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Q. I hope you can help me, I'm
getting desperate. I live in a ground-level two bedroom apartment in VA
with my roommate. Recently, we've found mold all through our apartment.
The most significant area of mold appears in the upper corner of one of our
closets where the wall meets the ceiling. The ceiling above us is painted
concrete, and our floor is also a concrete slab. Since finding that, I've
found mold growing on wood furniture, clothes, shoes, the underside of the
couch, around drainpipes, and perhaps most disconcertingly on the drawers
and the undersides of all of the shelves in our kitchen cabinets. It is not
as if everything is green...in fact, some of the mold is hard to see without
a flashlight, but it is nonetheless quite apparent (although just starting
in some cases). Since we've discovered the problem, we've
turned on the AC, bought a dehumidifier, bought damp-it buckets for our
closets and started to leave lights and exhaust fans on at times throughout
the day to dry the place out. Our biggest concern is that the mold is all
over the house...it pretty much has gotten into every corner of the house
irregardless of what wall the infected item is on.
That being said, I have three
basic questions:
1. Could anyone, without coming in and doing extensive testing, give me an
idea of how serious a problem I have? For instance, should we move out and
let the landlord clean everything with us out of the situation?
2. What can be used to clean mold out of wood furniture if you don't want
to have to re-finish it?
3. Does it sound like cleaning it ourselves would sufficiently solve the
problem? [June 25, 2003]
A. With such widespread sighting of mold growth
in your apartment you need to get out as soon as possible to a mold safe
place to live. Do not move any of your clothing or personal property without
completely and effectively decontaminating them of mold spores and any mold
growth. Learn how in our easy-to-follow book
DIY Mold Book. Your landlord is not going to voluntarily do anything effective for the
mold problem because landlords just will not spend money to protect their
tenants' health against mold infestation. Getting rid of the mold in your
apartment is not something you can do on your own because: (1) the water
intrusion cause of the mold growth has to be found and fixed; (2) mold
growth on and INSIDE walls, ceilings, and floors will have to be removed;
(3) mold remediation cannot be safely done while you and your possessions
are still in the apartment.
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Toxic
Mold Inspection 
