Moldsmobile Misery: Help me fix my car!

My name is Andrea Rosales, and I am a comics artist and graphic designer in the Portland area. As a creative, I rely on my car to ship orders from my online store, drive long distances with all my merchandise for comic conventions and conferences, get to and from printers, and complete everyday errands. I’m requesting your help because my car, formerly a Ford Escape, has become a Moldsmobile.

How did this happen? Why couldn’t it have turned into Optimus Prime instead? I can’t answer the second question, but answering the first is a long story involving severe winter storms, a family health scare, a power outage, deadlines, and multiple canceled flights that delayed my return home for several weeks. So here’s a shorter version:

The air conditioner in my car has been broken for years, an issue I haven’t had the time and money to fix. I considered the lack of AC an inconvenience, especially given recent Portland summers, but apparently it was a problem that kept on problem-ing: According to the mechanic, any time I tried to use the air system at all, it pulled in residual moisture around the car into the interior. The busted AC compressor basically turned my car into a humidifier. Cue mold growth.

Add a winter deep freeze, thaw, and condensation from the ice melt to the mix, a car cover to seal it up as a bonus, and voila! You get the perfect conditions for mold to permeate the entire interior of my car. Which is, unfortunately, exactly what happened.

Mold is, to put it mildly, Extremely Bad for your health. So imagine my horror when I removed the cover from my car and opened the driver’s side door to the sight—and smell—of mold. EVERYWHERE. Seats, dashboard, cup holders, the ceiling, even on the doors and floors— there was mold growth everywhere I looked and everywhere I didn’t look, and an awful musty smell permeating my beloved car.

Fixing this issue will ultimately cost me nearly $2000. This is a significant expense for me, particularly as a freelancer. While I have payments for my work coming in soon, it’s still not nearly enough to cover the repairs that would make my car safe to drive again. Without a car, I can’t pursue my livelihood. Without that, I am up a creek without a paddle.

While I’ve had the car detailed and the Humongous Fungus cleared out, I need your help to be able to keep this situation from happening again. I don’t want racing stripes or rims, just a reliable vehicle that heats and cools without bringing in excess moisture. I want to go back to doing my regularly scheduled art instead of having nightmares about my Superfund site on wheels.

Please contribute however you can, whether through this fundraiser or purchases from my online shop. Thank you so much for your help!