The Indoor Environment -- London Square Apartments

Before I go further regarding the outdoor Ghetto-ification, I want to "show and tell" a bit here about the sort of indoor environment you can expect in your typical apartment at London Square.  Before about the middle of 2013, I was living with a roommate and his girlfriend.  She had grown concerned about how all of us were getting sick way too frequently, and how our elderly neighbor was also quite ill.

So she went after the vent in the kitchen to find the source.  Now mind you, all of the vents have been covered in many layers of paint over the years.  Which means in order to get into a vent, it's necessary to cut the paint around it.  When she opened it, she found insulation and paint chips bearing a black, powdery substance.

This image also resides on Google Maps for London Square Apartments, the only thing remaining up, since my review has been deleted.

What you see in the image:
1) The large black fibrous object is insulation that's original to the apartment complex's construction.  I know, because management seemed especially proud of that fact.  The blackness in the insulation is of a powdery consistency.

2) The smaller brown, white, and black pieces are paint chip samples.  The black blotches are also powdery.

Concerned that this could be black mold, I saved the samples.  These were collected around November 2012.  I filed a complaint with the "city" of Farmers Branch and they contacted management.  What the manager decided to do to resolve the problem was to find the cheapest vent cleaner that could be located. 

Let me tell you what the vent cleaner guy told me, "You're going to have to supply your own drop cloths.  Spread them out all over your stuff, because I'm going to come in and blow out the vents.  Insulation will be blown all over the apartment, and you don't want it on your stuff."

Do you know what three people--trying to make ends meet on just one part-time, minimum wage job--could use for drop cloths?  Our own bedding.  Does that sound like something you would want to do?  Would you like to supply materials and labor, just to have this substance strewn all over your one bedroom apartment, especially if you suspect it's making you and everyone else in the dwelling sick?

Where were we to go, especially with two cats?  Were we supposed to just stay in here?  Were we to leave?  Where?  Nothing was offered in way of explaining that detail.

Yes, I went to the manager and called off the "vent cleaning".  I still suffer a progressive deterioration, both physically and mentally.

I'd gladly have this apartment, or the samples you see in the photo, tested for black mold.  But I don't trust the local government agencies to do anything competently.

I'll also admit that when I was trying to take a decent picture of those samples, I opened the ziploc bag.  After exposure, I wound up with my soft palate swelling.  I know of at least one other resident that has had that same "choking feeling", like a panic attack.  (When someone with medical training asked, I couldn't remember ever having the other signs of a panic attack--racing heartbeat, sweating palms, etc.)  Yet another person, living on the upper floor of my building, has a horrible, hacking, congested cough.

The elderly lady I mentioned earlier moved after the vent cleaner told her the same thing.  She couldn't afford to do what the cleaner was asking, even though her health was in a rather poor state.  She had hypersensitivity to everything that could be breathed, aches, pains, respiratory problems--most of which I suffer now.

Again, this is another reason to want to avoid living at London Square Apartments.