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Storytime Tapestry Newsletter The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural
awareness throughout the world. Special Treat – submitted by Rosanne Catalano TESTAMENT TO OUR LOVE By Rosanne Catalano Six months after we fell in love, my husband
and I got married. Before meeting my hubby, I had been living with a male
friend of mine; this male friend had introduced me and my husband to one another.
Of course, I had moved out of the apartment the male friend and I shared before
marrying my hubby. Leaving the friend “temporary” custody of my cat Tiger.
Figuring, once we got an apartment hubby and I would take back Tiger. But for
now, we had no place to live and were just married. Driving around while
kissing and holding hands, we came upon a hotel overlooking the south Soon after driving to the address given to us,
we saw that it was a one-family home. In reality, the landlord’s “one-bedroom
apartment” was actually a converted one-car-garage in a split level style
house. Turns out, the owners and my hubby and I got along fantastically! My
husband and I signed a one-year-rental agreement that day. We moved into the
apartment two days later, without any furniture. The landlord told me the
double bed we had seen in the bedroom was staying, and that we could sleep in
that. Hubby and I figured living in a tiny apartment was better than staying in
a hotel, with no kitchen. During the day, if I got tired of typing on my
typewriter I went upstairs to hang with the landlord and her younger son. One
day she told me they had to replace the entire stairs, it had started rotting
out. It looked like some kind of black mold in the wood, she told me. Although
she replaced the stairs, she said her family hadn’t been feeling well lately.
My husband and I weren’t either. We would hear loud coughing coming from the
landlord’s part of the house. My husband and I began to feel our balance
becoming slightly off-kilter, as we’d walk around our little studio apartment.
Though I'm not sure I'd even call it walking around, because our apartment had
only a kitchen and bedroom. That’s right, no living room! But we didn’t mind,
we were in our honeymoon phase. Life went on in spite of this tiny, cramped
apartment we were in. Now it was time to take back custody of my cat
Tiger. So shortly after we moved in, my hubby and I drove to our male friend’s
apartment to await the arrival of moving men. They were going to move my
furniture to our new apartment. My furniture and my male cat Tiger had
temporarily been residing at that mutual friend’s apartment. We brought Tiger
back to live with us in our new tiny apartment. Once we were all settled in
with my bedroom furniture and kitchen set, we felt more like a family. I had
missed my Tiger.... I had adopted him a year before meeting and marrying my
husband. The landlords invited us to a Christmas party
that December. When we first walked upstairs with gifts in our arms, the
landlord’s guests fell silent and gaped at us; we were the only white people
there. But when they saw our landlord approach and hug us, they all smiled and
conversation began anew. We had a great time with them and their guests that
night. While still at the party, I happened to overhear the landlord say to her
cousin that her younger son was beginning to get nose bleeds, and her older son
had developed asthma suddenly. We all puzzled over the reason that could be.
The landlord went on to mention that their in ground swimming pool had flooded
out, water had gushed into the entire bottom part of her house. “This happened
a year prior to you guys moving into the bottom apartment,” she said to her
cousin, looking over at me. I asked her, “Any water damage?” She told me she
didn’t know. But she had noticed excessive water on the pipes by her washer and
dryer. No one could figure out what could be causing this either… The entire household – landlord and tenants –
were getting sicker and sicker. So after a year and a half of living in the
apartment, I went to the library. I wanted to see if there were any scientific
books that could explain these mysterious symptoms. After researching and
reading scientific journals and books, I horrifyingly found out that her house
was contaminated with a toxic mold. Known also as stachboystys. Unlike regular
black mold found in bathroom tubs and showers (that can easily be cleaned with
Tilex’s mold remover), stachboystys is the toxic mold that is green & black
which is very dangerous to our health. What we and the landlord didn’t know is
that this mold was growing inside the walls of her house, starting from the
ground up. Exactly the point of where the pool had flooded into their house. I
had seen this greenish-black mold on my sponge once while cleaning the bathroom
tiles. But hadn’t known what it was. Coming home from the library, I knocked on our
landlord’s front door to warn them of this toxic mold in their home. Her older
son answered then shut the door in my face; it looked like he had been
sleeping. When I told my husband that night, he said, “That’s it. We’re moving
out tomorrow morning.” We did not want to wait around and get sicker, before
the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) or CDC (Center for Disease Control)
confirmed it was this toxic mold stachboystys. Since our landlord’s son ignored
our warnings, when we moved out the next day I left the landlord herself a
note. In it I explained why we were leaving. I advised her again to get an
inspector from the EPA or CDC in her house to clean up the toxic mold. But they
were not listening… My brother-in-law brought all of our clothes
to a professional dry cleaner; told the cleaners about us living with a toxic
mold. Also informed the dry cleaners to make sure our clothes were totally
‘decontaminated’ before we took possession of them again. Unfortunately my
brother-in-law could not help us save my bedroom furniture, kitchen set,
some clothes that had already been damaged by the mold, pots & pans,
dishes, etc. Although there were some important documents we left behind also,
those documents are on record. We could always obtain another copy of the
documents. My hubby, our baby Tiger and me got out of that apartment as fast as
we could that day! We had not yet met our younger baby Cordy. Cordy entered our
lives six months after we moved into our second apartment, in yet another
county. In our second apartment, we finally felt
“human” for a change. Physically, we were already beginning to feel better.
Since I had read in the scientific journal that neurological damage is one
symptom of exposure to toxic mold, nose bleeds another, we had doctors test us
for any neurological damage, or any physical damage. None was found in the
tests doctors did on both of us! I do
have nerve damage but that is from a fall down stairs years before I met my
husband. We lived in our second apartment for four years. A month after we had
settled into our second apartment, I called our former landlord one last time
to warn them of the danger. So I phoned her, spoke to her a while and told her
again about the toxic mold and its danger to the health of her family. She told
me she would get an inspector from the EPA to check it out. She also told me
that her and her sons were going to move out of the house anyway: she couldn’t
afford the upkeep. Since there was no longer rent coming in from us, she now
had one of her cousins living in that apartment. And the cousin didn’t pay rent
of course. We have since moved into a one-family home of
our own with our babies Tiger and Cordy. Tiger is now 9 years old, Cordy 6
years old. Both my husband and I marvel now at having lived in that first
apartment, a dream turned into a nightmare. It had to be true love on mine and
my hubby’s part… __ by Rosanne Catalano Rosanne |
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