Hello :

 

I am posting this for someone who is going to join this website very soon. Appreciate your response. Its about city living, vrs. country living:

 

I'm a female living in the suburbs of Boston. I've had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for 20 yrs, and mild MCS during that time. This past fall a number of things happened which I won't go into right now, but one of them was that we found toxic mold in my house. During all the commotion/stress around the mold and other issues, my MCS got a lot worse. I fled my house for Washington DC for a few months and then was forced to come back home to Boston, as I had no where else to go. Once home (since March), I've been looking for new housing, but it is so hard, as I'm sure you all know first hand.

Every available apartment I go to see has either just been painted or re-carpeted, has a moldy basement or had previous tenants who used scented candles, dryer sheets, etc. I get toxified with most that I go to, even after I ask all the important questions ahead of time.

I've been looking hard for months and can't find anything. It is taking a huge toll on me. And for the first time in my life, since March, since my return to Boston and my mold house, my lungs are hurting. It is from the car exhaust, which is everwhere in the Boston area, even the suburbs.

Well, I finally found an apartment I don't react to. But it is about 3 blocks away from two heavily trafficked streets. And 1/2 mile away from a highway. I fear for my lungs, and fear that the exposure to exhaust will kill any shot I have at actual healing from this newly heightened MCS I now have.

I long for the fresh air of the country (rural area) or ocean, both of which are about a 1 hr drive from Boston. But I have not been able to find an MCS safer apartment in those areas. And I have been looking.

I'd love your thinking. Do I compromise and take the (what I'll call) the "MCS safer apartment" that is near traffic, or do I keep up a housing search that is just about killing me (keep living in my mold house while I search).

I have to tell the landlords of the "MCS safer apartment" tomorrow if I want their apartment. So if anyone has any thoughts tonight, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks so much.

Bobbi