LIVING IN LIMBO
Same ‘mold’ story spreads in Red Hook
TOXIC MOLD continues to plague the Red Hook public housing complex in Brooklyn four years after it was hit hard by Hurricane Sandy, according to a survey released Thursday.
The survey by the Red Hook Initiative finds that out of 280 respondents at the Red Hook Houses, 40% said they currently have mold and 94% have had leaks and mold in the past.
“It is completely unacceptable,” said Jill Eisenhard, founder of the Red Hook Initiative. “It is at the stage to becoming a public health crisis. We need to hold people accountable.”
The nonprofit conducted the survey after getting multiple complaints from residents of one of the city’s oldest housing complexes.
In many cases, New York City Housing Authority repairmen simply scrape off the mold and paint over it, residents say. But the problem comes back with a vengeance a few weeks later, tenants complain.
As a result, some have even stopped filing repair requests with management because they feel like it is a hopeless cause, Eisenhard said.
NYCHA says it is working to better handle mold complaints.
“Over the past year, NYCHA has been making systematic changes to the way we identify, respond and prevent mold by working closely with experts including the special master, a certified industrial hygienist, and a building engineer specialist,” NYCHA spokeswoman Jackie Primeau said.
A judge appointed a special master in December to enforce a pact to fix NYCHA’s mold problem.
One tenant at the Red Hook Houses told the Daily News she had to bring her 18-month-old daughter to a hospital for breathing problems the mom says were tied to mold.
Mayra, who declined to give her last name, took her daughter to Maimonides Medical Center three weeks ago, where the toddler was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection.
Mold is all over the ceiling of their bathroom and on the wall of the bedroom used by their four children, she said.
The toxic scourge struck her home around March 2014 and management sent someone to get rid of it. Workers painted over the problem, she said, and roughly three months later it returned.