A woman says black mold in her apartment's air conditioning unit left her suffering from "burning" skin - and left her forking out $10k to move and replace her things.
Autumn Clayman, 29, started suffering from a burning sensation around her face and began to see red marks appear on her skin shortly after moving into her new apartment in Los Angeles, California, in February 2024.
Unable to sleep properly, she then started developing eczema on the affected red areas and her allergies were flaring up.
Unsure of what was causing this sudden change, Autumn cut out certain foods to see if things improved but they didn't.
By June of this year, Autumn's flare ups got worse and she was sure it was something in her apartment.
She stayed at her boyfriend's for two weeks - during which time her symptoms began to ease.
Feeling confident it was her apartment that was causing her problems, Autumn paid $780 for testing.
Results showed she had black mold in both of her air conditioning units - which had been blasting cold air throughout the apartment.
Her landlord apologised and performed two deep cleans of the apartment before Autumn moved back in but she says her symptoms started again within days.
She was eventually able to get out of her lease and moved into a new apartment in September.
She estimates she spent $10k replacing contaminated furniture and clothes, on medical appointments for her skin and mold tests.
Autumn Clayman, 29, started suffering from a burning sensation around her face and began to see red marks appear on her skin shortly after moving into her new apartment in Los Angeles, California, in February 2024.
Unable to sleep properly, she then started developing eczema on the affected red areas and her allergies were flaring up.
Unsure of what was causing this sudden change, Autumn cut out certain foods to see if things improved but they didn't.
By June of this year, Autumn's flare ups got worse and she was sure it was something in her apartment.
She stayed at her boyfriend's for two weeks - during which time her symptoms began to ease.
Feeling confident it was her apartment that was causing her problems, Autumn paid $780 for testing.
Results showed she had black mold in both of her air conditioning units - which had been blasting cold air throughout the apartment.
Her landlord apologised and performed two deep cleans of the apartment before Autumn moved back in but she says her symptoms started again within days.
She was eventually able to get out of her lease and moved into a new apartment in September.
She estimates she spent $10k replacing contaminated furniture and clothes, on medical appointments for her skin and mold tests.
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FunTranscript
00:00I'm currently healing from black molds after living in a moldy apartment, so I'm gonna share some symptoms that I experienced
00:05So the first thing was burning like a burning sensation. I would feel this all over my skin specifically my face and my neck
00:12I would walk into my apartment and my neck and face would burn
00:16The second thing that I experienced was eczema first it started off as like a little speck on my neck
00:22And then it started spreading pretty quickly. I'm also now trying to heal from eczema
00:27It was spreading all over my arms my legs my neck the third thing is
00:32Allergies and just congestion. I was feeling congested more than ever
00:37I have sinus issues, but I couldn't breathe most of the time breathing in my apartment was difficult
00:43The fourth thing is burning itchy eyes
00:46My eyes were always irritated and the fifth thing was extreme fatigue no matter how much sleep
00:52I got I constantly felt exhausted and tired with mold
00:56It's not always visible. So it's kind of just hard to identify what the issue is. I ran through all the scenarios
01:03I spent a ton of money trying to figure out what was going on
01:07and my conclusion was it has to be my apartment because I have never experienced health issues like this before and
01:14My stress levels weren't any different than they have been before in the past
01:17I've never dealt with eczema before just like in your place tested for mold is expensive
01:22I ended up getting my place tested and ended up finding out that I have black molds since being out of my apartment
01:28My symptoms have healed rapidly. My skin is clearing up. I'm starting to feel better
01:34Who knows where else mold was?
01:36I guarantee that there was mold in other areas
01:38But because testing is expensive and landlords are only gonna fix what is visible and what they can see they're not gonna test new areas
01:47Oftentimes mold lives behind the walls under the flooring so you can't always see it, which is
01:52frustrating
01:53So that's where you have to like go out of your way and get your own testing
01:57But like realistically not everyone could afford that and I couldn't afford to test a bunch of different areas
02:02So I just went with what I saw
02:05Basically what protocol is so I was able to break my lease and they gave me my deposit back
02:09I didn't spend any other additional money outside of the testing that I had to pay
02:13What protocol is is your landlord needs to act within 30 days?
02:17So for those who don't know people are saying, you know, I can't break my lease. I don't have the money
02:22I didn't have to pay any money because it was an unhealthy environment for me to live in if you go through your lease agreement
02:28There's a full section about mold and what the protocol is and what they need to be doing
02:32So look over that in California as renters. We have a ton of rates
02:37So, you know, we're protected in a lot of ways
02:41So basically I confronted them they handled the situation
02:45They did the whole remediation process which took about three weeks and then I had to move back in
02:50I can't just be like I'm dipping out first. They have to do what they need to do
02:55And then I moved back in hoping that the environment was fine, and it still made me sick
03:01And the thing with mold if you have a reaction to it now anytime
03:05I would go into my apartment like immediately the reaction would you know
03:08My autoimmune condition would flare up my eczema would flare up
03:11My symptoms would come back pretty quickly now that my body is so sensitive to mold
03:15So because of that I confronted them and I let them know, you know because of my for my health and safety
03:21I can no longer live here. I want to be taken off of the and then in terms of the moving out process I
03:27unfortunately threw away thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars worth of
03:32Furniture and just things that I couldn't take because my whole place was infested with the mold
03:37I had to get specific cleaner to clean my clothes
03:41And I basically just got rid of everything which obviously sucks now I'm living in a new home so
03:48Yeah, it's been a journey, but I was able to get out of it
03:51I was able to break my lease and they are giving me my deposit back which I'm really grateful for and then I'm gonna send
03:56Them a spreadsheet of all the items that I had to throw out and see if they can match that number if
04:02They refuse to I'm gonna go to a small claims court or I will follow through with one of the lawyers that I've been speaking
04:08To I got my test results back a few weeks ago. I went through a mosaic diagnostics
04:13And I did their mycotoxin level
04:15I did their mycotoxin test and
04:17Basically, it's just a urine sample test you send that in it takes three to four weeks for your results to come back
04:23And then they'll send you
04:26You know everything that they tested
04:29Different the different types of mold that is in your body if there is mold present
04:34the levels and then
04:36What to do so like protocol and how you can detox it out of the body earlier this year
04:40I moved into an apartment with black mold, which made me extremely sick
04:43My video went viral hanging over 3 million views
04:45So I'm sharing an update my landlord ended up remediating the place
04:48But shortly after moving in my symptoms returned even worse for the sake of my health and safety
04:51I decided the apartment wasn't habitable out of throw anything that was porous and basically started from scratch
04:56It took me three to four days to get rid of everything an additional two to three weeks to deep clean everything before moving it
05:02Into my new place. I'm currently living with my bestie
05:04I'm so grateful to be living with Sian after months of living in fight-or-flight mode. I can really finally focus on healing
05:09Detoxing and seeing different specialists to help support me with the symptoms that I've been experiencing in part three
05:14I'll share everything that I've been doing to heal
05:16But right now I'm in a trial and error period to see what works and what doesn't