WeWork’s office phone booths may have dangerous levels of formaldehyde

  • WeWork warned that it found “poten­tial­ly ele­vat­ed lev­els of formalde­hyde” in phone booths in its loca­tions in the US and Cana­da.
  • The office-shar­ing com­pa­ny is pulling thou­sands of phone booths out of ser­vice, it said in an email to ten­ants on Mon­day morn­ing.
  • WeWork said it was to com­plaints of “odor and eye irri­ta­tion.”
  • Vis­it Insid­er’s home­page for more sto­ries.

WeWork ten­ants received an email Mon­day morn­ing inform­ing them of “poten­tial­ly ele­vat­ed lev­els of formalde­hyde” in phone booths through­out WeWork offices in the US and Cana­da.

The email, obtained by Busi­ness Insid­er, said WeWork was pulling 1,600 phone booths from loca­tions that “may be impact­ed,” in addi­tion to 700 booths that have yet to be test­ed for formalde­hyde.

Formalde­hyde is a tox­ic chem­i­cal used pri­mar­i­ly as a seal­ing agent in par­ti­cle­board and wood prod­ucts. When peo­ple are exposed to high lev­els of the chem­i­cal, they can expe­ri­ence eye, nose, and throat irri­ta­tion, accord­ing to the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency.

WeWork said in the email that it had received com­plaints of “odor and eye irri­ta­tion.”

In a state­ment to Busi­ness Insid­er, a WeWork rep­re­sen­ta­tive con­firmed the con­tents of the email and said WeWork took action to remove the phone booths as soon as tests for high lev­els of formalde­hyde came back pos­i­tive late last week.

Read more: Here’s every­thing we know about WeWork exec exits, huge lay­offs, and more as the co-work­ing giant looks to right itself after a failed IPO

Colleen Wong, a with the Glob­al Entre­pre­neur­ship Net­work, said she noticed a pun­gent smell in the phone booths at WeWork’s Ross­lyn loca­tion in Arling­ton, Vir­ginia, where she’s a ten­ant.

“I always noticed, from the first I entered a phone booth, a strong chem­i­cal odor,” Wong told Busi­ness Insid­er in a Twit­ter direct mes­sage. “I assumed it was a new build­ing / equip­ment type smell. Kind of like glue or a new car.”

Oth­er WeWork ten­ants voiced exas­per­a­tion on Twit­ter on Mon­day morn­ing.

—Bar­ry Graubart (@graubart) Octo­ber 14, 2019

The high lev­els of formalde­hyde were caused by the man­u­fac­tur­er of the phone booths, the WeWork rep­re­sen­ta­tive said.

is the lat­est inci­dent for WeWork after a dif­fi­cult few months. The com­pa­ny faced crush­ing scruti­ny after the paper­work it filed in August for an ini­tial offer­ing showed a ques­tion­able path to prof­itabil­i­ty. And reports the bizarre work­place antics of CEO Adam Neu­mann, like serv­ing employ­ees tequi­la shots after dis­cussing lay­offs and smok­ing weed on a com­pa­ny jet.

WeWork and Neu­mann lost the sup­port of investors in the month that fol­lowed, and the com­pa­ny’s val­u­a­tion dropped by more than 50%. WeWork delayed its IPO on Sep­tem­ber 17, and Neu­mann stepped down on Sep­tem­ber 24.

The com­pa­ny is now look­ing for a of cred­it and could run out of cash next month with­out it.

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