Puerto Rico Mandate Desk: File It Where It Counts

File a mold complaint where it counts in Puerto Rico: the official consumer complaint route, plus copy-and-send emails to demand a gym and sauna inspection mandate.

This page is the Puerto Rico desk of the campaign: the official door for a consumer complaint, and the words — ready to copy, fill in, and send from your own email — for the bigger ask. A petition signature says we want this. A filed complaint is a record an office has to log, route, and answer or conspicuously not answer. Do both.

Read this first — Puerto Rico routes complaints differently. In Puerto Rico, consumer complaints route through DACO, the Department of Consumer Affairs, not the Department of Justice. The Secretary of Justice is listed because the mandate ask still belongs on that desk — but your complaint about a specific gym goes to DACO at the route below.

The official complaint route

Lourdes L. Gómez Torres — Secretary of Justice of Puerto Rico
Consumer complaints are taken by the Puerto Rico Department of Consumer Affairs (DACO).
Complaint route: online form / phone

Open the official complaint route →

https://www.daco.pr.gov
Office: P.O. Box 9020192, San Juan, PR 00902-0192 · (787) 721-2900
Attorney General's site: https://www.justicia.pr.gov/

File there first if you can — the official form creates the record in their system. Then also send the email below: a complaint that exists in two places is harder to lose.

Copy it. Fill it in. Send it yourself.

We never send email for visitors — a complaint has to come from the person who lived it. Copy either message into your own email, replace every [BRACKET] with your facts, and send it to the office above (the complaint variant is addressed to the Puerto Rico Department of Consumer Affairs (DACO); the mandate variant still goes to the Attorney General, because mandates are the AG's and the legislature's work). Keep your sent copy. Then file the same facts with us, so the report is counted on the Silence Index too.

Variant 1 — File on my gym / facility

Subject: Consumer complaint — mold in a [GYM / SAUNA / FACILITY] in [CITY], Puerto Rico

To the Consumer Protection office of the Puerto Rico Department of Consumer Affairs (DACO):

My name is [YOUR FULL NAME]. I am a [MEMBER / EMPLOYEE / CUSTOMER] of [FACILITY NAME AND FULL ADDRESS].

On [DATE(S)], I found what appears to be mold growth in [THE ROOM — sauna, steam room, locker room, showers]. [DESCRIBE WHAT YOU SAW AND SMELLED: color, how much, where exactly, how long it seems to have been there.]

[I reported this to the facility on [DATE], by [PHONE / EMAIL / IN PERSON]. The response was [WHAT THEY SAID OR DID — OR THAT THERE WAS NO RESPONSE]. Delete this paragraph if you have not raised it with the facility yet.]

[Since using that room I have experienced [YOUR SYMPTOMS IN PLAIN WORDS]. I [SAW / HAVE NOT YET SEEN] a medical professional about it. I am not asking your office for a medical judgment — I am reporting the condition of a room open to the public. Delete this paragraph if it does not apply.]

I have [PHOTOS / VIDEO / A WRITTEN STATEMENT] documenting this and can provide them on request.

I am asking your office to:
1. Record this complaint in your system and give me the complaint or reference number.
2. Tell me which agency — if any — has authority in Puerto Rico to inspect this facility's sauna / steam room / locker room, test what is growing there, and order it cleaned or closed.
3. If no agency has that authority, say so in writing, and keep this complaint on file as part of the public record of that gap.

Thank you for putting this on the record.

[YOUR FULL NAME]
[YOUR CITY], Puerto Rico
[YOUR PHONE — OPTIONAL]

Variant 2 — Ask for a sauna / gym inspection mandate

Subject: Please create a gym and sauna inspection mandate for Puerto Rico

Dear Attorney General Torres,

I am a resident of [CITY], Puerto Rico. I am writing to ask your office to support a sanitation inspection mandate for gyms, saunas, and steam rooms in Puerto Rico.

Right now there is no mandate. No agency in Puerto Rico is required — and in documented cases, no agency is able — to inspect a gym sauna, test what is growing in it, or close it, even on a documented complaint of visible mold. Where gyms are regulated at all, the rules cover registration, contracts, and money — not sanitation. Meanwhile, mold and Legionella findings in gyms, saunas, and locker rooms are documented across the country, in facilities exactly like the ones in our state that nobody inspects.

I ask your office to:
1. Support legislation giving the state health department — or whichever agency is proper — explicit authority to inspect gym saunas and steam rooms, to test on complaint, and to close a room that fails until it is remediated and re-tested.
2. Publish sauna and gym sanitation inspection results, the way pool inspection results are already published.
3. Count and publish consumer complaints about gym sanitation, so the size of this gap is on the public record.

[OPTIONAL — YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE IN TWO OR THREE SENTENCES: WHAT YOU FOUND, WHERE, AND WHAT HAPPENED WHEN YOU REPORTED IT.]

I have also signed the Puerto Rico petition for a sauna-inspection mandate (moldsgym.com/petitions/puerto-rico/).

[YOUR FULL NAME]
[YOUR CITY], Puerto Rico

The mandate ask lives here: the Puerto Rico petition — sign it after you file. And whatever you file, file it with us too: offices count their own paperwork; the Silence Index counts whether they ever answer.