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Almost from day one, the Guilford County Courthouse was declared an architectural injustice.

Its corridors were confusing, its jury boxes and courtrooms too small and acoustically challenged.

Judges strained to hear witnesses and attorneys in the front of some courtrooms but could hear whispers in the rear just fine.

The original steps and sidewalks were redesigned at a cost of $19,000 after one pedestrian after another took a tumble on them because their odd coloring and design created an optical illusion.

The cramped stairwells barely allow enough head room for a 6-footer.

The roof leaked.

And so on.

Now comes more bad news about the building once anticipated as a Ferrari and delivered as a Pinto: It's sick.

Nosebleeds and headaches

As Ryan Seals reports on today's front page, the air in the building may be unhealthy for visitors and employees.

Tests have revealed mold in ventilation units, as well as the presence of allergens and bacterial pathogens.

Among the symptoms some employees have reported: nosebleeds, bloody coughs, watery eyes, fatigue, headaches, sore throats and asthma attacks.

Once they're home, they say, they feel fine. When they return to work, the symptoms return.

Samples obtained by the News & Record from air vents, ceiling tiles and other surfaces were found by a Kernersville laboratory to contain large amounts of a common mold called cladosporium.

Some of the problems can be traced to leaks, inadequate drainage, lack of proper maintenance and cleaning and possibly contaminated plumbing.

To its credit, the county has installed new drains and sloped the pavement outside of the building to draw moisture away from it.

It has invested $15,000 to patch some parts of the leaky roof, although the county has turned down funding requests for a totally new roof.

It has hired an outside company to test the air.

It has begun to replace water-stained tiles in the building.

It has repaired a leak in the law library and is investigating the cause of a librarian's nosebleeds.

Yet it seemed to act with greater urgency only as more questions were being asked. And a number of the problems and worker complaints persist.

It is not current county leaders' fault that the building was almost comically flawed from its inception in 1973. But somebody clearly wasn't paying enough attention during construction more than 36 years ago. Even a layman could have pointed out, for instance, that you don't make restroom doors so indistinguishable from stairwell doors that it's possible to walk into a ladies or men's room by mistake.

Not a unique problem

Gauging the environmental quality of a new building is a tougher proposition. Nor is what is called "sick building syndrome" unique.

Oak Ridge Elementary School has been closed and the students temporarily moved to Oak Ridge Military Academy as Guilford County Schools officials try to uncover what was causing illnesses among students and teachers there. Some of the symptoms sound eerily familiar: headaches, fatigue, nosebleeds.

But it is county leaders' obligation to protect the health of visitors and workers in the building.

Workers' voices important

Part of the problem, obviously, is communication. Not all of employees' problems were made known over the years.

Some courthouse workers have been reluctant to report their symptoms. For whatever reason, state employees in the building have seemed more comfortable speaking about the issue than county employees, who say they fear for their jobs.

Whether those misgivings are perceived or real, the county needs to make it clear that these workers should feel comfortable stepping forward without fear of reprisal.

There is some good news about the courthouse: The county tax and planning departments have moved to other locations to make way for expanded courtroom space.

But bigger does not necessarily mean safer.

There's no mistaking the county's error in commissioning such an ill-considered and poorly designed structure in the first place.

But that's water over the dam now -- and apparently, through the walls and roofs. As Donald Rumsfeld might say, we've got to hold court in the building we've got, not the building we want.