WSJ Stachybotrys Article

[Guest guest]

Here is the article that Dr. Lipsey referred to...

May 15, 2001

Page One Feature

Don't Call Stachybotris the Black Plague,

But the Fuzzy Fungus Is Plaguing the South

By KORTNEY STRINGER

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

ADDISON, Texas -- Last October, Koehlar noticed sores and

tiny red bumps on her legs and nose. Her dogs started having stomach

problems. Soon, her neighbors were throwing their own infected couches

and mattresses in Dumpsters.

In March, residents of her suburban apartment complex were told to

vacate, and workers in white jumpsuits began prowling around with

special

equipment looking for what caused the outbreak. Ms. Koehlar says

friends

and family began to avoid her.

" You're standing there dressed really nice, but people immediately

think

you have it on you, " says the former tenant of Saratoga Springs

Apartments. " They think you're contaminated. "

Because this has been a particularly rainy year, some Southern states

and

others around the country are experiencing a bad outbreak of black

mold.

Unfortunately, it spreads like crazy.

'Fuzzy Intruder'

Stachybotris chartarum, or stachy, as it is called for short, is

invading a

good many buildings and homes. The mold isn't new, nor is the problem;

but the recent outbreaks have people scared, and some of them have

gone

to extremes to deal with it. The fuzzy intruder lurks behind wallpaper

and

under sinks and feeds off moisture and building materials. Air-quality

experts and doctors link it to illnesses ranging from dry coughs and

runny

noses to oozing rashes and constant fatigue. Allergy medicine helps,

but for

long-term relief of symptoms, you have to get rid of the mold. And

despite

all the mold and mildew removers for sale in supermarkets, that is

easier

said than done.

Funguses, of which stachy (pronounced stocky) is but one, aren't all

bad.

Yeast is a fungus vital to bread and beer; mushrooms are funguses,

too.

Penicillin was derived from mold. Cheeses -- think of Roquefort --

depend

on molds. But molds cause rot, and when the rot is in your house and

on

your belongings and it is making you physically ill, that's a problem.

Small amounts of black mold can easily be gotten rid of, but truly

safe

removal requires that a contaminated area be contained, that mold be

cut

out and that leaks be fixed. Scrubbing can just release spores into

the air to

spread to furniture and clothing. Left untreated, black mold can

contaminate a whole house. Some victims have ended up spending

thousands of dollars gutting their apartments, throwing out treasures

and, in

at least one case, burning down their house, just to be free of the

pesky

fungus.

'Black Plague'

Stories of extreme measures have caused a measure of panic. " People

think just because they find a little black mold on the side of their

wall, they

now have to tear the whole house down, " says Mike Hubbard, director of

residential services for Assured Indoor Air Quality of Dallas, which

conducts indoor air tests for mold spores. " This scare is somewhat

ridiculous. I'm just waiting to hear someone call this thing the black

plague. "

Mold contamination and the rush to get rid of it are centuries old. As

the

Bible (Leviticus 14:45) says, if mold spreads throughout a house, " It

must

be torn down -- its stones, timbers and all the plaster -- and taken

out of

the town to an unclean place. "

Sheet rock and ceiling tile are culprits in this battle because they

contain

organic materials that, when wet, provide a constant food source for

mold.

Consequently, Guerra-Prats and Co., a Corpus Christi, Texas, company

that specializes in removing mold from homes, says its calls have

doubled

every month since March last year. Jeff Greene, a Manhattan Beach,

Calif.,

public insurance adjuster, said 95% of his clients in the past two

years have

had mold-related problems. And a Dallas couple who packed their bags

shortly after their apartment was hit by stachy now have a Web site

called

themoldsource.com (www.themoldsource.com) that chronicles the

struggle.

Brockovich Sequel

No one is safe, not even Brockovich, the environmental crusader

who

inspired the movie. Ms. Brockovich told a health and

human

services committee of the California senate last month that she

suffered a

number of ailments including rashes, headaches and sinus infections as

a

result of a mold invasion in her $1 million Agoura Hills, Calif.,

house.

Ms. Brockovich said she spent $250,000 on mold-related repairs -- and

still can't sell her 5,200-square-foot home. Because the law requires

her to

disclose the presence of mold in the house, nobody will buy it, she

believes.

The Saratoga Springs complex, where Ms. Koehlar first spotted mold as

black circles under a soap dish, sits on a winding road behind a

funeral

home just north of Dallas. The complex, owned by a unit of Connecticut

General Life Insurance Co., gave tenants the boot after high levels of

the

fuzzy mold were found in several units, including the apartment of

newlyweds ph and April Acker. The Ackers got their eviction notice

just before Thanksgiving when mold was found in their apartment. By

the

end of March, all tenants had been ordered out of the 264 units.

Connecticut General declined to comment.

The Ackers, who complained of persistent headaches and itchy eyes,

tossed out $20,000 in valuables, including wedding gifts and a TV set

with

a 53-inch screen. Among the few things they managed to keep are

wedding pictures, which they now look at through plastic sandwich

bags.

Portable Stigma

Steve and Ramsay began to look for a new home after they, too,

were told to leave the complex, they say. After paying a $40

application

fee and signing lease papers, they were all set to move into a new

apartment nearby, they won't say where, when the building's management

learned of their moldy past, which they had disclosed in their

application.

" They said they weren't sure whether they were accepting applications

from

us, " the former Saratoga tenants said. In the end, the two were

allowed to

move in.

But there isn't always a happy ending. Larry Lavine, a co-founder of

the

Chili's hamburger restaurants, and his wife, Kathi, sued a Dallas

homebuilder who lives about seven blocks away, alleging fraud and

shoddy

construction caused water damage and mold in their home. The suit

filed in

1999 in a state court in Dallas is still pending. An attorney for the

builder,

C. , declined to comment.

The Lavines took 3,500 pictures and shot more than 10 hours of

videotape

starring the black fuzzy mold seeping through yellow paint, growing in

cracks in their kitchen pantry and lining windows.

Money Down the Drain

Ms. Lavine said they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get rid

of

mold and to replace all their belongings -- and the mold still won't

budge.

She says she grieves about irreplaceable items -- the colorful

construction-paper booklet and letters covered with hearts and flowers

that

their teenage daughter had given them as a little girl. The Lavines

estimate

they spent about $10,000 just for visits to the veterinarian and a

doggy

dermatologist, who prescribed steroids and antihistamines for their

dogs'

swelling skin and ear and eye infections.

" It's really sad, but my life has been mold for the last two years, "

Ms.

Lavine says. " This thing has cost us so much and it seems to be a lost

cause. "

and Porath first spotted black splotches on wood panels

in

the kitchen and bathroom of their ranch-style house. Ignoring it, they

planned to expand the master bedroom and add a three-car garage to

their

Foresthill, Calif., home, which is located near a creek and a pine

forest.

But tests for mold came up positive, and the family soon began

experiencing joint and chest pains, stomachaches and rashes. Unable to

spend $75,000 to have the house professionally purged of mold, they

opted to ask volunteer firefighters to torch the house once they had

moved

into a manufactured home on the site.

On Valentine's Day, the couple stood on their freshly landscaped lawn

and

calmly watched as their mold-infested home and all their belongings

went

up in flames. " At that point, we were relieved to see it go, " Ms.

Porath

says. " I was like, 'Take that, house! You're not going to get away

with

what you did to us.' "

Write to Kortney Stringer at kortney.stringer@...