Mold in basement question with pictures

[rubyred716]

Hi everyone,

I currently live in a really cute basement apartment. Been living here for almost 2 years. 2 weeks ago I opened up the storage room closet and noticed that the floor and everything in there was wet. I looked up, and the ceiling in there is just wood planks, and it was all wet and dripping. The next day I noticed in my living room that an area of my carpet was saturating wet, and there was a thin water line with a small water bubble on the wall in the kitchen and on the corner was water dripping very slowly. So the water didn't come from underneath the ground.. There was a leak that spread from the upstairs all across in the ceiling and walls and obviously ran down the wall which made the carpet soaked.

My landlord bought a dehumidifier and fixed the leak upstairs and everything is dried now. However, the rug was wet for a few days and dried on its' own. The rug did smell but now it doesn't smell anymore. I've been using the dehumidifier and everything is mostly dry now, but my kitchen cabinets are wood and the leak spread to them and you can see how the wood expanded and bubbled out from whatever areas got wet. Under the kitchen sink wood got wet also but now is dried up. I had green surface mold on the wood that I used bleach with and just wiped off. But the smell of it smells musty and mildewy and moldy when I open up the cabinets that got wet.

I've been cleaning with mold remover on the surface of everything that got wet, bleach, etc., but the smell is not coming out. In the bathroom, under the sink, it smells so musty in there..... I don't know if it was a slow leak or fast leak but the rug got wet within 2 days, and then a day after I saw the leak in the storage room, an area of the kitchen ceiling was leaking. The landlord isn't going to rip down any walls, because he said everything is dry now and I'm running a dehumidifier. He said he might drill holes in the wood and walls to air dry and let the dehumidifier run and then he will spackle and patch them back up. However ,when he came to check the damage yesterday he said there's no need for it because everything is dry now. But what about behind the walls and in the ceiling? Even though it was fresh water dripping from upstairs, there's no way it can dry because it's covered? All of that is probably mold right now.

Also, if I have surface mold on my wood cabinets, doesn't that mean that there's mold BEHIND it where the water was? In the storage room on the wood planks that got all wet, I see maybe a little bit of black mold maybe like the size of my pinky in like 3 spots that I sprayed but I didn't wipe it off. I'm just nervous that I'm breathing in toxic poisonous air and I'm going to get lung cancer. I don't know what to do because we don't have money to get a new place for another 2 months and I feel like this is going to kill us.

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[Marc]

Looks like a major event. I'll betcha that your issues with mold and moldy smells are not going to vanish with the protocol you've thus far set in place - bleach and dehumidifier. It seems mold is not very well understood by any of the players yet involved. You need to get someone involved who does understand it and understands it well. That person is likely to recommend not only tearing out a lot of interior finishes and cabinets but doing so in a particular manner so as to contain the growth.

Another option is to simply find another apartment. Several photos of mold growth on the walls and cabinets along with a few sentences having the word 'litigation' in them should give the landlord sufficient reason to release you from the terms of the contract.

Marc

[ghentjr]

If you have renters insurance check the policy to see if there may be coverage for this type of damage. Plus what Marc said.

[kurt]

I'm not one to get overly concerned with mold, but you've got a mess, and the landlord's assurances are meaningless.

Moisture is trapped in the cabinets and under the vinyl coatings and finishes. If you continue to smell mold after cleaning, you still have mold.

Most of the stuff you read about mold is claptrap, but it's not healthy to live in a mold infested space. Continued exposure is unhealthy, and depending on your genetic predispositions, could cause heatlh problems.

As unpleasant as it may be, I'd be moving on if the landlord continued insisting everything is ok.

[Jim Katen]

Your landlord's insurance should have paid for a real cleanup job.

[Nolan Kienitz]

Your landlord's insurance should have paid for a real cleanup job.

That is assuming he has insurance.[?]

[hausdok]

Hi,

If you get cancer it won't be from the mold.

The mold was always there. You have been breathing it every second of every day you've lived there. You breathed it every second of every day in the home before this one, and the home before that one, and the home before that, etc., since you took your first breath.

It's also in my house, and Marc's house, and Jim's house, and Kurt's house, and, well, you get the idea.

The leak just provided the mold with enough moisture to reproduce more quickly than it can die off. Once the dehumidifier gets the moisture down enough it will begin dying more quickly than it can reproduce; and, once the dead overgrowth spore is cleaned up, you won't be able to see it anymore - though it will still be there in your lungs, your stomach, you spleen, your kidneys, your hair, stuck to the surface of your eyes, in your nose, in your ears, on your food, etc., 24/7/365 until you either die from old age or other causes or leave the planet.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[rubyred716]

are you joking or serious?!

Hi,

If you get cancer it won't be from the mold.

The mold was always there. You have been breathing it every second of every day you've lived there. You breathed it every second of every day in the home before this one, and the home before that one, and the home before that, etc., since you took your first breath.

It's also in my house, and Marc's house, and Jim's house, and Kurt's house, and, well, you get the idea.

The leak just provided the mold with enough moisture to reproduce more quickly than it can die off. Once the dehumidifier gets the moisture down enough it will begin dying more quickly than it can reproduce; and, once the dead overgrowth spore is cleaned up, you won't be able to see it anymore - though it will still be there in your lungs, your stomach, you spleen, your kidneys, your hair, stuck to the surface of your eyes, in your nose, in your ears, on your food, etc., 24/7/365 until you either die from old age or other causes or leave the planet.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike