Hypoallergenic Housing Project a Disappointment : Health: Ecology House was designed for the chemically sensitive, but many tenants report symptoms anyway.

The idea was to build the nation’s first apartment complex for the chemically sensitive. The Ecology House would be a showpiece, built with none of the glues, fibers and sealers of modern construction.

A special “sniff team” was employed to smell the raw building materials and detect chemicals that might be offensive. Tile floors, metal shelves, high-powered ventilators and water filtration systems were installed.

But soon after residents said to be suffering from “multiple chemical sensitivity” moved into the 11-unit complex this fall, the complaints started. At least half of them said their new homes made them sick.

Now, one tenant sleeps on her bathroom floor to avoid odors in the rest of the apartment. Another sleeps on her patio despite temperatures in the 30s. A third breathes from an oxygen tank whenever she is home.

“This was a dream that turned into a nightmare,” lamented resident Jan Heard, a onetime recreational therapist who says she is disabled by her chemical sensitivity. “I don’t have any place to go.”

For the creators of Ecology House, the tenants’ reactions are a great disappointment and point up an unusual conundrum: How can builders construct an urban living space for people who seem to be allergic to the modern world?

Managers of the project are now re-examining construction materials--especially unsealed plaster walls and baked enamel cabinets--to see if there is a source of toxic odors that can be eliminated.

The apartment house was the product of years of effort by a nonprofit Marin County foundation seeking to help people diagnosed by their doctors as having multiple chemical sensitivity.

Victims of the increasingly common complaint--also known as “environmental illness”--say their immune systems have been compromised, leaving them with debilitating headaches, dizziness, swollen joints, disorientation, memory loss and even temporary paralysis when exposed to certain chemicals, especially petroleum-based substances. Some estimate that upward of 40,000 Americans--and perhaps many more--suffer from the condition.

But the medical community is divided over whether the syndrome truly exists. Neither the American Medical Assn. nor the California Medical Assn. recognizes it as a disease. Some doctors say there is no scientific proof that exposure to small amounts of chemicals can cause such an illness and contend the condition is psychological, not physical.

“In my view, they (the symptoms) are either manifestations of a deep-seated depression or an inability to cope, or both,” said Dr. Wallace Sampson, former chairman of a California Medical Assn. committee on health education. “I think it’s sort of a contagious psychological thing. People read about it, and then they come down with it.”

Nevertheless, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development recognizes the syndrome as an impairment under the Americans With Disabilities Act and contributed $1.2 million--two-thirds of the total cost--to construction of the Ecology House.

The remainder of the money was raised by the nonprofit Ecology House Inc., a group of civic-minded volunteers, low-income housing activists and people with environmental illness who applied to HUD for the federal grant. The Ecology House board oversaw construction of the project and continues to manage the complex.

Former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos, who now heads HUD’s southwest regional office, said the development was approved as a pilot project by top HUD officials during the Bush Administration in 1991. Built under the Clinton Administration, construction cost taxpayers about $100,000 more than a typical low-income project of the same size, he said.

Since it is a federally funded apartment house for low-income disabled people, only those with a doctor’s diagnosis of multiple chemical sensitivity who earn less than $20,500 a year can qualify to live there. Even if the illness is psychological, Agnos noted, its victims still are disabled and are eligible for assistance.

“Like other experiments, it may not work the first time, but that does not mean we shouldn’t help these people,” Agnos said. “If it does not work for them, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of people waiting in line to take their place.”

As a last resort, Agnos said, the blue-and-white building near downtown San Rafael could easily be converted to serve people with more traditional disabilities.

It is no accident that the first housing complex for people with environmental illness was built in Marin County.

This wealthy, liberal bastion is the hub of a movement to curb the use of pesticides and aromatic chemicals such as perfumes, which are made largely with synthetic chemicals. In 1991, Marin became the first jurisdiction in the nation to create a fragrance-free zone when it banned perfume-wearers from taking certain seats at county park board meetings.

Now, environmental illness activists say they plan a new campaign using the Americans With Disabilities Act to challenge businesses that use chemical products.

Monitors will inspect stores, theaters and other businesses to see if they have created “barriers” for chemically sensitive people, such as “fragrance emitting devices,” pesticide residue, cloth containing fabric softener or employees wearing perfume.

Businesses believed to be in violation will be notified and then could face a civil lawsuit if they do not change their ways, said Julia Kendall, a San Rafael publicist who says perfume and other chemicals have made her ill since she was exposed to malathion in Los Angeles in 1990.

“This will change the way people use pesticides, cleaners and personal care products,” she said. “As part of the Americans With Disabilities Act, it is my belief that the chemical barriers to our access can be removed without cost just by changing policies.”

But the most visible effort to champion the cause of the chemically sensitive has been Ecology House, which initially was hailed as a model for other communities.

Nearly 100 people applied for the small one-bedroom apartments and tenants were selected by lottery. The winners thought they were the lucky ones.

Dorothy Robertson, one of the first to move in, said she developed multiple chemical sensitivity when she was working on a construction project in Antarctica and drank water contaminated with jet fuel.

She said she now suffers reactions to petrochemicals--especially perfumes--and must be careful where she goes in public. Like many who have been diagnosed with the syndrome, she has had difficulty working and has little money. Sometimes, she said, she has suffered from disorientation and a loss of brain function that she likens to Alzheimer’s disease.

“Even after I was diagnosed with this I didn’t accept it because it sounds so crazy,” she said. “It is bizarre.”

She won the chance to move into Ecology House in November and said she soon began experiencing a resurgence of symptoms that had been in decline. She started sleeping outdoors and keeping her doors and windows open, and avoided being home as much as possible. Like other residents, she attributes the problem to the unsealed walls and paint on metal cabinets.

“I really don’t spend much time here,” she said. “Something is coming out of the walls.”

Tenant Marta Sonnenblick, a registered nurse who said she became chemically sensitive after she was exposed to mercury in her dental fillings, is angry that the Ecology House board did not take greater care in building the complex.

“They bungled it,” said Sonnenblick, who spends her nights on a futon on the bathroom floor.

Volunteers who worked five years to make the Ecology House a reality are stung by the criticism. Board President Tom Wilson said they went to great lengths to build safe apartments, including creating a “sniff team” of volunteers with environmental illness who deliberately exposed themselves to various building materials.

“It’s a major disappointment to us that we would put out all that effort and people would move in and get sick there,” Wilson said.

But figuring out what to do may not be easy. Even if the builders pinpoint what is making tenants sick, any quick solution would mean introducing different chemicals that might cause even bigger problems.

For now, Ecology House is offering to wash walls and remove painted metal hall closets that appear to be a source of aggravation. But the board is not promising it can make the building habitable for everyone.

Katie Crecelius, the project’s developer, said tenants were advised before moving in that the housing might not prove satisfactory.

“There will be people with multiple chemical sensitivity living here. It just may not be these people,” she said.