Hello. My name is Frederick. I am a disabled person. I live in public housing. I have a very low income, and right now I could use some extra help. I am not good at summarizing, so sorry for that, but here is what has been going on.
Since the beginning of 2024, my income was able to do even less to pay for bills and other things because the monthly water bill kept going up to more than $300 before they finally fixed a water leak in the yard after sixteen months. The city water company wouldn’t give me back the money, and neither would the housing authority whose fault it was that I had to pay all that money for water I didn’t use because they waited so long to fix a leak I didn’t cause. I have not even been able to save what little I might usually use to pay for things besides the bills and food.
Before that was an issue, for years I tried to get the management of the housing project where I live to either let me move to a different home or do what needed to be done to make the HVAC system where I was living safe to use. The problem with it was that the return box between the intake vent and the air handling unit was in very bad condition, allowing air to be drawn into the box from the structural interior of the home and distributed throughout the living space. This had obviously been like that for many years before I moved in, and it made me sick to use the system. Who knows how many other tenants had to breathe that? So, I taped plastic over the vents and used window air conditioners and space heaters.
The housing project manager told me his concern was that if I transferred to a different home in the project, I would think that house makes me sick too, as if I’m some kind of hypochondriac. Well, he was right about that, and I will get to that in a moment, but the problem isn’t in my head. It’s in the way they take care of things in this housing project.
He wouldn’t even come look at the problem. After asking him for help for years, and not getting any help from him, I decided to ask the inspectors for help, one of whom comes each year. I had only ever been asking the project manager for help while telling the inspectors I didn’t use the HVAC system without telling them why.
Telling the inspectors didn’t get me anywhere either. The first one acted like he didn’t even understand what I was saying, as if just looking at the thing wasn’t self-explanatory enough to a licensed building inspector. I had to plead with him to include the problem in his report. He told me, “Awe, man. I just got this job. You know what I’m saying?”
After a few more years of no luck asking inspectors for help, I asked the new project manager if she would try to help me. I sent her photographs. She responded right away with good intentions. Later she informed me that the problem would be fixed, but they couldn’t do the work while I was living there, so I could transfer to another home in this housing project that had recently been almost completely renovated. The HVAC system components there are new. Almost everything about that home is new.
The HVAC return box in this almost completely renovated home was constructed about like some kid would build a fort in the back yard. The return box is new, but it isn’t even a return box, and not only does it allow air to be drawn in from the structural interior that stinks like the air inside walls stinks, which contains contaminants I am very allergic to such as dust mites, but the floor of the space is covered with a mess of filthy debris including floor tile half a century old that is loose, shuffled around, and broken into pieces. They made this home virtually new, but left that there, which had obviously been left there again and again for decades as different tenants had to breathe air passing through that space. And every time, some inspector had approved this home for human habitation.
And that floor tile contains asbestos. I had enough money to pay an EPA accredited laboratory to analyze samples of the materials. They confirmed my worst fears. I moved into a home where there is loose asbestos, and of all places it is inside the HVAC system. It’s even more broken apart and shuffled around outside that picture frame.
The word I keep seeing in all the information online about asbestos is “disturbed.” As long as the asbestos isn’t disturbed, it may not put the health of whoever uses whatever building it is in at risk. Well, these materials are very disturbed, and the erosive forces of moisture coming out of the walls that should not even be in there and the strong movement of air through that space, plus the age of the tiles, are breaking down those materials, continuing to disturb them all day and night every day and night. And those microscopic airborne asbestos crystals are blowing all over the household, all over everything I own, and all over me. A person does not need to inhale a shovel full of that stuff to develop lung cancer.
So that air coming out of the vents isn’t just making me sick. It may have already killed me, but I just didn’t die yet. How messed up is that?
I am trying to get the housing authority to get me out of here, but it takes time. I have been wearing a respirator all the time including when I am asleep, except when I am doing things I cannot do with a respirator on. I need to rent a room nearby until I can move to a different home so I can do things that cannot be done while wearing a respirator without having to do it in here.
I don’t even know if they are going to try to tell me it’s safe to stay where I am. No, it is not. An EPA accredited lab already reported to me that the asbestos content level is way higher than the allowable limit, and this stuff is loose inside the HVAC system. Which is nuts to begin with, and it should have been removed decades ago. I don’t know if a professional trained in abatement will come after I am gone to remove the stuff properly and then clean the whole home, or if they will try to do it while I’m in here, and then not be honest about it with whoever is unfortunate enough to move in here next.
Oh, someone just told me that the materials containing asbestos will be removed while I am living here. Which means an even greater amount of it will be released. And which obviously means they don’t think this household needs to be cleaned after these airborne microscopic asbestos crystals have been blown all over the place from all the ceiling vents for weeks. That’s not ok, and they expect me to continue living here then, as if that is good enough.
It doesn’t even address the problem with the state of the HVAC return box, the odors from which made me look in there and see all that filth and tile so old it that it almost had to contain asbestos. That return box needs to be rebuilt by someone who actually knows what one is, that it needs to be clean, dry, and airtight only allowing air to enter from the living space through the filtered intake vent.
And this home was remodeled because it burned last year, but after the outside wall and roof were rebuilt and the drywall and insulation were removed, they didn’t dry the wood frame before installing new drywall. That was after the house was open to the very high humidity here. Dew fell into the open house. Rain fell in it. The fire department sprayed water into it. The humidity level in here and the odors from bacterial respiration being drawn into the return box through the small openings that should not exist in that return box, which you can smell coming out of the ceiling vents, make it seem evident to me that the frame is not only wet, but probably promoting the growth of mold inside of the walls.
And when it rained, water came out of the wall and covered the floor. That was some water in the wall for sure. No guessing there.
So that’s what is going on and why I don’t even have money to use for this emergency, and all of it is their fault. I came here to see if anyone is able to help me. I don’t even know what all I may need money for during the immediate and near future because of this situation. There is a room to rent for I don’t know how long, so I will not be breathing in as much asbestos. Which is still going to be all over everything I own. I need money to pay for the expense of moving again. I am running out or already ran out of stuff I have not been able to buy because I had to pay all that money for water I didn’t use during the past year and a half. I may need money to use to pay for a small claims case against them later, which I don’t know how to go about doing or feel hopeful about. Why would I feel hopeful about anything? I am breathing in asbestos. I should not have been allowed to move in here.
That stuff has been left this home for many years to make tenants sick and possibly kill them. Can it merely be a coincidence that the HVAC return boxes were similarly handled so poorly in the two homes where I have now lived? What if this is happening throughout this large housing project where mostly families live? Not that I think anyone else’s life matter less.
If anyone can help, I would appreciate it and feel grateful. In any case, thank you for reading this.
Sincerely,
Frederick
