Silverfish & silver linings.

If you’re seeing this, I’m still alive and kicking. If you’re seeing this and I owe you a response, that’s coming next. Scouts honor. 🫡

If you’ve ever moved, plan to move, been sick and didn’t know why, or are just in for some interesting tales that may help you at a later date, keep reading. If not, all good. You can archive it, but this is my free form of therapy. 😅

Buckle up… here we go!

October 2023 – Moving on up

Mark and I upgraded to a 2/2 townhome (TH) in October 2023. We were so thrilled for the extra space, a private driveway for Gronk the Bronc(o), and garage for yoga times. However, shortly after moving in I got super sick with a sinus infection. Then Mark.

February 2024 – Sick of being sick

Fast forward, we were sick on and off for monthssss following and didn’t know why. On President’s Day, the weather had just changed from being wicked cold, to brisk and sunny. I ran around the house opening all the windows thinking fresh air could do our sick some good. To my surprise, each and every single window was covered in black mold and spores. 🤮 I spent 8 hours on the holiday cleaning with 2 bottles of bleach, 6 paper towel rolls, and 1 tile/grout scrubber. I could not go to sleep knowing we were surrounded my mold.

After sharing this alarming information with the leasing office, one of the maintenance guys came over with 1 paper towel role and a spray bottle the next day. I laughed and said I already did it and that would not have been enough. He couldn’t believe the photos vs how cleaned up it was now.

Another week went by until a mold expert came out. We needed to know if the quality of our air was OK as mold could also be hidden behind walls that is unseen to us. He said he needed to give our complex a quote on next steps and that I should run dehumidifiers upstairs and downstairs, in addition to purchasing Benefect disinfectant (kills mold, but people and animal safe! Order it if you get a mold pop up).

2 days later, leasing brought over 2 industrial dehumidifiers. Our TH was 70% humidity when plugged in. For reference, the average home should be 30-50%. We had to run these 24 hours a day, dump the gallons of water it captured 2x/day, just to maintain the high end of 48-50% humidity. This told us moisture was not going to stop entering our apartment no matter how low we ran our AC or how long we kept these suckers plugged in. Our electric bill was going to be obscene. To top it all off, we found silverfish in our apartment. Silverfish are not harmful, but if there’s one, there’s plenty more. That was the breaking point.

In the midst of all of this, we were given permission to break our lease with a 30 day notice until a solution was found. Leasing offered to come do an air duct cleaning prior to doing any air quality testing. We wanted the reverse in the case that construction had to be done to remove any mold, that the air ducts would be cleaned after the dust storm. We were denied.

So I started packing. Thankfully due to my flexibility with work, I began the thing I was good at in another lifetime and began packing things in waves. First things are those that are decorative and you don’t need on a daily basis. That was picture frames. Get this… each and every photo I took off the wall had rusted nails. MOISTURE problem, friends. I was floored. I left the nails in the walls during our move and on the day we gave back the keys. It was my constant reminder to get out and move on.

Mark and I spent the next 3 weeks hunting for a rental in the area. After seeing over 15+ apartment complexes and a few SFHs & THs, we selected a complex that we didn’t even have on our list — total drive-by find and in an area that’s super convenient to the beaches, our fav places, downtown, and Tampa. Plus it was close to a Wawa! (IYKYK!).

We signed the lease to move in March 15th. It checked all our boxes except for garage/dedicated parking but after a few night time drive bys, we decided it wouldn’t be an issue for Gronk. The complex was built in 2020, the end unit had concrete block exterior (wood interior, which I’ll get to shortly), double pane windows (which made my heart sing!), tall ceilings, and all new energy efficient appliances. Coming from our TH in the other community our electric bill was higher than average being an end unit with older appliances (we’re 72/73º AC people lol), this was exciting to us. Best part, it was a 3/2 meaning now we had a dedicated guest room and separate office. But lucky for y’all I still choose to sit at my cutie set up in the dining room. Being in a dedicated room gives me the ick of being under florecent lights. I love being able to move around the house (or big wrap around screened porch) as I wish.

March 2024 – Navigating the new

Friday March 15th, I picked up the keys mid-day to start bringing over some of the valuables/delicate items that we’d rather move ourselves. After taking the first round of items into the new apartment, I heard running down the hall above our unit and then the front door slam. My heart dropped. Coming from a concrete block TH where we never heard anything made this quite the jarring experience.

I sucked it up and figured this was my chance to meet the upstairs neighbor. Maybe we’d be friends (?!) LOL. I too ran outside and caught him in the hallway as he was coming down the stairs. “Hey! I’m Ashley. My husband Mark and I are moving in below you. Wanted to let you know that if it’s loud tomorrow, that’s why.” OH THE IRONY. He was nice, dressed for the gym, had a brief conversation, heard him and his wife live up there and are from NY, and then he took off. Cool. Met the neighbor. Check!

Saturday March 16th, the movers came and loaded our TH and we headed over to the new apartment. From the moment they finished unloading around 2PM until AFTER midnight that evening, an absolute circus upstairs ensued. Bangs, drops that sounded like weights, and runs (but no voices) all occurred. We sat and shook our heads in disbelief. Was this a fluke? But all I could do was cry from pure exhaustion.

To summarize the issue, here’s a calendar of noise I kept (with names removed to “protect” the innocent 🙄). This has been ongoing for almost a month alongside the back and forth with leasing management.

[insert noise calendar]

On Monday March 18, we notified the leasing company of our concern and how it happened the entire weekend. After listening to the sounds for 48 hours, we put two and two together that it was KIDS running. Those short, staccato, heavy footed steps. Hey, nothing against kids, but we needed answers as to why this was happening. Our floorplan is the same as theirs so we identified that the kids were running and banging from their rooms to the kitchen, to the common area, allllll weekend. At one point, we even googled options for soundproofing tiles for our ceiling. But due to my husband having a background in music/sound, those installs we’re expensive and wouldn’t prevent the “knocks” from above.

Management reached out to the family that same day and reported back to us that they were defensive at first but them quickly apologized that they had just gotten back from a vacation and we’re doing laundry and getting back to normal life. They then suggested we have a Dr. Phil style meet up to meet face to face with our neighbors to discuss our concerns. On March 22nd we met with the husband only in the clubhouse (the wife continues to hide yet is the largest offender being home solo all day doing gosh knows what) and naturally he got defensive. Mark and I just sat there wanting to find a resolve.

We left the meeting feeling semi-hopeful that this has just been a time of transition for them and that it would get better. 2 days later on March 24, we heard the sound of high heels clanking the floor all over the house at 10:45PM and then bangs and throws above our bedroom (still no voices) until 5AM. I was furious. Here I am, dying from exhaustion of poor sleep the last week since moving in, trying to get over this mold crap, and the upstairs couple is having a spicy time. I left them a note early that morning and we received this text in return. 🙃

[neighbor note & text return]

March 2024 – Looking for a new home

April – Finding Peace

Here’s the thing friends… due to fair housing laws, as long as the family is not intentionally blasting loud music, hosting a party during quiet hours of 10PM-8AM (per the county), there’s not a single thing that can be done.