Homewood House residents sue Baltimore City housing authority over

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Jan 24, 2005 by Peter Geier

Three middle-aged residents of public housing for people with disabilities each seek $3.2 million in damages in a negligence action against the Housing Authority of Baltimore City over their alleged exposure to black mold and fungi contamination.

But Johnnie Pratt, Louise Bills and Mary Roy claim they were not the only ones to feel the effects of stachybotrys and penicillum/ aspergillus stemming from water damage in their apartments and the common areas of Homewood House in the city's East Baltimore Midway community.

A city investigator who took their statements in September 2003 began to be noticeably uncomfortable and began scratching his body, commenting that there must be something in the air that was irritating his skin, the complaint says.

Bills, who said she has lived in the building for seven years, traces the problems to a leaky roof, adding that though the city has made numerous repairs to the water-damaged interior, it has never addressed the source of the trouble - and at first denied the mold complaints.

All this first started about four years ago when the roof started leaking, Bills said, and it's just been ongoing. I don't know how many times they fixed the ceilings and walls.

Housing authority spokesman David Tillman said the agency had not been served with the complaint and does not comment on pending litigation.

Scott E. Nevin, the lawyer for Bills and the other plaintiffs, said this is the first black-mold lawsuit that his firm, The Law Offices of Peter T. Nicholl, has filed against the city housing authority; more could follow.

We've been involved in this case since 2003, Nevin said. We made the housing authority aware of the conditions that exist, but they have only - apparently - done cosmetic repairs to the building.

The conditions still exist today and I believe the city - the health department and the fire department - needs to take a look at this building, he said.

The health department issued violations against the housing department in 2003 over the mold, prompting the city finally to move Pratt last August from an efficiency apartment he had occupied for three years to another apartment in the same building, the complaint says.

The housing department also made repairs to several apartments, but not to the common areas, according to the complaint.

They've done some work, but the condition still exists, Nevin said. I've informed the housing authority of that and still they're not able to make the correction. It's because the conditions still exist that I feel confident in filing this complaint.

Homewood House, formerly a Baltimore City schoolhouse, is a three- story structure with a basement now used as a laundry and storage area that was sold to the housing department by the board of education, and converted to a residential building with about 10 apartments per floor.

Beginning about February 2002, the apartments and common areas developed water problems such as roof leaks, plumbing leaks and exterior drainage problems resulting in building materials constantly being wet, the complaint alleges.

Poor maintenance and irregular cleaning of the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system spread soot and other unknown particles into the air, prompting tenants' complaints which led at best to superficial repairs, not completely remediating the deteriorated condition, the complaint says.

The agency's purported failure to address these conditions in a timely and workmanlike manner caused mold, fungi and other toxic substances to begin to form in apartments and common areas and spread to other parts of the building, the complaint says.

These substances allegedly caused the plaintiffs medical problems, including neurological damage, that have required treatment and forced them to leave for periods when their apartments were not fit for human habitation, the complaint says.

Each plaintiff seeks $200,000 in compensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages.