This is a lover letter we wrote for Dublin women organizers. Bernie and others organize against mould in housing. The love letter was published in a zine that we made with a team on the issue of Mould in public housing: Mould Works (June 2025). You can find the zine here: We made the zine with Anushka Dasgupta, Luca Hopman, Job van Aken, Gresa Gashi, Noortje van Amsterdam, Josien Arts and Marguerite van den Berg. Below you will find the text of the love letter: 

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Dear Bernie from the flats, 

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This is our love letter to you. ‘We have names’, you said. You don’t want to be ‘the flat’ – a nameless category that lives in the houses that were made into leaking and mouldy ruins by lack of upkeep and care. ‘We have names. ‘I’m Bernie, there is Laura, there is Claire, there is Monica. We have names. We have families. And we deserve a better quality of living.’

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You have names and have come together. You are building networks, action, solidarity. Because there are many sides of your story that are the same as other renters’ stories. People looking at the black mould returning on their walls. Children developing coughs. Spending hard-earned money on paint every year. People writing their landlords, asking for insulation, asking for basic care. People waiting on renovation for decades. People applying band-aids on cracks in the concrete that will not be sealed in this lifetime.  

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So much work and care go into living with mould. No chance that you can stop working and caring. You are wiping, cleaning, painting, airing, worrying. Your labour is unpaid. You do it nonetheless. Your survival depends on it.  

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You have names and have come together. Dublin, Amsterdam, Paris, Dresden, Brussels: there are people with names living with black mould in these cities too. Wiping, cleaning, painting, airing, worrying. Living in the housing blocks that were built in times of solidarity, in times of public housing, social housing, housing for workers. After many years of neglect and austerity, they impose rent increases, punish you for having arrears, reprimand you for not ventilating enough while the mould grows. Welfare ruins, leaking and cracking. Held up by your love and care. By your skill and expertise, too.  

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You have names and have come together. Such a clear and simple appeal: ‘We have names.’ ‘And we deserve a better quality of living.’ For you, there is no hiding from this simple truth. Landlords can hide, so can council members, in their mortgaged houses. But there is no hiding from mould while living in your flat. You do deserve a better quality of living.

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What you are experiencing is just wrong and you are making complete sense.  

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While you gave the collective address - ‘Bernie is the woman for it’, one of your comrades said. You are not alone. And in and around you we see all the work that women do to keep the world running. The work you do to keep the flats from falling to the ground; to keep your smiles and dignities intact from the attacks of people who do not care and do not understand that you have names and that you will not take this for another day longer.  

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We stand behind that.  

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With love,  

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