Mold, delayed repairs leave Washington tenants in hazardous homes
By Azahra Wheeler and Shreya Jyotishi
September 22, 2026
Youthcast Media Group®
Mold nearly cost Roniece Hall her job, home and health.
After the Southeast Washington, D.C. resident found mold in her apartment in August 2025, she suffered from coughing, sneezing, congestion, headaches and nausea. The symptoms became so severe that she repeatedly missed work.
Hall’s story is far from an anomaly. Court records show that Washington tenants have reported mold problems that depend on landlords repairing underlying structural problems. When those repairs are delayed, tenants can be left living with the health consequences.
That challenge comes as Washington changes how it manages mold complaints. In June 2026, the Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) shifted its mold inspection responsibility entirely to the Department of Buildings (DOB). The change gives tenants a new path for mold-related enforcement, but it also raises questions about whether the system will make it harder for tenants — particularly low-income residents — to get repairs addressed.
According to the DOEE, landlords have seven days to inspect a property and 30 days to remediate after receiving notice of mold. If landlords fail to respond adequately, tenants can hire a licensed mold professional, file a court complaint or contact the city’s Office of the Tenant Advocate.
The district’s humidity, coupled with a 15% increase in rainfall intensity since 1970, makes the city especially vulnerable to mold growth, which thrives in the humid Northeastern coast and Southern regions of the U.S.
Justin Spain, director of business development at RestoPros, a company in Northern Virginia specializing in water damage treatment, mold remediation and other restoration services, said delays in receiving a work authorization can leave residents trapped in unhealthy environments. Spain notes that arguments between tenants and landlords over who is responsible, the extent of mold growth, varying remediation solutions and other factors prevent a “cookie-cutter” response.
"We're not even allowed into a home without the homeowner's permission. So it creates a very difficult situation for us when you know the person is having a health scare,” said Spain.
At Manor Village Apartments, Hall, who moved into her unit in 2024, had notified her apartment’s maintenance team about the black mold when she noticed her wall changing color. She was already managing this pre-existing mold issue and a rat infestation when the toilet backed up and flooded her apartment in August of 2025.
After her apartment’s maintenance team pursued “quick fixes” and claimed the mold resulted from a leak in her air conditioning unit, Hall called the Department of Buildings (DOB).
Their inspection revealed something more complicated to solve: a hole stretching from outside the building into Hall’s unit meant rain and other precipitation caused the mold growth.
From the day her apartment first flooded, the repair process to address the mold, rats and flood spanned three to four months, according to Hall.
For Hall, mold took a physical toll
After the apartment flood, Hall’s landlord provided temporary housing in a motel for a month. However, Hall claims that within the month away from her apartment, “nothing was done” in terms of flood or mold repair.
Living with the mold led to persistent migraines for Hall, an assistant preschool teacher, who said she was “stuck on [her] couch for days.” She struggled to eat and tolerate light.
“I had never had migraines a day in my life until I moved into that apartment, and it was back-to-back,” Hall said.
The pain typically spanned two days, according to Hall, and she often required an additional three days to get herself back together.
“[It] literally almost cost me my job because I had to keep taking off,” Hall said.
In addition to migraines, allergies and asthma are typical mold exposure symptoms. Their severity depends on the amount of time spent exposed and the extent of mold growth, according to Washington family medicine doctor Marcy Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer adds that if exposed to mold, immunocompromised individuals may experience invasive fungal infections that damage the whole body.
Youth are also particularly vulnerable to mold illness. According to Spain, a Reston, Va. client’s 7-year-old son developed febrile seizures while living in a home with toxic mold.
The family, who homeschooled their son, initially struggled to determine why the child repeatedly became sick but seemed better outside the home. The child’s pediatrician conducted a toxicity screening but was unable to identify a cause.
Eventually, the family brought in an industrial hygienist who identified six mold hot spots within the home. The mold was “everywhere,” according to Spain, and remediation meant removing walls down to the drywall to fix leaking pipes.
But the effects of mold exposure can also extend beyond the more obvious physical dangers, Oppenheimer said.
“It definitely can create depression or contribute to depression and anxiety in people, especially in children who expect to have a safe and healthy home environment,” said Oppenheimer.
Sometimes, mold is a legal battle
While Washington has tenant protections around housing conditions, if landlords fail to respond within legal timeframes, tenants can be left with the burden of proving the problem. That can include paying for private experts, something that’s not possible for the city’s low-income residents.
Mark Kinghorn, a partner at the law firm McGuire Woods based in Charlotte, N.C., has 24 years of experience representing tenants in disputes with their landlords. Kinghorn does not practice in Washington, but said tenants can sue landlords for violating the warranty of habitability included in leases or even personal injury claims due to physical harm caused by mold.
Kinghorn adds that while paying a private expert to test for mold is cost-prohibitive for many, the process can force landlords to pursue remediation.
While Hall didn’t have any out-of-pocket costs for the remediation, she sued her landlord for $20,000 for emotional distress, illness-related damages, lost wages, property damage and court costs. Court records indicate that Manor Village has not yet responded to Hall’s suit.
That number is on the low end of typical claims, Kinghorn says.
“That seems like a fairly small amount compared to what I would expect some of the claims to be for this type of mold,” Kinghorn said.
Manor Village did not respond to Youthcast Media Group’s request for comment.
A Southeast Washington apartment building landlord paid a record $30 million to tenants and $11 million to the city over unhealthy housing conditions, mold among them, in 2025. The building is just under 2 miles from Manor Village.
According to Hall, her Ward 8 apartment building’s maintenance team did not pursue remediation until DOB inspected the apartment and she filed a civil suit. She believes that Southeast Washington renters are treated differently than tenants in higher-income areas of the district, and added that the management of many apartment complexes fail to ensure habitable living standards.
Kinghorn agrees that owners of “upscale” apartment buildings charging higher rent are more likely to invest in preventative maintenance and inspection than landlords of buildings charging less. Manor Village offers one-bedroom apartments starting at $1,175, while the average one-bedroom unit rent across Washington is $2,063, according to Zillow.
“The types of properties that tend to have dangerous mold in them tend to have landlords that aren't paying attention on either end of the equation,” said Kinghorn.
Kinghorn adds that distinguishing between dangerous and non-harmful mold is essential, especially in hot, humid summer climates. He says that tenants often mistake growth like mildew for toxic mold.
“Pretty much every building, every house, every apartment has some type of mold, and not all mold is dangerous,” Kinghorn said.
If a tenant identifies mold on rented property, Kinghorn advises taking photographs of the mold with time-stamp metadata to show when the photo was taken. He suggests immediately informing landlords of the issue and the health threat, and later contacting city resources — like Hall’s DOB outreach — if the landlord isn’t quick to respond.
More than a year after her apartment first flooded, Hall still resides in Manor Village. In terms of what she wishes went differently throughout the repair process, Hall’s ask is simple.
“All they had to do was fix the apartment,” Hall said. “But they chose not to.”
Azahra Wheeler is in the class of 2027 at Bard High School Early College DC. Jyotishi is YMG Assistant Manager of Content and Programs.
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