It’s October 29, 2020. I have been sleeping on a futon at my parents house for about 7 months. Initially this was a temporary thing as we all embarked on Two Weeks To Flatten The Curve in March 2020. As the two weeks turned into two months the lease on the townhouse I was renting with my (now ex) boyfriend, Kevin, was about to be up. We were planning to buy a house and hoped to line it up relatively smoothly with the ending of the lease but real estate got shut down in PA and so we waited. After the wait we searched. And then we searched and searched some more.
October rolled around and I knew that it was going to be the month.
As the month was coming to a close I was still secure in that knowing.
Sure enough, it’s the 29th and at 8:21 a.m. my phone vibrates and I see that Dawn, our realtor, is messaging us. “Good morning!! Sorry for msg so early. Just sent a listing in *ideal location* WANTED TO BRING IT TO YOUR ATTENTION!! I think it’s perfect!!”
I look at the email and realize she is right. It is perfect!! I am blowing up Kevins’s phone. He’s working away and often doesn’t have service or is too busy to look at his phone for hours at a time. Finally I accept this fact and decide to take matters into my own hands.
“Oh wow! It looks pretty perfect to me! Kevin is working right now and won’t reply to me blowing up his phone 😂 I’m going to make an executive decision that we need to go see it. I’m free anytime!”
At 1:15 p.m. I show up, meeting my dad and Dawn there. I asked my dad to stop by to look at the “man things” that I wouldn’t be concerned with or know much about. Kevin is still working and not replying to me so he has no idea that I have found our house!! I video it all and take so many pictures, already planning out where my new library/yoga studio will be and which room will be the bedroom.
Once responds I send him everything and we talk about it over FaceTime, quickly deciding that it is the one. He is willing to purchase the home sight unseen, trusting my judgment completely on such a big decision.
I rest peacefully on the futon that night knowing that the days of sleeping here are limited and a permanent living situation is 48 days away.
December 15 is here, closing day! At 2:30 p.m. we show up to the house to do the final walkthrough. Kevin and I head to the basement last and find that the washer and dryer that were part of the deal aren’t here. The previous owners must have taken them even though it was written in the contract that they wouldn’t. Okay, there’s an issue to iron out. We head upstairs, Kevin following behind me. I hear a loud thunk and turn around to see Kevin has just hit his head on the ceiling above the steps, doubling over in severe pain. A bump forms immediately and it’s big! My senses started to awaken. Hmmm, should we be doing this? It’s not too late to back out. The papers haven’t been signed yet.
I quickly talk myself out of that headspace because I knew that we’d find the house this past October and on the 29th it happened!! I will have a nice space to do yoga and put my books. I can sleep in my own bed. Unload my clothes from garbage bags into a real closet! The thoughts of what this home will bring me almost outweighed the sinking feeling I have in my stomach.
Almost.
Closing is at 3 p.m. a few minutes down the road so we have to head out quite quickly. We hop in the car and lose Dawn in traffic. No biggie because I have the address pulled up on my phone. We park and enter the office building. As we’re walking around I realize that the name of the closing office is nowhere to be found. “They’re not in here,” I say to Kevin who tells me that they must be because that’s what Google says. “Google has to be wrong because they’re not here!” I snap back, stressed that we’re going to be late and annoyed with his tone.
After a few minutes of walking back and forth in the hallway I pull up the business name again and click on their Facebook page which displays a different address. I scroll back a few posts and see that a few months ago they moved so Google was indeed wrong! The new location isn’t far but it’s far enough that we’re about to be late to the closing. “Let’s go,” I say as the gps loads. We bust out of the door and begin almost running down the street, forgetting any attempts at even trying to park closer to the place to risk not getting a space and being even later. As we are dashing down the street the sinking feeling in my stomach is revived and quickly transforms into a deeply rooted knowing that we shouldn’t do this. I don’t say anything to Kevin and he says nothing to me but I can tell that he’s thinking the same thing.
Showing up to the wrong place is the third strike in the past 45 minutes.
For reasons that won’t be revealed until months later, we continue on and arrive at the right place, seeing the businesses name on the door. We pause for a moment to collect ourselves and then we head inside.
It’s two days later and we’re at the house cleaning with my parents and sister. When Kevin and I showed up this morning it was to a driveway full of snow. It took us over an hour to shovel it together. We talk about how we’re going to have to buy a snow blower or some type of plow because this sucks. Finally, we head inside and get started on the cleaning with my family arriving soon after.
My sister, Ash, mentions that we should pull the refrigerator out and clean behind it. Yeah, that seems like a good idea. As it’s pulled out I am blown away by what I’m seeing. Mold.
So. Much. Mold!!!
An ENTIRE WALL of mold! No exaggeration.
I don’t understand the full extent of why mold is bad or how to handle it but I know enough to recognize that this is not good. I’ve heard stories of how sick it has made people and I’m concerned. The back of the fridge is rusting from what I assume to be moisture? I don’t know. But it is rusty and moldy and I do not want it. We push it out the door and onto the back patio. Add a new fridge to the list, making it priority over the washer and dryer we don’t have.
We decide to pull the stove out too and while we don’t find the same situation, it is a gross one nonetheless. Onto the patio it goes and onto the list it goes too.
“Let’s clean the wall, spray it with bleach, and let it sit for the night,” someone suggests. I don’t let anyone touch the mold until we have masks. “We need masks!!” I say in panic. My dad brought his work truck and thankfully has N95 masks for all of us. Kevin thinks the masks are dramatic but too bad. A few sprays of bleach sends me into the next room and eventually outside. It’s too strong, I can’t handle it.
If only I would have know what was coming.
The next day we come back to find a clean wall and less of a bleach smell. We head to Lowe’s and buy new appliances, putting the fridge flush against the wall and cabinets, pretending that nothing happened.
We move in all of our stuff, begin to unpack as much as possible before Christmas rolls around, and Kevin heads back to work as I go to my parents for the holidays. Back to the futon, I go! This time I don’t mind because I know I have a bed waiting at home for me to come back to.
Once I’m home after Christmas I work to get settled into our new space even more and I promise myself that I’ll never again move around Christmas again.
Around New Years it hits me. I think I’m getting sick with Covid. I’m congested and tired. So strange. I decide to go to my parents that weekend because since we don’t have a washer and dryer and I need to do laundry. We’re waiting a bit to buy them since we had to buy a new refrigerator and stove. I hang out with the family and by the end of the weekend I’m realizing that I’m feeling better. Awesome! Cold, Covid, whatever it was is gone and it wasn’t bad at all. Back home I go and within a few hours my symptoms come back with a vengeance. This is strange but I accept it and work to build a new routine in my new space.
Quickly other symptoms begin to reveal themselves. Weird digestive issues. Headaches. A different feeling of anxiety. They do go away, only when I leave the house for a day or two.
It isn’t long before I really start to wonder about the mold behind the fridge. What if there’s more? What if it’s back? Or maybe its behind the wall?
My research begins and it’s not long before I realize that there has to be a mold problem. When I’m not in this house I feel okay but within a few hours of coming back I feel crazy. People come over to hang out for a few hours and no one else has symptoms, just me. It’s gotten to the point where things are so bad that I have to run outside to catch my breath each time the heat comes on. I am dashing outside over and over again in the dark chill of January. The cold air kisses my lungs as relief floods my cells. The brain fog makes me feel like I’m swimming deep under water. I am delayed at responding to people. I stare at my computer reading sentences and then sitting while the words process in my mind to finally reach a level of comprehension. My mind moves in slow motion. Insomnia is a riddle I can’t quite crack and plagues me with exhaustion. I only sleep 1-2 hours per night.
I am desperate and no one believes me that the mold could be the problem. No one takes it seriously when I voice my concerns about using bleach, something you are NOT supposed to do. I’m a crazy hypochondriac. That’s all. I am dismissed.
Meanwhile, along with these symptoms, I am terrified to leave the house. Fear consumes me at the thought of it but I know I have to get some groceries that we need while Kevin is away. The grocery store is a quick 5 minute drive down the road but I cannot stand to do it while leaving Lily and Molly here. And so, I load them up in the car and have them sit there while I rush into the store, shop at record speed, and get back to them as quickly as possible. Fear. Fear. Fear. It is all I know.
At this point my relationship with Kevin is not good. Not good at all. He is angry at me for acting this way about the house I wanted. The house I picked. He wouldn’t have bought it if it wasn’t for me wanting it. I know this. And I continue to hear it all the time as I consistently bring up the fact that I think there is mold in the house and I can’t live here like this.
I continue to research obsessively and I come across the ERMI test. I conclude that this is an easy way to determine if there is a potential issue because Kevin is not okay with bringing a professional in and you can do ERMIs yourself. I buy one and have it overnighted to me. Cha-ching!! I just signed up to work with a new practitioner to get some answers and the $400 price tag of the ERMI test brings feelings of stress and guilt but I continue to tell myself that it’s not a frivolous purchase. It’s a necessity.
It’s a long night with basically no sleep, as usual. I sit like a guard dog watching for FedEx to show up with my package the next day. Finally they arrive. It’s 2:00 p.m. and time is not on my side to get this to the post office for the 3 p.m. deadline to have it overnighted back to the lab but I am determined and I will make it happen.
To his credit, even though Kevin is not supportive of testing the house, he helps me with the ERMI and I am in line at the post office at 2:45 p.m. paying even more money to overnight this back to the lab.
Unfortunately, it takes four days to receive the results. The post office did not deliver on their guarantee and there was a holiday and a weekend, making it a very long four days. I end up taking Lily and Molly to stay with my parents because I can’t stand the thought of them living in mold unable to tell me that it is possibly affecting them like it is affecting me.
I receive the email sitting at the kitchen table. The results are not good. In fact, they’re really, really bad. Part of me is relieved to know that I am not crazy and there is validity to what I am experiencing. Another part of me knows that nothing good is ahead for my relationship or my living situation.
I pack up a small bag of my computer, some clothes, Lily’s food, and a book. Then I head to my parents and the futon where I’ve decided I’ll be staying until we figure this out.
The following days are hard. I think I am dying. My blood pressure is through the roof and my pulse is beating at record speed. I am reacting to everything in every moment and a few days after leaving I end up in the emergency room thinking I’m dying.
This is less than a year after the start of Covid and the Covid regulations are still at an all time high. My mom isn’t allowed into the hospital with me. She has to wait in the car. I cry but they don’t care. I am sitting in the regular emergency room for a bit before I am forced into an isolation room. When I got here I was very careful not to mention any symptoms correlated with Covid because I did not want this. I did not need this. And yet, here I am.
Even though the nurse took my vitals without PPE he puts me in this room, leaves, comes back in PPE, and tests me. I have had a lot of tests in my life and this is one of the worst. He tests me and leaves me alone in this room even though I am afraid I’ll pass out, which I told them. They didn’t come back to see me until the test result was back about an hour later.
It was negative, of course.
Now that I am perceived to be safe to be around, they care enough to come address my concerns that I am dying, or at least having a heart attack.
They do test after test and everything comes back okay. I tell them all about the mold but they don’t believe it. A clear x-ray shows no sign of mold in my lungs. I am given an Ativan and told to relax for a few minutes before they let me go. I take the Ativan but I do not take it. I shove it in my sock because while I do feel anxious, anxiety is not my problem. I will not take it. They are confused as to why my blood pressure isn’t coming down, but not confused enough to care. Sometime after 2:00 a.m. they finally let me go.
I think my parents might believe me now but Kevin doesn’t and neither do the doctors. I am alone in this fight.
It takes me four months to be able to take a deep breath again. I have spent countless nights sleeping with my head on my pillow on my window sill with the window open to get fresh air. I am in a constant need for fresh air but it is never enough. I fear being alone because the dizziness takes over and stays for the longest time, consuming my being and ability to function. I break out in hives and get eczema on my face. I do not want to eat and I don’t know what to eat because my digestion is a wreck. In fact, everything is a wreck. I do not know how I’ll be okay again.
After desperate searching I finally find a naturopath who helps me and I experience breathing again and very slowly see that healing is possible.
While my health is improving, my relationship is not. Kevin is still living at the home and not believing me but also entertaining “fixing” the issues so that I will move back in. Well, all of my belongings are still there and when I visit I wear full PPE, but otherwise, my human self exists outside of that space. The mold home.
I worry for his health but also feel conflicted by that because he doesn’t worry about mine enough to take this seriously. After six years where does this leave us? What will come of our relationship if we are permanently living in separate places?
I recommend to spruce the place up a bit, like we planned to do for ourselves, and sell it. He refuses. I recommend getting a professional but one that I approve of who focuses on sensitive individuals with mold remediation. He refuses but agrees to someone local who doesn’t. We have them come out to assess things and I can tell the guy thinks I’m crazy in my N95 mask but I don’t care. He points out a few concerns in the basement that I didn’t see before, gives us a quote, and goes on his way. He doesn’t take the area near the fridge seriously because he can’t see anything. I also do not agree with his method of fixing things and Kevin doesn’t believe they need professionally fixed to begin with. Kevin continues on with “fixing” those issues himself and by the end of April we test with ERMI again. This time I do the slowest turn around time possible because my money is all being sunk into my naturopath and supplements. We wait over a week for the results and when they come in I am just getting back from a walk with a friend. I’m at my parents standing in the driveway as she drives away and I open the email. It is not good. This time it is worse. I am not surprised but I am not happy either. The past year has knocked me down time and time again and I anticipate even more struggle heading my way.
I text Kevin and tell him we have to talk about the results. When he sees them he is mad and solid in the fact that he isn’t selling or fixing anything. He is living there. I am furious that he is acting this way. We are living in different worlds. I see no way to a common ground. I break up with him. I am done.
He spews hatred my way and I know I deserve it while also realizing that I don’t deserve it. It’s a both/and, just like most things.
After going through all of my stuff, getting rid of a ton and cleaning the rest, I can see it all from a distance. I see that the mold house was exactly what we were supposed to buy. It was the one. Not for the reasons that we thought. Not for some happy ever after. No. It was the one because we both needed out of that relationship.
I knew it for a while. I journaled about it. His actions and reactions to my struggles showed me that he felt it too. But six years together. A lot comes with that. Memories. Comfort. Commitment. And the fact that it wasn’t horrible. It wasn’t an awful relationship. The last few years it just weren’t good ones either.
The universe knocked on the door and told me that it needed to end countless times. I felt it. I heard it. But I brushed that all aside for the excuses that I wanted to make to keep me in the bubble of comfort and safety. Finally, the universe quit knocking and busted the door down, taking my health, sanity, personal space, home, and belongings with it. That was not okay for a while, but now I see more clearly and see what a gift it was. I wasn’t given what I wanted, I was given exactly what I needed. I was given an experience that got me out of a relationship that needed to end, cleansed my physical body and my personal belongings, resulted in me being with my husband, starting and completing 75 Hard, and humbling me to the experience of life. Humbling me to the treasure of listening and connecting more with myself… and with everything else too.
I got exactly what I needed and more.
And now, I am okay.
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