Sydney woman diagnosed with chronic illness after she was exposed to toxic ...

A Sydney woman is battling multiple chronic illnesses which she believes have been caused by toxic black mould in the walls of her rental property. 

Caroline Bowman, 39, had been excited to move into her new apartment in a public housing building in Windsor, north-west of Sydney, back in 2015. 

She had just started a legal service course at TAFE and had high hopes for the rental, which had new carpets and a fresh coat of paint. 

But just a few weeks later the 33-year-old mysteriously fell ill with sinus and chest infections that quickly brought her studies to a standstill. 

Ms Bowman would later be diagnosed with chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS), thought to be caused by exposure to mould. 

But it would be several years before the student connected the toxic mildew in the rental to her diminishing physical condition.

Ms Bowman said she had been fit and healthy before she moved in, but soon developed asthma, lost her appetite and consequently lost 15kg. 

'I just had this really deep ache where I couldn't do anything', she told 9NEWS.

She began to join the dots after a particularly nasty earache landed her in a doctor's office, who found aspergillus mould growing inside her ear. 

Ms Bowman immediately thought of the black mould spreading across the freshly painted ceiling of her bathroom. 

She said after a few months the rancid mildew was soon covering the entire ceiling. 

'At one point I was cleaning the wall and I noticed it was a bit wobbly when I wiped it. I poked it and it made a hole. It was growing inside the walls. They were black,'

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