Residents at Village Court were told to keep their sliding glass doors shut after a vicious mold outbreak five years ago said Chuck McCullough, the Chairman of the Housing Authority's Board of Commissioners responsible for the senior housing complex.

McCullough's explanation of the situation follows months of controversy after residents found their sliders bolted shut from the outside by maintenance personnel. Residents, led by Eileen Marum, a former Village Court resident, have focused their ire on Executive Director Louise Sousa and the maintenance staff, saying that both instituted the policy to bolt the doors shut.

Village Court is a state facility on Acushnet Road operated by the Mattapoisett Housing Authority that provides affordable housing for seniors. Recently, residents have been complaining that their sliding glass doors were bolted shut in order to prevent residents from opening them and letting in the dampness that could resurrect the mold problem.

The doors were unbolted but a June 9 meeting of the Mattapoisett Housing Authority Board instituted a new policy stating that residents could not open their sliders under possible threat of eviction. McCullough said this was necessary because the previous policy had no means of enforcement.

"The policy to keep the doors closed, that came from the board I sit on," said McCullough, asserting that Executive Director Louise Sousa did not create the policy as many residents have suggested. "We don't want to pull in humid air from the outside, it would defeat the purpose of the ventilation system we installed."

The ventilation system was installed after a serious infestation of mold in the summer of 2006. Its purpose is to control humidity within the complex so that the chances of mold breaking out again are greatly reduced.

Resident Roberta Tripp has often teamed up with Marum to demand an investigation into the Housing Authority and Sousa because of these policies, saying they are detrimental to the aging population of the facility.

"She's never been on the lease here," said McCullough, about Marum. "We're not sure where she lives."

The chief complaints regarding the sliders are that they will impede exiting the building during an emergency and that they raise the temperature in the hallways. McCullough said both of those assertions are false. The ventilation system is designed to remove humidity, not control temperature, so the hallways will be whatever temperature it is outside, said McCullough. As for emergency exit, only the sliders in front of residents' living rooms were bolted shut, less than a third of the total, and the exits and entrances were never touched, only the sliders.

McCullough defended Sousa, saying that she cares deeply about the residents of Village Court but that the part-time nature of her position leads to her over-extended herself at times. He added that charges that the Board of Commissioners or the Executive Director don't care about the residents are far-fetched.

"We have compassion for these people," said McCullough.