My first few months here at Kent State University have been a little wild. Not for the anticipated reasons for someone new to college, but for having mold in my dorm. It has sparked conversation among my whole building of Eastway Center and various other halls across campus.
I moved into my dorm back on August 19th, 2022, and I very quickly began to feel sick. As someone who deals with autoimmune diseases and other chronic illnesses, I assumed this was a Rheumatoid Arthritis or Chron’s flare-up. The new environment, dining hall food and change of pace within my days were the cause of my problems. I do not doubt that that had some factor in how I was feeling. However, the real problem to blame was mold in my ventilation unit.
The week leading up to my discovery of the mold, I had been sick with a cough, stuffy nose, post nasal drip, low-grade fever, loss of appetite and more. These were symptoms that I woke up with daily and progressively got worse.
I decided to take allergy medicine before class every morning to guarantee that I would not be that kid that aggressively coughs and sniffles. I found that that helped vastly.
Whenever I was out of my room, I felt significantly better. The realization hit me that I always felt better outside of my dorm hit me around two in the morning on September 15th. I sat at my desk, attempting to get some homework done and I could not stop coughing. A conversation from the beginning of the year popped into my mind when my friend told me that she heard horror stories about mold in the AC units.
Entirely unaware of what to do, I called my mom in a panic. She told me to open up the vent with my mini tool kit and do some inspection on my own. I stepped onto my desk to get the best view possible, and I could see all the louvers covered in mold.
I made some calls to different friends and people that I thought could help that worked for Kent State. Eventually, two maintenance guys came to my room around 4:15 am. I showed them the mold and talked about how I was feeling. The one barely looked at my vents and proceeded to tell me that it was just dust. He could guarantee that I had no mold in my room. After I asked how I could prevent it from worsening, he told me to get rid of anything fuzzy in my room because dust collects in those spots. He also said that me having a rug and stuffed animals actually make the dust worse.
They left, and I was left alone for the night. However, I was not convinced that there was no mold in my room.
The morning came, and I had four more people coming into my room. The first two people came to test for the humidity and see if more maintenance people came to clean. Eventually, two more maintenance guys came, and they were the first people to even consider saying that there was a chance that it could be mold. They told me it was hard to tell, while everyone else simply said no.
It was time for class, and I had to leave, but they said they could finish without me being there. Upon my return, I spotted the black bits that were originally on my vents were now on my floor, desk and microwave.
My symptoms then got worse from that Thursday night to Saturday morning.
My throat was raspy and sore, and I heavily struggled to breathe and sleep. Due to how horribly I was feeling, my mom came and picked me up to take me to an ER. There I got an EKG and an X-ray of my chest, and they said they did not find anything but that I should not return to wherever the mold was.
I stayed in my dorm for the rest of the weekend because I still needed to attend school and all my stuff was there. Once it became clear that the school had no intentions of trying to genuinely help me out despite continuing to worsen, I packed everything up to go home for the following two weeks.
That was Monday the 19th and I talked to the head of housing and the head of the environmental team here at Kent. They both seemed to want to help. However, they barely kept me updated while I was home. Many passive-aggressive phone calls and emails showed that my well-being was not truly at the top of their priorities.
While I was home, I did even more testing and doctor’s appointments. I live in the Cleveland area, so I was too far to commute and the school did not have a room that fit my accommodations. Despite knowing that before leaving, they still did not give me a timeline or a return date until I was allowed to come back on Thursday, the 29th.
Because of the unexpected phone call, I had to wait until that Saturday to move back in. When we did, we opened my vent back up to see if it was cleaned, and we spotted large clumps of dust and mold still on various parts of the system.
It is not as bad as it was initially, but I am still getting sick again. I plan to get a 3rd party company to inspect and test everything, but I have to be patient with that.
Fortunately, they have compensated me for my time away. However, unfortunately, it does not cover the price of my medications that were dissolved from the high humidity, my doctor bills, the food I had to throw away or gas from going back and forth so often. In fact, it does not cover the cost of my health.
I am glad to be back on campus, but my opinions of Kent State University have been soured.