Baby broke the mold

Birth finally got fam moved from infested apartment

A frustrated Brooklyn mother said it took her having a baby before city housing officials finally ended her nightmare of living in a mold-infested apartment that had kept her and her family sick for years.

The baby girl Chastity Edwards had last year was not only her bundle of joy — she was her deliverance. Without her, Edwards and her other two children would still be stuck on the third floor of the Canarsie housing project just below a leaking roof that she says was never fixed.

Edwards, 41, a school safety agent, said the leak allowed water to seep behind the walls of her NYCHA apartment and led to chronic mold that left her and her kids with years of asthma, allergies and upper respiratory ailments.

But after eight years of legal battles, and her refusal to pay rent until the mold was gone, her ordeal ended only after she had her daughter and became eligible for a larger unit.

“It took me to have another baby to finally get a transfer,” Edwards said. “Every transfer I put in for the mold they kept saying it was denied.”

Edwards said NYCHA officials denied there was a mold problem in her two-bedroom apartment at the Breukelen Houses. Even when an expert she paid herself detected spores, she said NYCHA just painted over the water stains (photo).

“They said it looked like coffee or juice was thrown on the wall,” she said. “They’d prime it and paint over it . ... It just kept coming back.”

Meanwhile, Edwards, her son, now 15, and her oldest daughter, now 8, were regulars in the emergency room. She was missing work, and her kids were missing so much school her son had to repeat a grade.

Conditions got so bad, Edwards said, the family had to bunk with her mom. Eventually, she went on a rent strike.

“I wasn’t paying the rent,” Edwards, a single mom, said. “I said, why pay in an apartment that I couldn’t stay in?”

That got NYCHA’s attention, she said. What followed were several rounds in court over the rent and the mold, neither of which got resolved.

Edwards had the baby in August and moved with her family into a three-bedroom apartment around the corner. Problem solved.

“This case underscores the length that the Housing Authority will go to shirk its legal and moral responsibilities to address residents’ needs,” said Edwards’ lawyer, Alicia Mason, staff attorney with the Brooklyn Civil Practice at the Legal Aid Society.

“This unfortunate incident should never have occurred, and we are currently undergoing staff training to mitigate future issues,” NYCHA spokeswoman Jasmine Blake said. “While the transfer was completely unrelated, we are happy to hear the resident has no complaints at this time.”

It is not clear if clear if the mold problem Edwards said was in the apartment was removed, but she is not looking back. She got a $5,400 credit for the rent she withheld, and NYCHA paid the Legal Aid Society another $5,400 for legal fees and court costs.

“They gave me a three-bedroom,” she said. “So there are no complaints.”