Mold exposure is no joke. I lived in a rented apartment that was flooded badly during Hurricane Sandy (and I was on the 4th floor!). Within a few days of the storm passing I was emailing my landlord, concerned that he apparently hadn’t begun doing anything to reduce likelihood of mold growth. A few weeks later gives us the go ahead to move back in, and within weeks of that I rapidly began developing symptoms.

Initially looked like severe allergies but then I started coughing up blood, waking up gasping for breath, really bad nausea and other GI issues. I was already pissed off with management at this apartment so we moved out about 4 months after the hurricane. While moving out we found all this black mold hiding behind furniture and in corners. Took pictures and then made a point to do mold air quality test before handing over the keys. Saw my PCP who had been overseeing my care the whole time, probably dozens of visits, and mentioned what I found. He then had zero doubt that the mold was causing everything

He ordered a blood test that shows the immune system’s response to mold and it indicated my body was dealing with quite a bit of it. The air tests showed the presence of 3 types/quantities of toxigenic mold and correlated with blood tests

I think it took nearly two years for me to fully recover after moving out of the apartment. Was at least fortunate that all of that documentation allowed me to get a settlement. I had literally emailed the landlord saying I have asthma and the apartment must be safe for me to move back into. I now do mold air tests before I move anywhere

Oddly the house we are about to move into passed the mold air test and then we found a ton of mold in the insulation once we ripped all the drywall out of what is going to be my bedroom