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Severe mold contamination inside an apartment at Alden Towers in Detroit left two adults and a baby seriously ill, forcing them to throw away nearly everything they owned and ultimately leaving them homeless with ongoing health problems, a family says.
The family’s account adds to a growing record of health and safety complaints at the riverfront apartment complex on the city’s east side, where tenants have reported roach infestations, broken elevators, repeated heat and water shutoffs, and what some describe as retaliation after raising concerns.
KaDeidra Copeland, 28, and her partner, DaQuan Grantham, say their ordeal began shortly after Grantham moved into Unit A210 at Alden Towers in October 2024. Copeland, who had just given birth, and the couple’s infant soon joined him in the apartment.
“We would come in and there was a weird smell,” Copeland tells Metro Times. “You could smell mildew. It smelled stuffy.”
Not long after, Grantham began suffering from frequent and severe nosebleeds.
“The blood was pouring out,” Copeland says. “He ended up having to get surgery.”
At the time, they did not know what was causing it.
Grantham says the couple only discovered the mold months later, in early May 2025, when one of his children nearly put a paint chip in his mouth.
“It had black dots on it,” Grantham says. “We caught it in time.”
Grantham said he immediately notified building management. Maintenance workers came to the apartment and chipped away some paint, then sprayed the area.
“They told us it wasn’t mold at first,” Copeland says.
Grantham says he pushed management to hire a professional remediation company, arguing that maintenance employees were not qualified to handle the situation. A contractor later tested the apartment and found moisture inside the walls, Grantham says.
According to lab results from PEL Laboratories shared with Metro Times, air and surface samples from the unit detected Ascomycetes species, basidiomycetes species, and cladosporium species, fungi commonly associated with moisture intrusion and indoor mold growth.
Hospital records provided by the couple show Grantham also tested with elevated levels of Alternaria and Stemphylium herbarum, molds that can act as airborne allergens and are uncommon in high concentrations indoors. Copeland tested with elevated levels of Cladosporium herbarum and Penicillium notatum, fungi frequently found in water-damaged buildings and associated with indoor mold growth.
Grantham says the mold was found beneath air vents throughout the apartment.
“When the heat came on, it circulated through the whole place,” he says. “The mold was in the master bedroom, the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room. Everywhere.”
As the situation worsened, Copeland says, her health rapidly declined. She developed chronic hives and swelling and was eventually prescribed an EpiPen, steroids, and other medications she had never needed before.
“My throat felt like it was closing,” she says. “I was disoriented, but I still had to make sure my baby was OK.”
Their infant began waking up screaming and developed rashes, hives, and pink eye, Copeland says. One of Grantham’s older children, who visited the apartment, also began experiencing nosebleeds.
“One night he woke up with blood all over the bathroom,” Copeland says. “We thought it was DaQuan at first. Then we realized it was his son.”
Grantham says he ultimately required emergency nasal surgery because he could not breathe out of one side of his nose.
His symptoms linger, he says.
“My nose still burns,” he says.
Copeland continues to struggle with hives and swelling near her eyes and says she went to the hospital Wednesday night because her condition worsened.
Copeland and Grantham say they repeatedly asked Alden Towers management for help, including temporary relocation while the mold issue was addressed. They say those requests were ignored, and audio recordings from the pair support those claims.
After Grantham’s surgery, Copeland says, he was forced to return to the apartment.
“They couldn’t even accommodate him knowing he had surgery coming up,” she says. “We didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
Grantham says management initially told him he would not need to pay rent while the issue was being investigated, but later reversed course.
“They said they would work with me,” he says, providing audio recordings that back up his claims. “Then they said I had to pay the balance before they would fix the apartment.”
Ultimately, the family was evicted.
The family was removed from the apartment in August 2025, and Grantham’s security deposit was never returned, he says.
“I ended up homeless,” Grantham says. “I was staying with family, taking the bus to work, sometimes walking. I missed Christmas.”
Copeland says management also accused Grantham of breaching his lease because she was staying in the unit, even though staff knew she and the baby were living there full time.
“They knew that unit was messed up,” she says . “I stayed there all day.”
Before leaving, Copeland says the family threw away most of their belongings out of fear they were contaminated, including furniture, electronics, cookware, and clothing.
“We literally couldn’t take anything with us except bags and sealed totes,” she said. “We had just bought all of it when we moved in.”
As they were moving out, Grantham says he slipped and fell because of a leak in the ceiling.
“I slipped on the staircase and injured my ankle,” he recalls. “I still have back spasms, and my ankle still hurts sometimes.”
Before they had trouble with mold, they say their apartment was infested with cockroaches.
“I had just had my baby. The roaches were crawling on the counter near my baby’s formula,” Copeland says.
Today, Copeland says she wakes up itching and remains fearful of mold exposure anywhere she goes.
“If I see a spot on a wall, I’m scared,” she says. “I’m traumatized.”
She says the experience, combined with postpartum depression, pushed her into isolation.
“My son didn’t get a Christmas,” she says. “Do you know how many days I cried because of that?”
The company that manages the building, Friedman Real Estate, said through a spokesperson on Wednesday that it would respond to Metro Times’s questions for comment. But since then, the company has gone silent.
Alden Towers, originally built in 1922 and once considered one of the most distinctive apartment complexes on the Detroit River, now faces a long list of complaints, including broken elevators, mold, flooding, overflowing trash, roach infestations, unsafe hallways, and a management company that tenants say is indifferent and punitive.
Residents say the decline began after the building was purchased in 2019 by Alden Towers Holding Company LLC, a company tied to Belfor Holdings Inc., according to tax and state property records and a previous report from Crain’s Detroit Business that lists a Belfor executive as a member of the LLC. Metro Times could not reach the owner for comment.
The family’s allegations are similar to those raised by other Alden Towers tenants over the past several years.
Last year, management didn’t turn on the heat until Nov. 1, weeks after temperatures dropped, and it went out three days later in one of the building’s four towers, forcing tenants in 98 units to warm their homes with space heaters. A temporary boiler has since been installed to provide heat.
On Dec. 9, one day after Metro Times contacted the city about the outage, Detroit began issuing a $2,000-a-day fine to the building’s owner until the heat resumed.
Others have described chronic elevator failures, roach infestations, water shutoffs, and mold following leaks and fires. Some tenants who raised complaints said they later faced eviction notices or lease terminations.
Since August 2024, the city has cited the owner at least six times for violations ranging from failing to obtain a certificate of compliance and maintain clean, sanitary conditions to ignoring unsafe building conditions, broken fire-safety doors, and required safety equipment that wasn’t working.
Tenants have picketed outside the building and sought help from city officials, arguing that management has failed to address longstanding habitability issues in the nearly century-old complex.
Copeland says the experience has permanently changed how she views housing and safety.
“Nobody should have to live like this,” she says. “Especially not with a baby.”
Grantham says he and his family are still trying to rebuild their lives.
“We had everything mapped out,” he says. “And then it all fell apart.”
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Steve Neavling
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