To look at we thought 'this is it, we'll be here for the next few years till we leave Sydney'. It was a dream home. Beautiful, bright, spacious, built only 4 years ago at the time, incredible storage. I started experiencing neurological and cardiac symptoms within 3 weeks of living here. My son got nosebleeds almost every day. I hired a building biologist to see what was the problem and she found ludicrously high EMF levels and a problem with waterproofing in one of the bathrooms and a bit of moisture in my son's room. Turns out there was a collection of phone towers just 80 metres from our home.
I bought some EMF protective clothes to help with sleep and my son still got nosebleeds and I still had most of my symptoms, so I got some mould testing done and the tests came back with astronomical levels of Chaetomium and Aspergillus. Chaetomium is neurotoxic and Aspergillus tends to affect allergies/respiratory, our symptoms explained.
When there were big rains, no matter how many dehumidifiers we used, the indoor humidity would hover around 90%. At one point there was a bulge of paint filled with water in the corner of the kitchen. My husband, who's with the SES, assessed and found an external building crack that water could get into. Mould started growing a week later. The owners were actually lovely people probably couldn't understand why their beautiful new building was having fault issues. I really felt for them. The agent was lovely too.
Most people really just don't understand how toxic these issues can be to people. Everything felt wet over the summer. It was awful. We tried to explain everything but were still made to pay a break lease plus full rent. If I'd had my time again I'd have put together all of our evidence to receive compensation as we had to replace all soft furnishings when leaving, not to mention having to move after only a few months. I was so sick. I don't want anyone else to feel that way.
