Hallie Fuchs struggled with rashes, brain fog and sinus infections so severe she needed surgery until TikTokers saw the black marks on her vent in the background of a video
Hallie Fuchs and her husband John didn’t know when they moved into their new apartment in a resort-style complex in Boca Raton, Fla., that it would trigger a debilitating health struggle. “It felt like my body was under attack like all of the time,” Fuchs, 37, who ended up needing sinus surgery for a golf ball-sized infection, says. Her husband developed severe fatigue; she developed a bright red face rash. The brain fog was debilitating.
It wasn’t until she made a TikTok video begging for help that commenters noticed the black marks on her ceiling vent — marks a maintenance worker had dismissed as being caused by candle smoke. But when they had the marks tested, the couple discovered it was toxic mold. Fuchs shares her story with PEOPLE’s Cara Lynn Shultz.
When my husband, John, and I first moved into a new apartment complex in Boca Raton, Fla., in May 2020, we thought it was super luxurious. They had a resort-style pool with chairs and umbrellas, and a fire pit. They had an oversized chess board we thought was fancy and cool. A beautiful gym. Basically, everything that you would want in a Florida apartment.
But when we moved in, we quickly realized that everything was not exactly how we thought it would be. If you accidentally hit the baseboard, it would fall off. The panels underneath the cabinets would sometimes come loose. You could accidentally knock something and it would fall apart. Our dishwasher had stopped working — and the maintenance worker said, while he was fixing the dishwasher, “You guys need to stop lighting so many candles.”…