The following is an overview, without going into great detail:

A Brief Historical Recap

I moved in to the apartment in early 1982, at 18 years old.
That previous year I had worked at a top Gym/Spa on Long Island as a Certified Fitness Trainer, and I ran the main/men’s fitness classes. Once I moved into the city, to go to school, I got a job at various gyms there. As you might imagine, I was in excellent health. I would wake up early every day of the week and either run the loop around Central Park’s Reservoir (around 7 miles), or go straight to the gym.

The apartment had always, and does to this day, have a musty odor. When questioned, the landlord and Super would repeated say that it was because it was a first floor “garden” apartment. And I was simply smelling the garden dirt outside the windows, and the earth below, as it was built on slab construction (Which since, has been proven to promote mold growth.) We have since learned that very smell is tale-tell for mold. They are created by mold VOCs, and have themselves been linked to metabolic and mitochondrial dysfunction, and cancer.

But before the end of my first year in the apartment, I could hardly get out of bed. I was suffering from head to toe body aches and pains. So bad that my grandmother gave me her heating pad. I also started having migraine headaches, vision issues, and unending chronic fatigue. I could no longer work. And many days I could no longer get out of bed. I would often get up, have breakfast, watch the Phil Donahue Show or whatever was on, and then fall right back to sleep for a few hours.

Finally I became a patient of the legendary Dr. Robert Atkins, who had the largest private practice in Manhattan, and an entire building on East 56th st. While he was treating me, he would repeatedly ask, “Does your apartment building have a mold issue?” But when I would ask the management, they would repeatedly tell me no. (This would turn out to be a lie.) I was diagnosed with chronically low thyroid level. In years to come, exposure to toxic molds showed direct links to endocrine issues, and often thyroid in particular.

Two things would become evident, although not early on. One was that when I would leave the city to stay with family, I would start to feel better. Though I was never up to running the Reservoir again. The other was that I didn’t always feel as sick while in the apartment, it would ebb and flow. Winter months, which corresponds to the least amount of mold growth, were the best.

This was not just me. I had roommates through my college years. Two of them moved out due to undiagnosed illness. Moving back to live with their families. A third would complain about breathing issues in the apartment. My first wife, then my GF, also had an odd issue with the place. So much that she decided to get another place, and ask me to move in with her there. I did spend a lot of time there, and can say that through the remaining 80s, my health improved.

After marriage she gave up that apartment and moved back in with me. Both of our health took a nose-dive. She had been an avid tennis player and runner. But could no longer do any of those things things. We would joke about getting “older”. We also began to have uncontrollable weight issues, chronic dandruff and skin issues. All typical symptoms of mold disease and damp building syndrome. We split in 1995, and she moved out,. Just 2 years later she was feeling so much healthier that she ran her first NYC Marathon. And continued to do that for a number of more years.

As many young couples do, we had adopted a dog. A healthy and happy puppy. But within the first year she began growing dark skin tags all over her body. And by 5-years old was diagnosed with Mast Cell Tumors. After a number of operations at the Animal Medical Center on York ave, her oncologist gave her just three months to live.

I began studying Macrobiotic Nutrition, nicknamed the “Anti-Cancer Diet” with the Master, Michio Kushi, and became a Macrobiotic Nutritionist in the process. I changed her diet, no more dog food. And I brought her to stay out on Long Island. Literally within weeks the tumor, which had started to regrow immediately after each surgery, was beginning to shrink. She was becoming a new dog, looking like a puppy again. She would spend a lot of her time out there over the next two years. But shortly after returning to the apartment, she began having seizures. Nobody could figure out why. And then one particularly powerful seizure killed her.

Many years later, we now know that Mast Cell disease and its cancers are linked to toxic mold. And that the condition is also linked to seizures.

A CLUSTER: NEIGHBORS DYING

It was not just our family. Our next door neighbors were also having horrible health issues. The couple’s wife, who professed to have been thin her whole life had become obese. No matter what, she could not lose it.

Circa 1992, the husband, a nice soft-spoken man, informed me that he had a very serious lung condition. My response was, “Lung cancer? But I didn’t think you smoked.” He replied that he didn’t, and his doctors were all confused. He then went on to explain it wasn’t actually cancer. What he had would progressively stopping him from breathing. I cannot say for sure, but I have a memory of him telling me it was something called “Aspergillosis.” A condition I would also be afflicted with years later. Before his passing, he asked that I look after his wife, my neighbor. I always tried to do just that.

At the same time, in an apartment behind us, lived the Super. We were not close, but anyone could see that he and his wife had become morbidly obese. Easily in the 300lbs. zone. They were both on walkers, what little they got out, also on some type of respirators. All succeeding Supers lived in the same apartment, and at least two told me it had mold problems during their time there.

Throughout that time and later, everyone’s pets would die of outlandishly serious conditions. Cancers, seizures, kidney failure, multi-organ failure. Pets truly are the “canary in the coalmine”.

Out of Town, And Back

In the mid 90s I too was not well, but after my divorce I met a woman who had lived in Florida and understood mold as I had not. After just one visit, she would no longer come to the apartment, so I spent most of my time at her place. And my health once again returned. Like my ex who moved to the west side, I too reverted in years, like turning back the clock. I became an avid rollerblader, skating upwards of 25 miles in an afternoon. By 1999 I was back in the city full time. Skating, and killing it in business. I felt great. But as the following years passed, that energy and health again fell away. And by the early 2000’s I was sick once again.

At this time I had a new GF, later my second wife. She was younger than me and in perfect physical health. But not for long. After living with me for a while she had recurring skin infections, recurring toenail fungus and became overly sensitive to processed foods. She would later be diagnosed with chronically low B12 levels and mental health issues. Both we now know are very common by-products of mold exposure. Psychology Today Magazine and many PubMed research studies have confirmed this. As has the well known Dr, Amen, of PBS and brain-scan fame.

By 2009 the mold in the walls of the building was starting to show through in a significant way. But the management would only paint over the patches, never properly remediate. My wife was totally correct wanting to get our son away from it. How much this exacerbated our relationship and lead to a divorce I cannot say. but it did not help matters. However, knowing what was to come, I am glad our child was removed.

From 2009 through 2016 I had repeat contact and meetings with management, which at this time was the high-profile Stonehenge Properties. they refused to make repairs. Instead, I an other older tenants were being harassed with fraudulent charges in Landlord/Tenant Court. I was charged with not being a primary tenant, it was thrown out. I was then charged with not being myself, the person on the lease. That too was thrown out. but they also got the court to allow throwing out many tenants.

Now as a single father, my Mother would come over and help with my son. She began spending a lot of time with us at the apartment. And getting sicker. After a number of years, at the start of 2016, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She died of it by November of the same year. Just three years later, in 2019, the well regarded pear-review medical journal “Nature” ran the first of other studies linking Toxic molds to pancreatic cancer. This has since been confirmed by other independent studies.

Circa 2017, I too was diagnosed with cancer. Mine was in my chest, and I had to go through three operations to ensure full removal. And was on a form of chemo therapy afterwards.