Pregnant Woman Failed by the System

I moved to my current city in March of 2016 with my husband and our dog.

We started out by renting a small apartment on the top (attic) level of an old house. To get in or out of the place meant climbing 3 flights of stairs. With a dog and no backyard, that meant doing so sometimes upwards of 10 times per day or more.

After about 7 months of living there, I became pregnant.

Soon, it was evident that we would would need to move.. due to the excessive amount of stairs and my progressing pregnancy.

We found a decent place and put in an application. At the time of viewing, I went alone, as my husband was working. The landlord briefly showed me around and I went on my way. I was sold; It had a backyard and a basement, and it was much bigger than our current place... and the best part of all – no stairs. The previous tenant was still living in the apartment at the time, so everything was furnished and looked decent.

We were very excited to find out we got the place, and would be free to move in on October 1st, 2016.

However, when moving day finally came, some things quickly started to seem... strange.

First, we did not receive (and still do not have) a copy of our lease. We were not given a key, instead simply told to collect it from the previous tenant, who would be moving upstairs on the same day. We were not given a phone number to reach her.

For the first half of the day, after multiple trips to the house, we were unable to reach her to collect the key. Finally, sometime during mid afternoon, we were able to get a hold of her, and she let us in.

We originally expected the place to be vacant before we took possession, and assumed that a general cleaning was an unspoken understanding.

However, it was clear at the time that the land(slum)lord did not only fail to inspect the property prior to us moving in, he also did not even visit the property between tenants, much less do a basic general clean of the place.

The walls and floors were filthy, stove/counters were not even wiped down; furniture, dishes, and personal items from the previous tenant left behind, awful and tacky wall decals in every room of the house. The previous tenant/our new neighbor just so happened to mention in passing that she had lived here for THREE YEARS with 2 children under the age of 10 years old.

I'm no expert, but I would imagine that 3 years of even average wear and tear, especially with children, would absolutely warrant a general cleaning (or at the very least a walkthrough) before allowing new tenants to take possession.

I am not a neat freak in any way, shape, or form, nor am I one to complain about much.. but the state of the place upon our arrival was absolutely unacceptable.

Mouse droppings in the cupboards, hair in the shower drain, melted popsicle on windowsills, and ceiling fans with a layer of dust so thick, it was highly unlikely that they we ever cleaned even once for 20 years or more.

There is still, to this day, a very heavy couch in the basement that doesn't belong to us that we are unable to move ourselves.

The backyard was littered with toys and garbage.. and the wood of the deck is rotting away, with big dangerous holes and exposed nails poking out.

There is also a vacant barn/shed structure in the backyard that has not been maintained for years. It is falling apart, and I can only assume it to be a haven for rodents and other pests to live and multiply.

Outside of this structure, there is also a live wire exposed, which will shock you if you touch it. Unfortunately my dog found that out the hard way.

I also noticed after a while that we did not have a carbon monoxide alarm or smoke detector installed anywhere in the house.

Property maintenance is left up to an unrelated/unpaid neighbor who doesn't know us at all.. and who will or will not keep on top of it at his convenience.

We also do not have a deadbolt lock on any of the doors in our house..and because the locks were not changed prior to our possession, I really couldn't say who or how many people exactly could be walking around town with a key to my home at this very moment. Good thing I have a big scary dog.

...And then there's the mold.

One of the cement walls in the basement is absolutely saturated in mold.

Due to the fact that this wall is located in the boiler room which we don't use, this did not become evident for quite a few months.. after it had begun to spread onto the (unwanted) couch that we inherited, as well as some our own personal items which were ruined.

Despite the state of the place (and because we were still unaware of the mold) I felt, at the time, that we were in no position to complain.

We don't have the greatest credit, we have a large dog, we're younger.. basically the complete opposite of what an ideal candidate looks like to most landlords. Our dog alone would almost guarantee rejection from every potential apartment.

Not to mention, I was just so happy about not having to climb 3 flights of stairs every time I left the house that I may have been biased. It may not seem like a huge deal to most... but I was gaining weight by the day..and my dog is quite active, needs to be let out a lot, and until you experience the misery that is bringing home groceries or anything heavy at all and lugging it up 3 full flights of stairs by yourself, you couldn't possibly understand. And doing it pregnant is just a whole different level.

I also really didn't want to get off on a bad foot with my new landlord and make a bad impression. I was very grateful of the "upgrade" and didn't want to seem too aggressive or rude right off the bat.

So, we spent multiple days on end cleaning every inch of the place, to get it into a livable condition.. an effort that we were never once offered compensation or discounted rent for doing...and life continued on.

On October 10th, 2016 (10 days after moving in) our world was unexpectedly rocked ...when I suffered a very devastating and painful miscarriage. I was about 3 months along at that point and had already announced the pregnancy to everyone I knew. After many years of trying, I was ecstatic and just couldn't contain my excitement.

The event caused me significant suffering/distress.. and as a result, I spent months plagued by crippling depression, which eventually lead to the loss of my job, among many other things.

I simply stopped caring about everything, and leaving my bed became a rare occurrence for a number of months.

At this stage, the mold had still not been discovered, and other issues fell to the back burner as I began the long and hard recovery process caused by a very traumatic and heartbreaking loss.. One which, in many ways, permanently changed me forever.

But after receiving medical care and advice, I slowly started to return to my normal self again, bit by bit.

By then it was around Christmas time.

I had found a new job and things were looking up. This was around the time we noticed the mold, although we didn't really think too much of it at the time.

I met a girl through work who was in the middle of a battle with her landlord over mold issues. That is when I realized that it may actually be serious. She was staying in a hotel because of the health and safety hazards that she and her family were being exposed to... and at the time, she was scrambling to line up a new place, pay for it, and move ASAP with hardly any notice or warning. She was how I came to learn that there are City officials who will come out to your place and assess the mold, inform you of your risks/options and let you know your rights. Before speaking to her, I was completely unaware of this possibility.

But, due to my previous job loss and brief period of unemployment, we had fallen behind in rent payments and were in the process of desperately trying to catch up. I felt that I didn't have much of an argument to bring it to the landlord at the time. The inconvenience of initial mess was too far back to mention now, and due to our delinquency and recurring late payments, I didn't think I had much of a right to complain or expect any action.

And so, the brief conversation with my co-worker fell to the back of my mind.

Shortly after Christmas, our rent was finally caught up, and we were once again in good standings.

I then immediately addressed all the problems with my landlord. He came to install a smoke detector/carbon monoxide alarm, fixed the live wire in my backyard (which had shocked my dog a number of times), set out some mousetraps (although he refused to pay for the exterminator he had previously agreed to pay for - after they had already come here to treat the property).

He blatantly denied the presence of mold, and basically told me that it was just my imagination.

Nothing was done about the locks, the non-working oven, the dangerous deck, the decaying shed/barn, the couch in the basement, or the unreliable property maintenance.

He applied a temporary band aid and did the absolute bare minimum.

Sometime in mid-January, I was shocked when I discovered that I was once again pregnant.

Before long, the conversation I had forgotten about with my co-worker popped back into my mind. Now that I was expecting a child, I really needed to handle the mold situation as soon as possible. I searched around for a long time, not coming up with much. Eventually I found a support ticket on the city's website, where you could request service. I put in a ticket , describing my situation in detail, including the pregnancy and the urgent nature of the matter.

After a few WEEKS I received a call back, which unfortunately I missed.

When I called back, I got nothing but the runaround... dropped calls, endlessly ringing phone lines and unreturned voicemails. I tried for weeks to get a hold of the girl who had called me with no success. I left multiple voicemails and not once did anyone return my call ever.

I was not making any progress at all in the matter.. and because I was very busy with my own life... I was still working full-time, attending lots of appointments due to my being in the throes of what my doctor considered to be high-risk pregnancy.. and because it was in an area of the home which did not seem to pose any kind of immediate/noticeable problem... life carried on, and the mold, once again, made it's way to the back burner.

Roughly a week ago, I filled out another support ticket online, this one a little more strongly worded, due to the increasingly urgent and time sensitive nature as well as my frustration with being ignored for all this time.

I received a reply the next day asking for my address, which I then provided promptly. That was about a week ago and have still heard nothing, once again.

As of today, I am exactly 39 weeks and 1 day pregnant. My baby could be born today, tomorrow, basically any minute now.

Also, I have recently noticed that my dog has started to display some strange and alarming symptoms. She has signs of a possible skin infection and/or irritation, which now has me questioning whether the mold could be a factor.. although I don't know for sure.

I am just infuriated and outraged at the sheer incompetence of the city officials here .. and frankly I am embarrassed to be a resident of a place where such blatant negligence is common practice.

I am PREGNANT.. and my only concern is the welfare/health/safety of my child.. Just as any decent mother would have every right to be.

I am also nowhere near being in the financial position to move... let alone the physical shape to do so.

I am trapped here breathing in this mold (and have been all 9+ months of this pregnancy) with essentially no options, and absolutely no community support whatsoever. I am just simply looking for a professional opinion, and clarification on a subject that I will admit that I know absolutely nothing about. For all I know, it could be completely harmless, and I am overreacting entirely.

But, it also could be toxic and life threatening, and the worst possible place to bring a newborn infant who has zero immunity.

So my 2 current options areas follows:

1. Bring my child home to this, against my better judgement...and potentially expose him to God only knows what.. –OR–
2. Go live on the streets as a homeless mother with a newborn baby as winter approaches.

The outrageous amount of money per month that I am robbed of, between rent and utilities, is mind-blowing...and the sad reality is that it leaves me with very little wiggle room, very few options, and a distant/faraway hope that is just enough beyond my reach that it is unlikely that I will ever be able to make much progress in changing my situation.

The worst part of all of it is, I'm not the only one in this situation.

There are millions of other parents out there, just like me, who although they may want the best for their children and the chance for a better future, also find themselves paralyzed by their circumstances and doomed to the same fate.