Mold
Mold disproportionately impacts black St. Louisans. As Figure 3.1 shows, all but one of the City’s majority-black wards had at least 6 interior mold complaints to the Citizens’ Service Bureau in 2018, and 70% of the wards with 6 or more interior mold complaints were majority-black.¹
FIGURE 3.1. INTERIOR MOLD COMPLAINTS TO THE CITIZENS’ SERVICE BUREAU BY WARD, 2018²
Mold was the third-most common complaint referred to Community Sanitation by the Citizens’ Service Bureau in 2016.³ Further, in a major 2011 allergy study, St. Louis tied for the 6th worst major city in the US for patients showing sensitization to mold, with 16% of patients having a mold sensitization.⁴
Mold is a particularly challenging problem to address because it is expensive to remove, there are no legal standards for mold exposure, and landlords often refuse to do anything about it.⁵ Table 3.1 shows cost estimates for mold sampling, identification, and remediation. Because of the high costs to remediate mold, landlords often refuse to do it, and a lawsuit to force a landlord to do so is likely to cost thousands of dollars, requiring substantial legal work, expert testimony, and one or more medical visits.⁶ With the majority of the City’s residents living in rental housing and over a fifth of the City’s population living below the federal poverty level,⁷ addressing mold is out of reach for many who are most affected by it.
TABLE 3.1. AVERAGE COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH MOLD IN THE HOME⁸
Why Mold Matters
Mold exposure can cause or make worse the following symptoms: nasal and sinus congestion, cough/sore throat, chest tightness, breathing difficulty, nosebleed, upper respiratory tract infection, headache, skin irritation and eye irritation.⁹ Mold can also trigger an asthma attack.¹⁰
Janice Rideout’s Battle To Rid Her Apartment of Mold
After Janice Rideout became the guardian of her 13- and 11-year old grandsons, she moved into a larger apartment in her Dutchtown neighborhood. She noticed water on the floor, and at first thought it was from the garbage disposal, which she knew had to be replaced. But then the water problem got a lot worse, and she traced the water back to the kitchen pantry. There was black mold all over the ceiling and a little on the walls. In the bedroom, the paint was buckling and she could see moisture there too. A leaking roof was to blame.
Ms. Rideout told her landlord about the mold, but he didn’t find a roofer in his price range and didn’t fix the problem. She withheld her rent and called the City’s building inspector, which saw the mold and sent the landlord a citation. She also called the health department, and they also found the mold. The landlord retaliated against her and got an emergency eviction order. When they went to court, the judge assigned a mediator, but the landlord refused to fix the mold problem and the meditation didn’t resolve things. The case went to trial, and Ms. Rideout won. She told the judge that she didn’t want to stay in the apartment but needed time to find a new place. She has since moved, and doesn’t know whether the landlord ever fixed the mold problem.
Kaliah West’s Repeated Encounters with Mold
Kaliah West found mold in several of her former homes. She also suffers from asthma. Mold makes her symptoms worse, sometimes triggering asthma attacks severe enough to land her in the emergency room. Past landlords failed to address the issue, forcing Kaliah to relocate herself and her young daughter. Like many tenants, Kaliah had no choice but to either live with the mold, or seek another apartment elsewhere. But for people like Kaliah, finding a new apartment without a mold problem is a difficult proposition. Kaliah was convicted of a felony in 2007. She served her time, but still faces repercussions. Kaliah has difficulty finding employment because of her record, and many landlords do not want to rent to a person with a felony conviction. We believe that people in this country deserve second chances, Kaliah says, but “where’s my second chance? The only places I can get are places that are not decent, because of my background. I refuse to accept that.”
References
¹ Ward 25, one of the three wards with the most mold complaints, has no racial majority, but approximately one-half of its residents are black. See City of St. Louis, Census Results (2010), Ward Results (2011 Boundaries), available at http://dynamic.stlouis-mo.gov/census/ward11.cfm.
² Prepared by the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic. Data Sources: City of St. Louis, 2018 Citizens’ Service Bureau Service Request Data, available at https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/data/upload/ data-files/csb.zip; City of St. Louis, Census Results (2010), Ward Results (2011 Boundaries), available at http://dynamic.stlouis-mo.gov/census/ward11.cfm.
³ City of St. Louis, 2016 Annual Environmental Health Report: Protecting People from Environmental Hazards and Disease (June 2017), available at https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/ departments/health/documents/upload/Environmental-Health-Report-2016-FINAL.pdf.
⁴ Quest Diagnostics, Allergies Across America: The Largest Study of Allergy Testing in the United States (2011), p. 17, available at https://www.questdiagnostics.com/dms/Documents/Other/2011_ QD_AllergyReport.pdf. Sensitization indicates that a patient has already been exposed to an allergen. See Daniel More, Sensitization and True Allergy: How Allergies Develop and Why Reactions Differ, Verywell Health (Mar. 25, 2018), available at https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-is-sensitization-82988.
⁵ There are no local, state or federal regulations regarding mold, and it is difficult to win an implied warranty of habitability claim for mold. See Janet Portman, Mold in Rentals: Landlord Liability, Responsibility, and Prevention, NOLO (undated), available at https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/mold-rentals-landlord-liability-responsibility-prevention-30230.html.
⁶ Shamus O’Meara et al., Winning Strategies for Litigating a Toxic Mold Case (2001), cached version available at https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ne8c3wVhrSQJ:https:// www.olwklaw.com/docs/Winning_Strategies7-24-01.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-1-d.
⁷ U.S. Census Quick Facts, St. Louis City, Missouri (County), available at https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/stlouiscitymissouricounty/IPE120217.
⁸ Home Advisor, How Much Does a Mold Inspection Cost?, available at https://www.homeadvisor.com/cost/environmental-safety/test-or-remove-mold-and-toxic-material/.
⁹ Melissa Stoppler, Mold Facts, MedicineNet (undated), available at https://www.medicinenet.com/mold_exposure/article.htm.
¹⁰ CDC, Common Asthma Triggers, available at https://www.cdc.gov/asthma/triggers.html.