I live in an apartment building and about 6 weeks ago we noticed that the floor tiles in our foyer were coming up. We also noticed on the wall that there was a large amount of paint bubbling. So we knew there was a leak somewhere.

We called our landlord and they had someone come over and found that their was a hole in the bathtub drain in the apartment above us. This was fixed and the holes in our apartment were plastered up. A few days later we noticed that the section they plastered was staining, which led us to believe that the wall is still wet. They agreed and said when the wall drys they will replaster/paint.

Subsequently, we found that our closet smelled horrible and when we moved stuff around, we found black spots (mold/mildew?) all over the walls. So we emptied the closet, called the landlord and they wiped down the walls with chlorine/ammonia. Since then no signs of mildew. The closet, though, is still humid and has a strong musty/nasty smell to it. As I rent, its impossible to get them to do anything but give us a high powered fan and them tell us to keep the door open to the closet and run the fan to dry it out.

Is this reasonable to do? Should they be doing more to fix this?

Today I went out and bought a dehumidifier as I feel that will probably do the best thing in getting the area dry by sucking out the water? That make sense?

Should I get an air purifier to remove the smell or will removing the water accomplish that?

Any advice appreciated.

the de humidifier was the first thing i would have recommended as this pulls moisture from the air and will dry out the area quite quickly as for the smell i would suggest buying a car air freshner and hanging it as close to the affected area as possible.
this will disguise the smell until the area has dried completely

hope this helps

This post has been edited by mz30: Aug 14 2007, 12:33 PM

You are only treating the symptoms, the real problem is in the wall. If you are getting mold on the exterior of the wall you can pretty well imagine what's happening in the confined space of that wall. The only way to treat this situation is to open that wall, allow the wall to dry, treat the interior for mold, and replace the sheet rock.

Yo might want to talk to your local public health department and see if they can arm you with information regarding the seriousness of the health conditions that this can cause and see if there are any local codes that could force the owners to make a proper repair rather than fixing the esthetics.

The landlord should just take the old drywall down and replace it. To kill the smell for now though febreeze the wall. That stuff will kill almost any smell. To make it dry faster heat the wall with a blow drier or heat gun.

hi hawk while what dc3 and blackspyder are saying is true, there is no lanlord in the world who will start ripping walls out unless they are forced to do it.as for informing the public health(not sure in the u.s)but i can not see them getting involved because the bath upstairs was leaking(and has been fixed).also if you heat the wall wall the smell will become worse and no amount of febreeze will disguise that.as a further suggestion you could ask the guy coming to paint and plaster to use maybe pva or febmix to stop any serious damp again

Here in the U.S. if you can prove that it is a Health Hazard to you to the local authorities they will force the landlord to fix it in most cases. "MOLD" is a health Hazard and a simple home test kit (available at most hardware stores) is proof enough for most localities to do a further investigation on the landlord's dime.

Chances are, if the authorities are called, (depending on where you live) you might have to find some place to stay. They will quarantine the house until the mold is gone. Air samples will have to be taken. And only when the air is clean, will you be allowed to return.

As far as treating the mold is concerned, once the sheet rock is removed. There are companies that specialize in mold removal. They use dry ice in a high pressure washer. It works the same way a sandblaster works. The dry ice dissipates leaving just a small amount of material from the walls to clean up. That's a lot better than removing the entire structure. Again, that should be on the landlords dime, as stated above.

Saw that on HGTV.

This post has been edited by 12x48y: Sep 23 2007, 06:11 PM