Tabatha Noel has been concerned about the air quality in the two-bedroom basement apartment she shares with her special needs son since she started having breathing problems this winter.
“I’ve been getting dizzy, I’ve been getting rashes,” she said in an interview on Thursday.
In June, she wrote a letter outlining her concerns to her landlord at the instruction of the Residential Tenancy Tribunal.
Nothing came of it, and in late July, she discovered green and black mold covering the walls of her bathroom, living room and kitchen.
After spending the whole day cleaning the walls, and throwing out furniture with mold on it, she had to call an ambulance.
“I was having trouble breathing; I had the red eyes, the puffy eyes, they were almost closed,” she said.
She was taken to the emergency room and diagnosed with a lung infection.
She was prescribed several medications to manage the infection, and an emergency room doctor wrote a medical note saying she needed to vacate her apartment until the mold was taken care of.
Noel pays for her apartment using a subsidy through NB Housing.
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She says if she leaves her apartment, she would lose the subsidy and would be unable to afford an apartment on her own.
She’s contacted NB Housing, who directed her to contact the province’s Residential Tenancy Tribunal again.
She said she hasn’t contacted the tribunal again because she found the process frustrating and ineffective in June.
“Because they were gonna tell me the same thing: ‘Write him a letter, give him seven days to fix the problem or we’ll come in and talk for you,'” she said.
She said when she called her landlord, he sent a maintenance person who brought in a malfunctioning dehumidifier.
When she told the maintenance person a doctor had told her not to stay in the apartment, she said he threatened to get her evicted.
“He said, ‘Oh yeah, well I can make sure you guys won’t be here,'” she said.
While she is concerned for her health as well as that of her son, she is fearful of eviction because she has nowhere else to go.
Service New Brunswick and NB Housing both told Global News on Thursday they were working on a response, but were unable to provide one in time for publication.
Global News reached out to Noel’s landlord, Chad MacLean, for comment on Thursday.
While MacLean did not reply by publication deadline, following Global News’ inquiry he contacted Noel to offer to install an air exchanger in her unit, something Noel said he had previously refused to do.