CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. -- Channese Washington has lived at the Ivy Walk Apartments in Chesterfield with her two children for the last three years. But now, she said her apartment has become unbearable and she is ready to move.
She claimed she found mold in her unit and it has impacted her family's health.
"You get dizzy, your throat is hurting and it's hard to breathe," she said.
Washington told the CBS 6 Problem Solvers that leaks and water damage have plagued her apartment.
"I had been telling them since I moved here that this right here leaks into this wire and this wire goes down into here so I have to come in here and patch it up," she said pointing to problem areas in her home.
"It's all up in here all at the top all back there," she said pointing to what appeared to be mold and mildew. "When you come in here, to the bathroom, you got the mold and mildew right there... in the closet, it's growing up the walls, all up the walls."
The CBS 6 Problem Solvers could not confirm conditions in Washington's apartment were directly linked to her family's health problems, but Washington said she knew things were bad when her asthmatic daughter woke up in a panic and could not catch her breath.
She was later diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection.
Washington said she put in multiple requests for help, but the problems were never fixed despite maintenance crews and management coming to her apartment.
"I still kept on emailing them, sending them stuff," she said. "[I'm] still waiting on this to see if someone will be out to fix this problem, once again, my kids have asthma very bad."
Desperate for help, Washington made a Facebook Live video, hoping to draw call attention to the issue.
She said she's put her stuff in storage and staying in a hotel to protect her family’s health.
CBS 6 reached out to the property's management company, S.L. Nusbaum Realty Co., and received this statement, saying in part:
“We acknowledge that she has had a water leak and subsequent issues. The cause of the water leaks have been suspicious and may or may not have been intentionally caused by someone in the resident’s apartment. Our management and maintenance team has been diligent in trying to address these repairs. We have solid documentation on our attempts to make the repairs and her efforts to prevent them, we will be more assertive and less accommodating to Ms. Washington so that we can complete repairs, as we agree they are necessary."
When CBS 6 asked the company to us their documentation they mention in the statement, that shows when they started trying to fix the problem, and they declined. However, they did reiterate that the repairs are underway now.
Since working on the story with Washington, other Ivy Walk tenants have reached out to CBS 6 saying they too have what appears to be mold and mildew problems in their apartments.
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