Yellow and green spots began to appear on the wall near their air conditioning unit, Mrs. Hinojosa said. The drywall behind that wall crumbled, leaving a hole in the ceiling, she said.
Maintenance spackled and painted, Hinojosa said, but the mold returned when the first rain came, leaving puddles on their linoleum and soaking the carpet.
"When we got water coming into the windows, we were told, "When we have storms, these things happen,' " Hinojosa said. " "Welcome to Florida.' "
More patching and painting followed, the couple said, but Mrs. Hinojosa was already starting to get sick.
She provided the Times with records indicating that she visited a doctor in April and again in May. She said that in addition to asthma, she experienced chronic migraines, nosebleeds, diarrhea, nausea and symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome.
Dr. Albert Robbins, an environmental medicine specialist in Boca Raton, said those are symptoms that people who have been exposed to mold sometimes suffer. Others include asthma, bronchitis, chronic fatigue syndrome, headaches, short-term memory loss, dizziness, seizures and tremors.
"Say someone is in a moldy building. What will happen is they'll begin breathing in more mold, more dust mites and even bacteria," Robbins said. "If people are exposed constantly, they can become very sick."
Air Quality Environmental Inc., a St. Petersburg lab, performed two tests in June on samples of a wall that the Hinojosas brought in and found the toxic molds aspergillus and stachybotrys. The tests do not prove that the cavities of their walls are saturated with mold, because Air Quality Environmental reviewed only samples of the wall.
But there is enough mold in their apartment that Stan Stoudenmire, an environmental specialist with the county Health Department, recommended that their carpet be replaced. Stoudenmire visually inspected their apartment in May. He said that frequent mold flareups can't just be painted over.
"If you can smell it, that means it is actually growing," he said. "If it's inside the walls and its growing, there's not much you can do about it, except rip it out and replace the walls."
Kennedy and her daughter, Tara Stewart, have had Stoudenmire inspect their apartments and are awaiting results.
Mrs. Hinojosa said a lot of Emerald Bay's residents haven't sought testing because they didn't realize they had a mold problem until they saw her family's story on Bay News 9 on May 17. "A lot of people came up to me and said they also had nosebleeds, diarrhea and vomiting," she said. "They were like - is this what's causing me to be sick?"
Friday, as Mrs. Hinojosa carted boxes off to storage, they were still waiting to hear from Nationwide. She said the last time they talked to the insurance company representative, the representative had told them she wasn't sure if the policy even covers the various types of damages they want to claim.
Meanwhile, the family was selling furniture: a bed, their television, and their TV stand for $50. Don Hinojosa, the family's only source of income, said he takes home $18,000 a year on his job.
"It takes money to just up and move, you know," Mrs. Hinojosa said.
