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7 Custodians Sickened While Cleaning Mold
Click 2 Houston.com - Houston,TX,USA
HOUSTON -- Seven custodians were hospitalized after they were sickened while cleaning mold out of a northeast Houston school, KPRC Local 2 reported Saturday ...
2 comments on this article
7 Custodians Sickened While Cleaning School
http://www.click2houston.com/news/14031333/detail.html
POSTED: 9:09 am CDT September 2, 2007
UPDATED: 1:05 pm CDT September 2, 2007
HOUSTON -- Seven custodians were treated and released at a local hospital after they were sickened while cleaning a northeast Houston school, officials told KPRC Local 2 Saturday.
Mold was found in an annex building at Key Middle School on Thursday after two workers fell ill and were hospitalized.
Cleanup crews went to the school on Friday. Seven of 15 custodians were sickened, but they were not the only ones.
"Even the principal herself broke out," custodian Fred Holloway said.
The principal and assistant principal left the school and appeared to be coughing and having trouble breathing. One of them reached for her inhaler.
The president of the union that represents school custodians said the building is not safe.
"You can actually smell the mold and smell some of the areas that they went in there and tried to clean up the area with Clorox," Houston Educational Support Personnel Union President Wretha Thomas said.
Houston Independent School District spokesman Terry Abbott said fumes from the bleach made the custodians sick. They have all been treated and released from the hospital and cleared to return to work, Abbott said.
Abbott said the school district aggressively finds and cleans mold. He said the building would be cleaned and ready for students on Tuesday.
Thomas said she is not sure how safe the students will be.
"No kids are in that classroom, but they have kids in the classroom next to those sick rooms," she said.
Abbott said studies have not shown unusual amounts of mold in the building.
Three air conditioning units were stolen from the school during the summer. Abbott said those thefts hampered the district's ability to keep the building cool during the summer break.
Custodians said more should be done.
"People are getting sick and this is a serious matter," Holloway said. "This is nothing to play with because you're playing with people's lives."
Union representatives said they plan to rally in front of the school on Tuesday morning.
Copyright 2007 by Click2Houston.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
With regard to the above article, I'm told (by a CSEA Occupational Health Specialist) that it is illegal for the custodial staff to clean mold in school buildings unless they are specifically trained to do so.
It happened in our school and it was proof that they had not a clue as to what they were doing. The mold was the worst in our school's basement. They opted to take a power washer that contained a bleach solution to clean up the months-old mold. The first hit with the power washer did nothing but scatter the mold spores into the air. The Chief Custodian, at that point, told his staff to stop.
Mold in schools seems to be getting worse ~ and it seems as if those trained to treated illness due to mold exposure are few and far between. I'm been battling illnesses for two years now and it's been a living hell. My only consolation (somewhat!) is that I won my Workers Compensation hearing in July and the school is now responsible to pay by past AND future medical bills relating to my illness.
~ Joan Dinizio
Greenport,NY
The custodian in my building had red bloody eyes like I did. We both were suffering from our sick school. Maybe his inflammation was from the two feet of standing water in the basement in our building, or from taking the rodents from the traps in the building, or from the seven inches or more of contaminated soil that was mysteriously hauled away for undisclosed contaminates, or maybe from picking up my ceiling tiles that were raining down on the students each day, or perhaps it could come from cleaning up rooms where rain poured down through the lights and fell into buckets each year. Then again maybe it was from the xerox copy room where the A/C was malfunctioning with too much condensation leading to mold problems. Perhaps it was from cleaning out the filters from my air purifier in my room. Who asked him to do that? NOT ME. Maybe it was from the harsh chemicals he had to use to clean our rooms and wax our floors. After the remodel we had plenty of new formaldehyde ladened particle board shelving to contend with. Whatever it was in the sick building of environmental contaminants, our bloody eyes told the story of systemic illness in our bodies. God help the children, the teachers, the unknowing staff, and the custodians who will have their lives shortened due to going into sick schools each day!
Long Beach, CA teacher
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