Maria had visited her family doctor once in the past 10 years. She was generally healthy and had no major health issues. Two months after moving into a new apartment building she couldn’t understand why she was suddenly suffering symptoms of an upper respiratory infection that continued affecting her even after her doctor prescribed strong antibiotics.

Many of her neighbors also began suffering itchy eyes, headaches, congestion, sore throats, dizziness and fatigue. Maria complained to her doctor that food did not taste right nor did the air smell “normal” in her apartment. He put her through a battery of tests but found nothing that would explain her illness.

After Maria and several other tenants filed a grievance with the landlord, professional building inspectors were brought in to determine what was making everybody sick. It only took three days of testing the air and various surfaces in and around the building to diagnose the problem as “sick building syndrome”.

Sick building syndrome is a general term describing an enclosed area that is suffering the detrimental affects of “bacterial overload”, or extremely poor air quality due to an excess of air-borne pathogens heavily contaminating the air. Fortunately, it didn’t take inspectors long to discover the cause of Maria’s mysterious sickness–a neglected, filthy garbage chute.

Years of accumulated dirt, grease and rotting organic items had transformed the chute into a never-ending breadbasket for bacteria and mold that had finally penetrated the building’s air system. Upon hearing the diagnosis of “sick building syndrome”, Maria’s landlord immediately called New Jersey trash chute cleaning experts Assured Environments and had all chutes in the building thoroughly scraped, cleaned and sanitized with high-pressure washers, anti-bacterial solutions and odor-eliminating aerosols. Within a few days of Assured Environments technicians removing years of germy, illness-causing gunk from the chute, Maria and her neighbors no longer suffered from debilitating symptoms of “sick building syndrome”.

Hospitals, restaurants, schools and hospitality establishments are also susceptible to sick building syndrome if chutes used to remove dirty items or garbage are not cleaned regularly. In addition to breeding all types of pathogens, from E. Coli and mononucleosis to staph and Listeria, dirty chutes are also fire hazards due to grease build-up and insufficient air flow impeded by “sick” air thick with bacteria and unhealthy particulates.

Fortunately for Maria and the other tenants, Assured Environments cured the building of its sickness by providing the thorough, chute cleaning services necessary to prevent more serious health consequences from occurring.