30 families say mold in Joint Base Lewis-McChord housing is making them sick

When Melissa Godoy first moved into a house at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, she assumed the dampness was just part of living in Washington state.

“The house was always humid, it always smelled earthy,” Godoy told Dave Ross on Seattle’s Morning News.

But then she started getting sick. First it was sinus infections, then pneumonia. Then chronic lung infections that continued for the next eight months.

“There were nights that I spent in bed crying, wondering why I was so sick, asking my husband, ‘why do you think I’m so sick?'” Godoy said. “I’m a healthy person, I went from doing CrossFit and boxing to laying in bed, sick.”

Her children were getting sick, too. Godoy says both children got bronchitis more than once and began using inhalers when they’d never needed them before.

After purchasing air purifiers, changing their laundry detergent, and testing for allergies, she asked the housing manager if it might be mold.

“At first they wouldn’t even look,” Godoy said. “They kinda nodded their heads and wrote in their little notebooks and that was it.” 

Godoy finally grabbed a flathead screwdriver and pried into the wall herself. The other side of the drywall from her bedroom into the bathroom was covered in black mold.

“They had painted over some mildew on the wood paneling,” Godoy said. “Had they pried off that piece of trim, they would have seen that the wall was completely deteriorated into the frame. The drywall was crumbling.”

She called maintenance back and told them she had found the mold they had said wasn’t there. They came over and she recorded the interaction on Facebook Live.

Godoy shared that video on different JBLM Facebook groups, as well as the Lincoln Military Housing page. Lincoln Military Housing deleted her post and blocked her.

But comments and messages from the local Facebook groups started pouring in. Other people had been experiencing similar problems.

“Not a lot of people complained because nobody was heard” Godoy said. “It wouldn’t get further than the Housing Office.”

So she started a new group, called “Lincoln Military Housing Toxic Homes – JBLM” and began checking people’s houses for mold herself, connecting families to the lawyer she and her husband were using and helping them find housing off-base if they could afford it.

Godoy has taken out two loans in order to move her family permanently out of military housing at JBLM.

“So far, as of August 1 when we got displaced, there have been over 200 families evacuated,” Godoy said.

She went to a military town hall meeting recently where she talked to leaders at the Joint Base Lewis-McChord base.

“I told them look, I’ve talked to hundreds of tenants. I’ve seen thousands and thousands of pictures and videos through my group. I’ve seen dozens of homes myself.  You do have an issue here.”

Her former home is still empty, with plastic up.

“And a lot of the people are trapped,” Godoy said. “They can’t get loans, they can’t – they don’t have resources. So they’re stuck in this housing.”

One of her biggest concerns is that this is affected military missions and training. Her husband was sent home early from a training exercise in Fort Hood because their family was displaced.

“I mean a lot of these kids are hospitalized,” Godoy said. “I know a little baby that’s been having seizures. I know another woman, she started having seizures. And their families, the military service members, are having to be called home or having to take their kids to the hospital.”

“They need to start mold testing and toxic mold treatment. They need to start diagnosing and treating these people for mold toxicity because the conditions of the homes have been exposed. Everybody knows about it now. So now they need to act on that.”

Godoy says she’s put 30 other families in touch with her lawyer to sue for personal damages, as well as pain and suffering. She says she doesn’t want to point fingers or blame the military. She just wants the problems resolved, and families taken care of.

The one group she will blame? Lincoln Military Housing.

“The military means money to them. They’re nothing but a bunch of guaranteed paychecks, and they just wanted to cash in on that,” Godoy said. “They definitely need to be hauled out from all the military bases with handcuffs.”

The massive new military spending bill for 2020, expected to become law by the end of this week, includes new protections for families in military housing, some of which include increasing allowances for families to live off-base if they find military housing inadequate.

There’s also funding to provide more oversight and testing for a variety of concerns that have plagued other bases nationwide, including burst pipes, vermin infestations, and lead paint. Lincoln Military Housing remains contracted at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

“People are getting sick. Kids are getting sick. That’s dangerous. That’s – that’s criminal. And they need to pay for that,” Godoy said.

You can hear the full interview, including how Lincoln Military Housing allegedly threatened those who are speaking out, the costs that are prohibiting those who want to relocate off post from finding other housing, and the 30 families who have decided to sue, all on Ross Files.