Retired Air Force Staff Sgt. Thalvick Mosquera was laying in bed in 2009, recovering from ankle surgery and staring at the walls of his Seaside bedroom. He noticed a patch of mold growing, and then realized all the walls in the home were perpetually damp. When he and his family started asking around, they found they weren’t the only renters at The Parks at Monterey Bay, an aging military housing complex on the former Fort Ord south of Lightfighter Drive, with moldy homes.
The Mosqueras started experiencing health problems that they attribute to the mold. Mosquera, who suffers from asthma and is medically retired from the air force, was hospitalized several times during the six months he lived on Nijmegen Road. His 8-year-old daughter suffered from chronic cold-like symptoms. The toddler of neighbors Shalynn and David Pruett fell ill and was hospitalized with pneumonia.
Now the Mosqueras and Pruetts, along with eight other families, are suing the property management company that oversees all of the military housing in Seaside, Marina and Monterey, an arrangement forged with the U.S. Navy and Army in 2003.
The complaint, filed July 8 in Monterey Superior Court, names American Management Services, Monterey Bay Military Housing and Clark Pinnacle Monterey Bay, as well as several “doing business as” names as defendants.
“They never should’ve been renting these houses out,” says plaintiffs’ attorney Jim Fitzpatrick. “They should really not take the chance of playing Russian roulette with people’s health.”
U.S. Navy Presidio of Monterey spokesman Dan Carpenter says the case is “very isolated,” but at least two similar lawsuits against Clark Pinnacle precede it. In 2007, the company settled for $75,000 with a family whose asthmatic child was hospitalized. In 2009, they settled for an undisclosed amount with a family that had to relocate when their house became uninhabitable due to mold.
Clark Pinnacle has an “F” rating with the Better Business Bureau.
In an emailed response to questions, Monterey Bay Land, which owns The Parks, declined to comment on any litigation and called Fitzpatrick’s comments “self-serving and merely a publicity attempt.”
Nationwide, military housing began transitioning to private property management beginning in 2003, and the transition is all but complete. Pinnacle manages some 2,200 houses locally.
“One of the main purposes was to get the taxpayer off the hook to continually have to build new military housing,” Carpenter says. The Army plans to keep doing business with Pinnacle, he adds: “It doesn’t adversely affect the relationship.”
Complicating matters, Fort Ord tenants fall between the jurisdictional boundaries of code enforcement and health officials who could help them with mold complaints. The County Health Department’s Consumer Health Protection Services responds to about 20 mold complaints a year; its dozen inspectors focus on food establishments and swimming pools.
County health officials say they direct mold questions to the Base Closure and Realignment Commission office, which, in turn, refers tenants to the Presidio. Carpenter says complaints go to Clark Pinnacle, and the military is nothing more than a property owner now that military housing has privatized.
“They believe they’ve responded appropriately,” Carpenter says.