Vidaurri Toxic Mold Recovery Fund

In March of 2015 our family of four discovered that we have been living in a highly toxic rental ... filled with toxic mold.

‪The awful thing about mold is that most people don’t even know that it’s in their home. Many times it’s not even visible. For the most part, this was the case for my family. 

There are a lot of details to our story - you can read the longer version here . In short, our family is losing everything we own because toxic mold spores cannot be cleaned off of anything that is porous. Our health has also suffered because of the mycotoxins that we have been exposed to for 3 years. 

Sadly, my oldest daughter and I have lived in two other rentals with toxic mold in our past. Because of this, we are more sensitive to mold exposure. 

This time around I had suspicions because I had been through this before. I noticed mold was growing at a rapid rate in the bathroom. This is not normal. Then recently we found copious amounts of mold growing in our downstairs closet that we never use. Everything we had stored in there was covered in mold. 

My family also started experiencing a lot of health issues that we did not have before moving into this rental. These health issues started to progressively get worse over the years.

We decided to order an ERMI mold test kit and sure enough, my intutition had been right and the test results were not good. We have extremely high levels of certain strains of mold present in our rental home. 

Here’s where the “toxic” comes into play. The term “toxic mold” can be somewhat misleading because most people assume that toxic mold is only about “black mold” also known as Stachybotrys {which is beyond awful on it’s own – my first experience with mold was with Stachybotrys}. The term TOXIC actually refers to MYCOTOXINS. Mycotoxins are dangeours airborne toxins that destroy one’s health. The sad part about mycotoxins is they are microscopic and you can’t see them … so most people don’t even know they are breathing them in until they are already very sick.

All of my family's unexplained health issues now make sense since we have been breathing in these toxic mycotoxins for 3 years. 

We were advised to move as soon as possible and leave everything behind. 

My family has no financial assistence to help us rebuild our life back. Insurance does not cover mold damage {like it would for a fire}. There are no public assistance programs that help you rebuild. We don’t have anything to fall back on. And we know we will have medical bills in our near future as we heal from the mold damage that will be high {healing from mold exposure is not cheap}. 

Our biggest struggle right now is rebuilding a life back from nothing. My husband and I cook all of our food from scratch {for health reasons} and we won’t have anything to cook with or eat off of. We won’t have anything in our kitchen. We won’t have a table to sit at as a family and eat our meals. We won’t have beds to sleep in or linens for a bed. We won’t have books to read to our girls at bedtime. We won’t have towels, blankets or our seasonal clothing wardrobes. If you think about what you use every day … we will pretty much be without it all {except for our car keys and cell phones}. We won't have any basic household items or furniture, including having to restock our kitchen with food and pantry basics that we lost. 

It’s not easy to ask for help, but we are in need. Toxic mold is awful. It has affected us emotionally, physcially and has left us in financial need. 

We would be grateful if you could donate whatever you are able to, any donation will make a huge impact. My family would appreciate it more than you know. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you.