The University has yet to be served with the lawsuit involving improper maintenance of an apartment at University Housing’s Spencer View apartment complex, attorney Kenneth P. Dobson, attorney for the former tenants.
Requests for comment from the University and University Housing were directed to the Oregon Department of Justice, which represents the University in lawsuits. A representative from the Office of the Attorney General did not return phone calls by press time Wednesday.
The plaintiffs in the suit are represented by the Dobson Law Fiarm LLC, a Portland-based firm that specializes in environmental law, especially claims regarding mold and water damage.
Dobson said the case is about the University’s “shoddy maintenance” that, he alleges, had failed to prevent mold growth inside the Spencer View apartment. Water was allowed to intrude into the building through a crack in the outer wall, creating conditions that were prime for mold growth, according to lawsuit documents.
Stan Maple, owner of Mold Technologies of Lane County LLC, said that aspergillus mold, the species alleged to have grown inside the plaintiffs’ apartment, has been proven to worsen, but not cause, allergies or asthma in adults. Nevertheless, he said, infants should never be exposed.
“The only thing scientifically proven is that (mold) can affect infants,” Maple said. “A baby raised around it is more likely to develop asthma.”
Maple also said mold can cause flu-like symptoms such as fatigue, nausea and body aches. The lawsuit alleges the adult
plaintiffs suffered from all of these symptoms but Trinidad Fabian-Alvizo, the plaintiffs’ daughter, continues to have chronic health issues.
Trinidad was “a very young infant” at the time she lived in the apartment, Dobson said. She continues to suffer from “bouts of
illness” that Dobson said are the direct result of exposure to the mold growth inside the apartment.
“We fear this has caused permanent damage,” Dobson said.
A study published in the March 2005 issue of “Environmental Health Perspectives” found that children who were exposed to mold were almost twice as likely as other children to develop asthma during the next six years.
According to the suit, the amount of mold in the Spencer View apartment was 1,200 times the “outdoor control concentration levels.” That measure compares how many mold spores are outside and inside a building, Maple said.
Maple’s company, which tests for mold, uses a device that sucks in mold spore samples from both inside and outside of a dwelling. If the number of mold spores inside a home is equal to those outside, it is generally considered a “normal flow,” he said. The measurement inside the Spencer View apartment was not normal.
“Twelve hundred is a much higher number than should be in the house,” Maple said.
Aspergillus and penicillium, the species alleged to have grown in the Spencer View apartment, are two separate forms of mold that are often found growing together. Maple said if these types of mold get up in very high levels, as is the case in the lawsuit, they can cause “major health problems.”
Maple said mold loves moist, dark places, and emphasized the importance of moisture control to prevent it from growing. Mold also hides, he said. People may only see small spots of mold inside their homes, but there can be dangerous amounts hiding inside the wall.