Help Us Recover From Toxic Mold & Find a New Home

Hello,

My name is Morgan. I’m a mother of an awesome 4-year-old and currently 9 months pregnant. While I’m not one to turn to others for help, I find myself in a particularly impossible situation given the circumstances. This past July, my 4-year-old and I moved into a new home to have a larger space for the arrival of the new baby. Upon moving into the house, there had suddenly appeared a large and suspicious patch of what I assumed was mold on the living room ceiling. Of course, I reported this to my property management company, PURE, assuming they’d take care of it. But unfortunately, my trust was misplaced, and things began to escalate. All attempts to communicate these issues with PURE were ignored. But as a high-risk pregnant woman caring for a 4-year-old and working to provide for us, we just went on with living our lives over the next 4 months.

Then, in the second week of November, two major leaks in my apartment made themselves known at once. Management lacked urgency in addressing these matters, and over the course of the weeks following, mold was discovered in the home, in alarming amounts, and holes in the drywall were cut, leaks sealed, and then left to the open air for toxic spores to permeate throughout the house and all of my personal belongings for weeks on end.

My son and I began to take extremely ill, and quickly...

Of note, my son was born prematurely with lungs too weak to cry, and I have a genetic mutation that renders me among those utmost susceptible to mold toxicity...

...In the weeks that have passed since this began, we both have received multiple diagnoses for various infections and ailments, as our health concerns have worsened, our immune systems have progressively weakened, and our stress levels have only increased while we move from place to place with no new home in sight...

On December 1st, when there were serious concerns about the toxic mold (which laboratory test later confirmed was black mold), I spoke with senior management of the Nashville branch of PURE, and the decision was made for me to move out and stay at a hotel. During a phone conversation she told me that I’d need to pay for the hotel upfront and submit for reimbursement from the company later.

Plumbers and home restoration companies were to be doing repair and remediation work while simultaneously assessing the property and determining a timeline in which my son and I would either reenter the home or be moved to an alternative housing situation. It was not until the late afternoon of December 7th that I was informed that the home had been deemed uninhabitable and was provided a 2-week notice to vacate the premises with a deadline of December 22. Included in the letter was a refusal to reimburse any personal expenses incurred, as well as an indication that my security deposit would not be recovered until following a move-out inspection. Despite having other similar housing options on their website, they ignored my request to be placed in another rental.

I am on an unpaid maternity leave and have no income to show a prospective landlord, nor disposable funds to cover moving expenses. I am high-risk pregnant and extremely allergic to molds, and the property management was made aware of this in a letter directly from Vanderbilt even before Thanksgiving. I am just as likely to go into labor this very second as I am any time in the next four weeks. Despite this, clearly PURE has proven to have no interest in doing anything but pushing us out.

I have turned to every agency and charity organization that one might associate with a situation like this and have been unsuccessful in obtaining help with housing. I have spoken to the Red Cross, Catholic Charities, the Salvation Army, various women’s and family shelters, the Health Dept, DHS, Metro Action Commission, Metro Mental Health Co-op, Vanderbilt Social Services, and others. I have spent 4.5 hours with Metro Social Services to complete their coordinated entry intake process and was placed low on their list according to my score regarding vulnerability and need, with no guarantee of ever receiving a call, as a vacancy would have to come available before anyone is drawn from the list. I was told that, in fact, Section 8 applications have been closed for all but a few days of the last two years, and that the family shelters are full at an unprecedented level.

I have been living in cheap hotel rooms with my preschooler and our two ESA pets. Not to mention any minute now I’ll be bringing a newborn into this world... Something I’m tremendously excited about, but this was NOT the situation I could have ever imagined bringing a precious baby into.

I have retained legal counsel, who will be helping me on the legal side of righting the wrongs that I’ve experienced with PURE’s negligence and lack of basic human decency. However, those things take time. And time isn’t something I necessarily have. I have an infant coming, a 4-year-old, and pets who need a home to return to. Not only that, but I’ll need to replace so much of our furniture, my mattress, clothes, toys, etc. given the mold infestation.

The cherry to top it all: it’s Christmas. My precious boy is at an age that for many of us is when the magic of Christmas was fresh, wondrous and at its most awesome. I’m doing my best to decorate our hotel room and maintain holiday cheer, but again, this isn’t what I had ever imagined for us.

I am utterly maxed out and exhausted round the clock, and feel as though every free moment I have is spent glued to my devices in search of any help or opportunities to be had.

I wanted so badly to spend this holiday season enjoying mother-and-son time to the absolute fullest and nesting... but my nest was lost in a whirlwind...

Like I said at the beginning of this (long) message, I’m not one to ask for help. But in the current situation, I’m at a loss. Any support would be greatly appreciated to help me and my family. If someone has furniture or toddler/baby supplies that they may be willing to part with for when we get a new home that would also be amazing. If nothing else, I hope reading my story helps bring awareness to the glaring housing issues in Nashville.

Happy holidays.

Thank you for your consideration,

Morgan Hartman