Help Us Recover from Toxic Living Conditions

I usually don't do this kind of thing, however this is an extremely unique situation. It all started 5 years ago, when I had a slew of health issues become prominent after dyeing my hair and dealing with a (now known) chemical reaction due to the air quality and a cleaning product used in the house without ventilation. I had suspected that it had something to do with the other tenant's, whom I rent the house with, lack of adequate litter care with the then 5 cats she had. One died in the summer, from liver failure that is speculated to be caused by this issue. There weren't enough boxes to adequately care for the needs of the cats, nor was there ever enough litter. Only a thin layer that barely covered the bottom of the pan, which was only scooped 3 to 4 times a week. Not even enough to soak and clump the urine. The cats would go in there and even track the urine and amonia wherever they walked. This caused the cats to start marking outside of the litter box and when I would point this out, I would be told "no they don't", until I eventually found the source and asked her to clean it. I would then either be lied to about it getting cleaned or it would be done improperly using chemicals such as bleach, or improperly drying and using baking soda, which caused damages to the carpet in spots. Vacuuming and dusting of the dander and cat hair would be so non existent that there would literally be cat hair on everything that was out in the open. Furniture always covered, the middle room that became the bathroom, even the kitchen would have a collection of things that would need to be washed both before and after use due to the lack of control. Any kind of effort into cleaning her areas of the house would be once or twice a month. Bleach would be used on everything, even the stuff you're not supposed to mix it with, and the windows would always be closed due to some excuse based on the other party's comfort. I would always warn about the use of bleach inside and how windows had to be opened when using and left open for a couple hours to air it out. I would be lied to about that when not home and when I saw it, I would open windows only for them to be closed when I was upstairs or not looking. Allergens and amonia built up quite a bit on the first level, which she occupied, and had become worse through the return vents taking air from that room and recirculating it. Over time the floor got worse in that room and the deception continued.

I wasn't able to verify at first, as I would be working 12 hour days generally, and I would be noseblind to it due to the amount of exposure I had already had over time. The suffering caused by this exposure had become my normal, making me think I felt fine, however, being most affected this past year, I noticed a decline in physical and mental cognitive abilities. This would also include limb numbness, bloodwork issues and other health concerns that doctors just didn't have any answer to. It also affected areas such as my hearing, vision and caused major sinus swelling and pressure that were only able to be chocked up to extreme allergies at best, but nothing helped.

And then about a year ago, my girlfriend had moved in with me, and that was when I started to piece everything together. After a few months, in which we had to shuffle all the dust and dander around moving stuff to paint for a mandatory inspection, she noticed that her health issues were getting ten times worse, and she developed new ones that were very similar to what I had been going through. Her doctors also couldn't give her any answers as to what was happening. We both were confused and scared, since we didn't know what could be causing these symptoms in the both of us. She was able to spend more time at home than I could, so she started paying more attention to what our roommate was doing throughout the week, and she ended up proving my suspicions. She lied about how often she was cleaning, she lied about opening the windows when using bleach, and she also lied about mixing bleach and ammonia together after I had repeatedly warned her about it. This made us realize that both our health issues were caused by her animal negligence, and by the chemical mixtures she was creating in unventilated spaces.

The last week of December, I would personally catch this in the act. I came home on a break to grab something to drink and found a spot that a cat had marked, which raised concern that whole week. I could smell it upstairs and the heat was forcing it up there from a major return vent and it would go uncleaned for 2 days. One of which the roomate was off of work and could've cleaned it. I asked her again to clean it and she tried to put it off but I stood behind my request. I came home 2 and a half hours later to walk into a bleach and amonia cloud she created in cleaning it and left the windows closed because she was cold. My eyes and throat immediately burned and I knew this had been what was affecting us this whole time. My girlfriend, and I immediately researched how to handle and neutralize the chemical and left the house with our dog temporarily to a hotel until we could fix the issue. After not being able to go the proper routes as it wasn't our house, the best we could come up with was to try and rehome the cats, which we are still stuck on a waiting list to surrender. Adoption sites have also not been any help as it has been 8 weeks and have had no responses or shelter openings. Originally, my girlfriend and I were saving up to get our own place, but being in a hotel for that long drained our savings. To try and make the house liveable again, we tried ripping up the carpet and replacing the floor where most of the problem was. My girlfriend moved back to her parent's house with the dog, and i started sleeping in my car while it got done. After fixing the floor, my girlfriend and I began cleaning the downstairs, but nothing we did was good enough. It also didn't help that after ten hours of cleaning, our roommate would come home and reverse what we did because she didn't want to put in the work to keep everything clean and decontaminated. After further investigation of the basement, we found out the problem was much worse than we thought. Eight filthy litter boxes that we come to find out we're "cleaned" with bleach and dumped down there to dirty the air. More of the floors damaged as well as the joists. Last but not least, a contaminated HVAC unit, pumping the odor through the whole house. I simply cannot live there without the health issues we healed over the last 8 weeks starting to come back after even 30 minutes in there with the air off.

We now realize it's not worth saving the house, and all the money we spent was wasted. My girlfriend and I also recently had to leave the place we both worked at because they were missusing bleach and it was making both of our symptoms worse. Now I'm in a position where I'm sleeping in my car and am struggling to take care of myself, so it's difficult to get a job. I would like to raise some of our savings back so I can make my detached garage liveable, so I have a space space to live and keep my stuff, so that I can get a job. I won't be able to afford necessary bills this month, so being able to get those taken care of will give me a chance to get back on my feet.