Also, we called a local lender today and are waiting to hear if we are pre approved for a mortgage. We are either buying a home in the next few months or we’ll be hunting for a 2 year rental, either way we are preparing to get out of our current lease. Here is why:

Mold is natural everywhere that is why an outdoor control test is done. See all the black mold with a spot of white and a spot of yellow on the control test?

When you look at the two basement tests you can see much less black colored mold (that is naturally occurring in our area as shown by the test) and more yellow and white looking mold growth that is not present as much outdoors as proved by the control test. It looks to be a sign that we have some additional stuff growing and polluting the air within our home that isn’t abundantly present outdoors.

Seems to me like an obvious sign that the air quality within the home is worse than the air quality outside the home, what do you think?

Oh and it’s been raining for less than 24 hours and our basement is filling with water again. Took some more photos to document it all for our landlords.

Now we are having majorly high winds and rain. The power is flickering and turning on and off. I better get off the computer now. Keep your fingers crossed for us and subscribe to this blog so you’ll be the first to know when we share our Tater Tot news!

The post Bubbling with anticipation and watching the world blow by… appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Can you believe there are only a few days left until Christmas? We managed to get lots of stuff taken care of this weekend and we even got to see a holiday show while we were at it.

We saw the Evansville Dance Theater’s Performance of The Nutcracker on Saturday night. We were expecting some more like this video.

What we got was not the traditional ballet presentation we were expecting (I am a ballet snob being a trained dancer and all) but it was cute and entertaining. It was also cool to see such a wide range of dancers executing the still being perfected technical ballet stuff they teach you as an aspiring dancer. Kids from about 5 all the way up to teens performed in this and some really are on the way to being stars!

Then we had a nice dinner out at an Italian restaurant and blitzed Walmart at midnight for some stocking stuffers and pet gifts. We got a ton of cat toys and also grabbed Dixie a soccer ball and some big bones to chew. We also found a fun “parents to be” ornament for our tree that we liked.

Sunday N helped me color my hair after we did some house cleaning in preparation for the holiday. I’ve been waiting several weeks for the green light on hair coloring. My doc said hair color in the 1st trimester is not proven safe so I waited till the 2nd trimester to dye away my gray hairs. They were getting bad and I started to joke that I was looking like a hobo with my frizz and multi-colored hair.

We cannot believe that after the holidays I’ll be 4 months pregnant. It doesn’t seem like it has been that long at all, it also means we’ll only have 5 remaining months to get all our ducks in a row. Oh and Christmas is only 3 days away! Time flies.

Oh, the mold tests are looking moldy. It seems we have some mold spores in the basement that are different from those naturally present outside, you can see this in the varying colors of mold growing. Here is what they looked like over the weekend:

The outside sample test resulted in only black and white mold growth, the basement one resulted in black, white, greenish/ blue and yellow mold growth.

Our second basement mold test is sill incubating.

So how are the holiday preparations shaping up for you? Got everything you need? Do you still have baking and wrapping to do? I am trying to stratgize the holiday stocking thing right now. How do you normally handle stuffing and presenting stockings?

The post Getting the holiday ducks in a row and not looking like a hobo anymore! appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Yeah, so in Indiana having a baby in your home with certain midwives is bad news but you can be exposed to any level of mold spores by your landlord because there are no defined limits on mold here! Nice huh?

Yep, I found out that there is no regulation on mold growth here. We talked to the Indiana department of health about it today. Really just goes to prove how much the laws truly protect us.

DEM (direct entry midwives) and CPM (certified professional midwives) are not able to legally practice in Indiana simply because their training did not include licensed nursing. They are thoroughly trained and know their trade but they are considered unlawful by the state, the reasoning is that law is “protecting us”.

Yet mold safety limits are not set in Indiana and the presence of mold is not a health department or code enforcement issue (we’ve called both organizations) here despite the CDC’s statements that “If you can see or smell mold, a health risk may be present.” and that all forms of mold are bad and should be removed. Where is our law that protects now? *scratches head*

Oh and our landlords did allow that certified letter and rent check we sent to get returned to us. The post office held the letter and left them notice to come pick it up, the letter waited for for 18 days but the landlords just couldn’t be bothered with it… So now we are waiting for it to appear back in our mailbox so we can determine what to do now. Good thing we wasted like $5.00 to send it. I am just so damn mad about all this rental drama today!

Thanks for all your well wishes. Yesterday I was feeling a bit better but today I am back to feeling like a cold is coming on. We have our air ducts in the bedroom closed off and I have a humidifier with vicks vapor stuff in it that makes my breathing less painful but my head still aches and so does my body (like I am running a fever).

It is confirmed, I am breathing in mold while in the house, the mold tests are beginning to show mold growth on them so that proves it. Now we just need to see if the mold presence on the indoor tests proves to be more that the control test we were instructed to run outdoors. The tests have another day to incubate.

If there is more mold in the house than there is in the air outside that is considered bad news. I am certain the air quality is impacting our health and the health of the pets since we are all having respiratory issues.

Here is what those petri dishes are looking like today:

This first photo is of the outdoor air sample, the control test that determines what amount of mold growth is normally in the air surrounding the house. Click on the image for a larger view.

The next photo is of the basement test. This one was placed on the floor near the area that water seeped under the bar and in to the tiled area of the basement. Click on the image for a larger view.

So far it looks like more mold was present in the basement air test that in the outdoor air test. Just to be sure we did a second basement test today and N is also planning to run a HVAC mold test to sample the quality of the air from our heater and AC unit.

Honestly I am at a loss as to what the next step is. I do not have the physical or emotional strength to move right now nor do I think I will throughout the course of this pregnancy.

I know we are going to have to either way as our lease expires before I am due. Obviously we don’t want to remain in a home that has moldy air while I am pregnant and I am certain we can get out of the lease if we want to despite the lack of mold regulations in the state…

We are looking for a place to buy right now because quite frankly we do not want to be moving every year for the next 3 years while we are here for N’s job, especially with a child. But buying a home is also something you don’t just rush in to. If we rushed we might end up owning a dump that also has mold issues except we would own it and have to spend a ton fixing the issue.

I am just exhaused and can’t find a solution. In a perfect world we would already own a home, I would be decorating the baby’s nursury, things would be calm and I wouldn’t face heath risks as a result of my home’s air quality… Reality has presented me with the exact opposite of perfection and we’ll just have to find a way to make it work, as usual. That just pisses me off today, I am going to eat a corndog now.

The post In Indiana breathing mold is okay but home birth is not, just an FYI. appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

N called the landlord over the weekend about it and their response was “well, we’ve been busy and we figured it was returned to you already”. She then said once it was returned to us we could “drop it by some store of theirs” or she could come by and pick it up from us.

Yeah, you are going to have to come by and get it from us since your laziness is not our issue. We sent the letter off to you like we are legally required to and you were too lazy to claim the dang thing, not our issue!

So like I said it has been 18 days since we sent our letter and rent off and the landlord doesn’t seem to have any desire to get it. It is still sitting at the post office and a notice was left at the landlords residence to come claim it.

This raised some questions for us so we looked at county records and found that our landlord owns 38 other houses (not including this one) just within this county. Oh and the house we are living in is worth about $80,000, they are charging us $875 a month and are making killing.

Well no wonder they don’t care about cashing our rent check, they have tons of money coming in from us and other sucker renters! Now N thinks they are acting unresponsive and avoiding our communications because they know they are caught and have wronged us.

Like I said in a previous post, I am fairly certain we have a mold issue just based upon the home’s age and the leaky basement issue. Our basement is finished, here have a look:

I think the electric heater/ fireplace thingy gives the decor age away don’t you?

Then there is the wood siding and the indoor/ outdoor carpet that is water stained from our recent floods.

Check out the green cabinets! Those scream 1970 to me.

So I am wondering… If all the decor and “finishing” in the basement is that old and there is such a big leak issue down there. How many years of mold growth do you think there are? It is kind of scary to think about.

We are certain there is mold growing because we have all had some odd respiratory issues since moving here, including the pets. You know allergies, sinus issues and even bloody noses. Generally nasty stuff!

That is why we sent out the certified letter outlining our concerns about their “lack of disclosure” on the flooding issue. We also mentioned the fact that the moisture from the leaks is impossible for us to fully clean up since the basement is finished and that they need to provide us with a means to clean up the soaked carpet each time the basement floods (aka a carpet cleaning machine or dehumidifier).

Seems like we covered all the bases right? Too bad they have not claimed the letter from the post office and they intend on leaving it unclaimed until the letter is returned to us…

I am not sure what to do next. We did just spend $50.00 on 4 do-it-yourself mold test kits so we’ll have proof of the mold soon but we can’t really afford an attorney to sue them. Is that the only way to take action on this?

—————–

Updates: There have been updates regarding this landlord saga, you can see them by checking out the following posts.

1. Slumloards, credit scores and a prenatal chiropractor [in a pear tree]…
2. In Indiana breathing mold is okay but home birth is not, just an FYI.

Related post search results can be viewed here.

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