The risks of inadequate building maintenance can’t be stressed enough. Some are so egregious that threaten the occupants’ health or even their lives. Getting compensation for injuries caused by negligent building maintenance is the purview of the premises liability lawyer. Here are some of the many problems caused when a building isn’t maintained the way it should be.
Risks to Health
A badly maintained building can be a serious risk to the health of anyone who lives, works or even visits it. If the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning has been allowed to break down, the building can be too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. This alone can have serious consequences. Here are some problems that occur in a building that’s too hot or too cold.
- Heat exhaustion. Heat exhaustion occurs when the body has nearly depleted its fluids and electrolytes. The heat has made the person sweat so much that their intake of water can’t keep up. They may become dizzy or nauseated and suffer from muscle cramps and a weak pulse.
- Heat stroke. If heat exhaustion isn’t treated, it can progress to heat stroke. The person no longer sweats, their skin is hot and dry, and they may even lose consciousness.
- Dehydration. This is when a person loses so much water from their body that they can’t function properly. Dehydration can lead to heat exhaustion or heat stroke in a hot building.
- Mental problems. Living or working in a building that’s too hot can make a person fatigued, headachey and dizzy. This makes them more prone to accidents.
Physical illnesses are not the only hazards of a building that’s too hot because the HVAC isn’t working. High temperatures can badly affect materials such as wood and drywall. If the HVAC system is struggling to work, the task of trying to cool down the building can overstress it. When this happens, circuit breakers trip, and the risk of fire rises. A well-working HVAC system also adds the right amount of humidity to the air. Humidity that’s too low can cause wooden items such as chairs, tables and floors to warp. Humidity that’s too high contributes to the growth of mold, mildew and other pathogens.
A cold building is almost as bad as a hot building. Though a person can dress in layers of clothing to try to keep warm, cold temperatures still have a negative impact on health. Maladies include:
- Hypothermia. This is when the body temperature of otherwise healthy people drops when they’re exposed to the cold. The symptoms are shivering, clumsiness, drowsiness, weakness and slurred speech. These symptoms can lead to trip and fall or other accidents.
- Chilblains. This is caused when the temperature in the building is not freezing, but the air is still cold and damp. It leads to painful, itchy red or purple spots on the skin.
- Frostbite. Frostbite is to chilblains what heat stroke is to heat exhaustion. In frostbite, the temperatures are so cold that exposed tissue of a body part is destroyed.
- High blood pressure. When the air is cold, the body responds by narrowing the blood vessels to keep heat around the vital organs. This narrowing causes blood pressure to rise.
- Respiratory ailments. Cold air is drier than hot air, and breathing it in can bring on or worsen asthma attacks.
- Heart problems. The stress of existing in a cold building makes the cardiovascular system work harder than it should to keep the body warm.
- Mental problems. As with hot buildings, cold buildings also reduce people’s ability to think clearly.
Mold isn’t just a problem with buildings that are too warm. The poor air quality that comes when the HVAC isn’t working also promotes the growth of mold. This causes allergic reactions and other illnesses. Cold makes people less agile, and this can result in poor balance. Chilled fingers can’t grip properly, and the person is also more at risk of tripping, falling and other accidents.
The building, too, breaks down even further when it’s unheated. Plumbing pipes burst if the temperature drops low enough. The very infrastructure can fail because of the continual cycle of shrinking in the winter and expanding in the summer. This can render the building uninhabitable or an extraordinary hazard for the people within and even nearby it.
Physical Safety Hazards
A neglected building often has areas that are poorly lit or not lit at all. Its floors are uneven, missing tiles or splintered. Spills are not cleaned up in a timely manner. Its electrical system may be antiquated, which makes fires and electrocution more likely.
The roof of the building may need repairs to the point where it leaks, which can rot wooden structures and destroy drywall. Equipment such as elevators or escalators, furnaces, boilers, and water heaters suffer neglect. They may not just fail to work but can cause untold damage. A neglected water heater, for example, can simply explode. Heavy machinery such as forklifts that lack regular maintenance can also fail catastrophically.
Injuries caused by living in, working in or visiting a badly maintained building are nearly innumerable. Among them are:
- Falls from neglected stairs and escalators.
- Injuries in badly maintained elevators.
- Trips on floors with missing or warped tiles or damaged carpets.
- Injuries due to bad lighting.
- Falls due to spills that weren’t cleaned up.
- Head and other injuries due to falling ceiling tiles.
- Trips caused by holes in the floors.
- Damage to vehicles due to potholes, faulty garage doors or missing traffic signs in parking lots.
- Trip and fall accidents on badly maintained pavement.
Pests and Vermin
One of the most unpleasant consequences of neglecting a building is the presence of pests and vermin. Rotting wood attracts cockroaches, mice, rats and termites. When these vermin move into a building, they cause even more damage by gnawing and building colonies and hives. Some of these pests even bring diseases such as hantavirus.
All of these risks and potential mishaps make a neglected building a source of anxiety for people who have to live and work within it. Contacting a leading personal injury law firm might be their best option.