It was home sweet home for Velvet Platel, 32, and her two sons, Matix, 10, and Chase, five, until she discovered black mold in her bathroom and storage room.
Platel recently signed a one-year lease with a Timbercreek Communities apartment. She said a few days after moving in, she noticed the wall in her bathroom was soaked.
She said she contacted her property manager to repair the damage, but he didn’t respond to her.
“I’ve been trying to call and leaving voicemails. They haven’t been replying to anything,” Platel told CTV News.
Three months later, after Platel threatened to take legal action, contractors came to her unit. They opened up parts of her wall and baseboards, exposing black mold.
The President of Timbercreek Communities, David Melo told CTV News in an e-mail that he and his team are aware of Platel’s situation and are working with her to “resolve [it] as soon as possible”
Platel said it’s been more than three weeks since her walls were cut open and no one has come back to remove the black mold.
“We went to the doctors … and they gave me a doctor’s note saying we’re sick due to our living conditions,” she said.
Platel said she and her sons are suffering from migraines, stomach pain, and are constantly coughing. She said her sons don’t want to use the bathroom because they find it hard to breathe in there.
While Platel said she doesn’t want to live in these conditions, she said as a single mother with a single income, she doesn’t have anywhere else to go.
“They haven’t even offered to give us an empty suite, just to at least use the bathroom,” Platel said. “It’s kind of a pain, it’s very frustrating.”
