Help Meg & Michael rebuild after losing almost everything

Living in New York City comes with its challenges, but Meg Masseron and Michael Dunlap always had their hearts set on living there, with so many dreams and goals that could only be pursued in the Big Apple. Meg has boldly and brilliantly built a career for herself in theatre journalism, where she strives to pour her heart into championing theatre artistry through her coverage of the industry, all the while bravely battling her own chronic health issues. Michael, an aspiring actor and playwright, has taken on jobs in ticketing to support himself as he works on his own larger goals, and you may have picked up a theatre ticket at the box office from him here or there. They both love living there and even more importantly, love contributing to the theatre community in every way they can. But that’s been hard for them throughout the past eight months of their lives, as they’ve endured unimaginable stress, loss, trauma, and devastation, and the time has come to ask for help. Really, it’s their last remaining option.

In the shortest version of the story possible: throughout the past year, Meg and Michael have found themselves in a never-ending nightmare with their housing and personal belongings/property, initially due to a fire in their apartment building, but largely due to negligence and mishandling from their building’s management in the months following, with (in their absence and prior to their knowledge that any of their property would even need to be moved out of the way) demolition workers carelessly damaging their furniture and tossing their belongings into trash bags full of loose kitchen knives, glass kitchenware that shattered, and pantry items like olive oil and honey that spilled over everything, even appliances like their toaster. And now, after eight months of being displaced from their home, alternating between sublets around the city and staying with family 7 hours away, they have lost just about everything they own due to damages from a rat infestation, as someone (it is unclear if it was someone hired by the building management team or the team themselves) entered their first floor apartment unit at some point while they were living hundreds of miles away and left a window wide open, removing the window screen, allowing entry of countless rats who have chewed on, urinated on, defecated on, and torn to shreds everything in the unit. When I say everything in the unit–please know this is not an exaggeration. Meg and Michael have since tried to pursue legal action, to no avail. They’ve notified their building management, who insist they are not responsible. And their renter’s insurance does not cover rodent infestations.

All funds will go towards re-furnishing their home, replacing their belongings, and hiring a professional cleaning team to properly and safely address the rat infestation.

For those who want the full details before committing to donating, here’s the whole story…but buckle up, because it’s lengthy.

On July 9th, 2024, just two months after Meg was laid off from her full-time job in theatre journalism, Meg and Michael’s apartment building suffered a fire on its upper floor. Due to the firefighter’s incredible efforts to wrangle the fire, which required around 40 minutes of hosing the flames—all of the water eventually made its way down the building and settled within the walls of Meg and Michael’s first floor unit, causing immediate water damage, and, in the weeks after as a record heat and humidity wave blazed on, immense mold growth.

After a few nights staying in a hotel while the smoke cleared out of their unit, Meg and Michael returned home. Later that week, the apartment was inspected by a team accompanied by a member of the building’s management, who informed Meg that demolition work would need to be done to remove the mold that had already grown inside the walls. When Meg inquired if this would impact their ability to stay in the unit, she was told they could absolutely stay there during the process, no issues at all. This turned out to be very untrue.

Soon enough, they felt sick from the mold growth and moisture in the air, with severe headaches and respiratory issues. Their building management would not provide a clear timeline on when the mold removal would be conducted. Not able to afford any more hotel nights, especially for an indefinite period, Meg and Michael decided the best thing to do would be to go stay with Michael’s mother in Pittsburgh 7 hours away, so they took an Amtrak out the next morning with just a few bags packed.

In their absence from the unit, the mold festered for several weeks during even more record heatwaves. (They later discovered that this caused some mold spores to settle within their fabric belongings, such as their couch and mattress.) The demolition work was completed sometime in late July, and soon after this, they received an email from building management insisting that they remove all their property from the unit, despite not putting their unit under a vacate order. During this time, they also insisted Meg and Michael must continue paying rent for the unit, and feeling coerced, they did. They let management know that they did not have the finances to hire a moving team to lift all the heavy furniture and move their belongings out, nor did they have the finances for a storage unit large enough to house their belongings, but they would travel 7 hours the next morning to grab a few things. Ultimately, they took the trip back to the city to salvage irreplaceable things (family heirlooms, framed printed articles from Meg’s career, theatre memorabilia, etc) from the unit as they already had a bad gut feeling and had grown to distrust management. When they arrived at the unit, they were shocked to find a shell of their home—the home they had just been coerced into paying rent for despite it being clearly uninhabitable, the home they had been ensured several weeks before would still remain habitable throughout the demolition process.

The walls and ceilings were completely gutted and removed across the whole apartment, save for the east side of it, and a small spare bedroom they use to store winter clothes, Meg’s exercise bike, and other odds and ends. The electricity had been turned off, and the apartment—which does not receive daylight in any room except the primary bedroom—was pitch black. There was no access to the stove or kitchen sink, which is the only sink in the unit. Shockingly, the lock to their front door had also been removed.

As they explored the unit, they discovered that, although they had been warned just the day prior to remove their things from the unit or else the building management “could not be held responsible” for them, damages had already occurred. All of the belongings that, understandably, had been in the way of the demolition workers’ project—such as things from the living room, all the things inside kitchen cabinets, etc—had been haphazardly tossed into trash bags and shoved and stacked on top of each other in their spare bedroom and the east corner of their living room and bedroom. The bags included loose kitchen knives, ceramic plates and bowls that cracked and shattered, and pantry items such as olive oil and honey that broke open and spilled over everything, like their toaster. Already, they knew they would have much to replace whenever they moved back in. This day is also when they noticed that mold spores had spread and grown in some of their fabric belongings. Their wooden bedframe, also, had been turned up on its side, and the slats on the bottom had snapped and come apart. Rescuing what small, precious things they could, as well as an extra bag of clothes now that they realized it might be a while before they return to the city, they went back to Pittsburgh, where they stayed until finding an affordable sublet in Harlem in September. While in Harlem, they checked on the unit every week or so to ensure their property was still safe where they left it, and it always was. Their sublease ended with the holidays, and they returned to Pittsburgh for Christmas, and did not find their way back to New York City until March, struggling to find an affordable sublet after all the finances they had already lost to the unexpected travel associated with this situation, and with Meg losing work opportunities in the city by being away in August, part of December, January, and February.

The damages they found in early August were only the beginning of the damage to their property, and had it remained at this level, though difficult enough, they would have struggled to get back on their feet but ultimately would’ve recovered on their own. Now, however, the situation has escalated into a level of unfathomable devastation which requires outside help, as last week, what they found when they inspected the unit for the first time since December was inconceivable.

Upon first glance, Meg was shocked and confused that all of their belongings were now loosely scattered all over the floor — all of the things that had once been compact in trash bags (albeit haphazardly and carelessly compacted into the trash bags, but nonetheless compact) were now spilled out everywhere. As she looked closer, she saw shreds and bits and torn up pieces of things everywhere—and, finally, the biggest clue: rat feces. Rat feces on every single surface imaginable. She quickly noticed that someone who had entered the unit, presumably to begin the repair work as a ladder had also been left behind, had opened their window wide open and taken the window screen out, allowing countless rats inside, who could be heard squeaking and scurrying about as Meg surveyed the damage. Meg and Michael presume this infestation must have been raging on for weeks or even months in their absence, as the damage was immeasurable. Rat urine and feces smeared and stained the surfaces of all their hardwood furniture, which was also chewed and gnawed and chiseled at the edges and corners. Most of their fabric items had been ripped to shreds by the rats chewing, as well as any and all paper/cardboard items, such as books and boxes of the pantry goods that had been inside the trash bags—which the rats chewed through, causing all their contents to spill out across the floor, mixing in piles of feces. Even worse, anything non-edible that the rats chewed, they spit back up the fragments of. They chewed through fabric storage bins where Meg and Michael’s remaining clothes and other belongings were stored. They chewed through backpacks and purses and shoes. And they left thousands of rat pellets on every single thing they owned, save for a few things that were secure inside a sealed plastic container. Thus, 80% of Meg and Michael’s belongings are gone — nearly everything they’ve built throughout their adult life.

Meg and Michael have exhausted every other avenue to receive compensation for what they’ve lost. They’ve notified their building management, who, of course, insist they are not responsible. They talked to their renter’s insurance they got after the fire just in case anything else happened during the repairs, but rodent infestation damages are not covered under any policies. They called countless lawyers, and no one wanted to take on their case — many advising it would be far too difficult to prove. They are at a loss, not just of their items, but of their spirit, and their will to fight, after all these months of loss, displacement, and devastation.

Prior to calling lawyers and attempting to file an insurance claim, Meg and Michael tallied everything they could think of that they lost. The estimate is around $9,300. Things like their couch, their mattress, their wooden furniture, their clothing (other than what they’ve been wearing the past 9 months) — all investments they had made for their future years prior that have now been wasted due to pure negligence of no fault of their own. They will also need funds to hire a professional cleaning team that is equipped to address the biohazards of the environment caused by all the rat feces, urine, and spit-up, so this cost is included in the goal, as–you guessed it–their building management has insisted they are not responsible for this service. If any additional funds are left over once they have cleaned and rebuilt their home furnishings and restocked their belongings, they will use the funds to stay steady on their feet as Meg continues to search for full-time work.

Meg also wanted me to share this message of humility and gratitude: “Despite how horrifically high this goal is, I only set it just in case of a miracle…just in case some spectacularly successful NYC person with plenty of expendable resources who is always looking for ways to give back somehow stumbles upon this. But I do not expect or ask anyone otherwise to make large donations just because of the high goal we set! Though I admittedly hope a ton of small donations can add up to a large enough sum to really get us back on our feet, I do not expect to meet even half of this, and that is more than okay. We would be so fortunate, grateful, and frankly overwhelmed (in the best way) with even raising a couple thousand.”