my health club is a health risk. what should I do?

February 4, 2007 6:01 PM

my health club is a health risk. what should I do?

temperatures have dropped in chicago. we reached minus three degrees fahrenheit last night. good thing that I have a membership to an indoor health club. or not.

it's so cold in there that I could actually see my breath when I last ran there. after that, I promptly fell sick and missed a week at work. my emails to the health club manager have gone unanswered, the front desk personnel claims there is nothing they can do and the manager's voice mail didn't pick up last time I tried.

I think those gigantic panorama windows are to blame. you can practically feel the icy wind seeping through the cracks. there is no isolation on them whatsoever.

I wonder what I should do. of course I could join another club but this one is by far the closest and thus the most convenient. but it does seem that I need to go to an outside source and make a big stinker out of this in order to get them to move. so what do you recommend, hive mind? alderman, better business bureau or (gasp) an attorney (I did fall sick after all)?

posted by krautland to health & fitness (16 comments total)

There doesn't seem to be a directo correlation between you getting sick and the temperature of the club.

And what, exactly,do you want them to do? Insulate the windows? Refund money? Turn the heat up?

Based on what you're written so far, it sounds like you're making mountains outta molehills.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:09 PM on February 4, 2007

Unless you can prove that you actually fell sick from the health club (the health club's lawyers would probably say you could have fallen sick from another source), I doubt you'd have a case. Keep in mind that cold doesn't cause colds. Besides, you'd have to suffer pretty hefty lasting damages to get any significant amount of compensation.

Keep trying to get ahold of management. Ask when they're working next, then call when they say. Also, don't demand anything; if you actually ask for compensation, you will probably be viewed as fishing for free stuff, and will probably not get anything at all. Most businesses have a standard way to compensate (free month at the club, etc).

I'd go to the local newspapers, if you really can't get ahold of a manager. Write a certified letter to management stating that you'll go to the papers with your complaint if it's not answered in a timely manner. Then follow through if they don't answer. If that doesn't work, then go to the BBB.

I'm actually a little jealous. My health club gets way too hot with the heat on constantly, and I can't run for as long as I'd like.
posted by Verdandi at 6:14 PM on February 4, 2007

An attorney? Even if you believe you got sick because you ran in the cold, you stayed there to run. It's not as though you got sick because of something completely out of your control or knowledge.

I'm with Brandon. If you don't like the way they run their club, and they refuse to respond to your complaints, then go elsewhere. It clearly isn't the most convenient if you believe it made you so sick you missed work.
posted by limicoline at 6:14 PM on February 4, 2007

Running in the cold won't make you sick --- people go jogging outdoors all winter long. All the recirculating germs in the health club might make you sick, but it's not the cold per se that's the problem. And even if it was, you would prove that you got the illness at the health club how? This time of year, people are sneezing and coughing all over town, and you are exposed to germs in lots of places.

I can't imagine why an alderman would care --- this is a private business, right? Not a public health club? I don't really see what alternative you have other than taking your business elsewhere. If you convinced 100 other members to also take their business down the street, I'm sure the management would turn up the heat. (If this is a city-owned health club, then yes, call your alderman or the city department responsible for the health clubs immediately, of course.)

I guess I'm really just not very sympathetic, and I'd guess that most people (including aldermen and better business staff) would be equally unsympathetic. But good luck in your efforts.
posted by Forktine at 6:17 PM on February 4, 2007

put on a warm hat and suck it up, move to another city that isn't known for being horrendously cold and windy, or just put on the warm hat/clothes and wait it out...when the membership is over go somewhere else

the heat may not even be their fault, are they in a big building with other offices/retail etc? Do they lease, is it triple net? Perhaps they're waiting for this to be fixed...maybe it's an acute problem? Is it oppressively hot in the summer? I find that much more annoying! You can always put on some extra layers for the cold, but i think intense heat can be a lot more harmful to the athlete...

cut them some slack, see how it goes, and bundle up in the mean time
posted by Salvatorparadise at 6:30 PM on February 4, 2007

Health clubs are inherent health risks. A group of people exercise heavily in an eclosed area, it is generally humid and warm. Perfect breeding ground for germs.

Cold will most likely make the place healthier.
posted by b1tr0t at 6:47 PM on February 4, 2007

Well, you know, it will warm up in a few weeks, at most. Maybe this is a temporary problem?
posted by washburn at 6:47 PM on February 4, 2007

The rhinovirus reportedly flourishes at temperatures ~ 91 F. Added, if the health club is as drafty as you say, that would mean more airflow, rather than re-circulated interior air.

That said, I do not think that you will have much legal recourse against the gym. If anyone had some sort of recourse, it may be the gym employees, in some form of bad working conditions, but even that seems a bit over the edge.
posted by kellyblah at 6:49 PM on February 4, 2007

Attorneys won't see this case as profitable, neither your alderman nor the BBB will see this as worth the time to investigate, and taking away your individual business won't be a big enough threat to make the gym fix this problem if they weren't going to already.

Additionally, as others have pointed out, this didn't make you sick, and cold-weather exercise isn't unusual and has even been taken to far extremes when people ran a half-marathon to the South Pole (check out Ultramarthon Man from the CPL).

In short, not to be unkind, but your solution is simple: a sweatshirt. This sort of temperature is a bit chillier than recent years but is certainly not unknown to Chicagoans.
posted by WCityMike at 7:00 PM on February 4, 2007

You didn't get sick enough to miss a WEEK from work simply from running in the cold. Wear a hat and find a new gym.
posted by jesirose at 7:08 PM on February 4, 2007

Did you sign a contract with the health club? Even if you simply pay them month to month, I'm guessing that constitutes a contract in the most basic sense. There's an agreement: You give them your money, they provide you with exercise facilities. Surely there is a case to be made that they haven't lived up to their end of the bargain.

However, I'm pretty sure that the best you could do in a civil court is to get back the cost of your membership for that month and (if applicable) be let out of your contract. So if it were me, I'd walk up to the front desk and tell them I want a refund on my most recent payment. If they don't cough it up, you might at least get the manager/owner's attention. But if you get neither, then you've got to decide whether that amount of money is worth going to court over.

Of course, if you haven't paid for that time yet (like, if your February fees will be paid in March), then all you can really do is stop paying them.

I don't know whether the illness should or could be a factor in any legal action you might take. I tend to think, like the other posters and for the same reasons they give, that it's a bad idea, unlikely to get you anywhere. But that's just a guess.
posted by Clay201 at 7:48 PM on February 4, 2007

health clubs shouldn't be that cold, but contrary to what your momma taught you, that isn't why you got sick.

And even if it was (which it wasn't), you chose to stay and run in the cold.

The absolute most a reasonable person could ask for here is early termination of contract without penalty. Anything more than that will cause them to laugh at you, rightfully.
posted by Tacos Are Pretty Great at 8:17 PM on February 4, 2007

Call 311 and report the health hazard--I would think that places of business have to be kept at a certain temperature.
posted by brujita at 9:23 PM on February 4, 2007

Verdandi, it's not quite so clear-cut:

A study at the Common Cold Centre in Cardiff UK in 2005 took 90 students and chilled their feet in cold water for 20 minutes and showed that the chilled group had twice as many colds over the next 5 days as a control group of 90 students whose feet were not chilled. The authors propose that when colds are circulating in the community some persons carry the virus without symptoms and that chilling the feet causes a constriction of blood vessels in the nose and this inhibits the immune response and defences in the nose and allows the virus to replicate and cause cold symptoms. The chilled person believes they have caught a cold but in fact the virus was already present in the nose but not causing symptoms.

More about colds here.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:44 AM on February 5, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

When you look for a new club, you should immediately reject one where no one is wearing shorts. This means they failed there last health inspection and are required by law to have everyone wear long pants.
posted by KRS at 11:08 AM on February 5, 2007

The cluc is full of people getting hands all over stuff, and coughing, and being human. Some of them have colds. Wash your hands a lot. If the club is unreasonable cold, withhold a month of payment or get a bunch of people to complain together.
posted by theora55 at 2:49 PM on February 5, 2007