My bedroom is the lower half of a split level and in the summer is smells of mold and mildew. I can smell it on my clothes when I leave my apartment.
I keep my unit's bathroom fan on, and open windows regularly to keep things as dry, and fresh as possible, but it's not enough. The musty scent appears to gas out from the walls.
2 years ago there was fuzzy grey mold from floor to hip height, and I cleaned it up with bleach. Last summer I used raw bleach on my bedroom walls just cus of the smell.
What can else can I do to remove the smell? Moving is an option, but I pay 1200/mo when most places are 1800/mo around me.
Also, how bad is this for ones health? I feel like I can still breath well after 3 years of this. I did catch Crohn's disease though...
Mold is really bad, dude. If you're having digestive issues along with this issue in your home, then you undoubtedly have developed a fungal overgrowth in your body. Look up sick building syndrome. Find the CDF general on /x/ and do the protocol. If you rent, you need to tell your landlord and they need to remediate or you need to move, simple as. Mold and fungus in general are things that attach to us and parasitize us over long periods of time. Western medicine is behind the ball on how prevalent it is in affecting average people. Books could be written on this subject, but you should really understand that this will affect you in a significant way.
>sick building syndrome
>"Some studies have found that sick building syndrome may be associated with indoor mould or mycotoxin contamination. However, the attribution of sick building syndrome to mould is controversial and supported by little evidence."
Uh, ok.
Crohns could be a reaction to a vaccine you took. That’s how my family member got it.
I had Crohn's before I even knew the word COVID
So did she. She got it in ‘78 immediately after getting vaccinated and died bedridden weighing only 60 pounds in 2011.
>She got it in ‘78 immediately after getting vaccinated
Got what precisely?
She got "it"
it will catch up to you later in life as with cigarettes. enjoy your chronic bronchitis because while your landlord sips on wine from the money he didn't spend to fix it
I don't want to believe this. I don't. I seem 1.8km today. I can run 5km without much difficulty. I HAVE MY HEALTHY!!!
If you got mold in the walls you need to find out what is causing it, roof leak, burst pipe, running toilet etc.
the exterior brick wall was taken off and reassembled. It trapped all the air inside the building, and mold grew. They ended up making holes in the walls to allow the building to breath, but I think the damage was done, and persists
pic rel is my gfs bathroom. we painted it cus it's not our problem (anymore)
I live in Canada sueing isn't so common here, and my health is good. I think have bad allergies right now, which I don't think is related, yet
Check your local laws in regards to rentals. Mold can potentially be considered an issue that makes a property "uninhabitable." Though at least where I live the best you can expect is to get out of your lease. As for the smell some of those odor neutralizers are pretty good. Freshwave works well, at least the one marketed to the commercial market, IAQ. Never used the mass market version but I expect it's the same.
Hire an inspector privately, have them do an air quality test and get some professional opinions.
Take this to your land lord after and call your local land lord tenant board and inspectors to escalate.
Many moulds are carcinogenic, so sure you can breath fine, but they can cause cancer or other issues. This isn't something to live with or remedy from the outside, it's behind the floors and walls.
>I think have bad allergies right now, which I don't think is related, yet
it's from the mold you're breathing in all the time. you're going to permanently damage your lungs.
>It hasn't returned on the interior walls since.
it's everywhere you can't see.
>1200 monthly for a basement apartment that doesnt even fix a mold problem
Bruh
>What can else can I do to remove the smell?
Sue the landlord for causing a health hazard.
Probably too moist around the foundation. My house is split level with a french drain, good drainage the basement is always cool and dry, humidity range 40-60%. This is in the northeast where usually outdoor humidity is even higher than that.
So not something you could fix as a renter but maybe bring it up with the owner, it'll prolong the life of the foundation / the house as a whole.
Dont use bleach on your walls! When it dries, it leaves hygroscopic residue, wich is ideal for some new mold. If you have enough ventilation in your apartment, then it is propably caused by foundation moisture or some type of leak, as other anons said.
Tell the landlord you're living in a mold infested basement and he needs to take care of it or you'll sue
They never properly waterproofed the 3-4' underground foundation on those and they always fill with mold in the summers.
The walls need to be torn apart and then a vapor barrier needs to be installed behind the framing. The mold is because the framiyis straight up rotting from the moisture transmission
I sense that's what's going on. The thing is, I cleaned it up really well (100% bleach on everything) 1 and 2 years ago. It hasn't returned on the interior walls since. Just the smell.
I had the land lady / owner come in with a construction worker (the one who redid the exterior brick was causing the mould issues), and both of them said they didn't smell the mildew. They probably were lying to save their asses, but I had also been furiously cleaning to remove it the past week so it wasn't as strong. My landlady also can't sense burned rubber (I noticed this from another burning dryer incident)
I think my best option is to move somewhere else. I did some looking and other places can be found for 1500/mo.
Around the foundation is concrete and soil. There is no water from the roof to be diverted. Thanks for this idea though
You can't wash the outside of a car to remove the smell in the seats
You're straight fricked senpai
Move or make them fix it
sucks bro, mold is bad start making noise, land lord should fix it.
A thermal scan during highest temp of day lowest temp of day and during the dew point should give you size location and areas of concern.
A candle will heat and circulate air, hot air holds more water and rises. Risk your life in a fire by keeping it lit all night cold ambient air and hot local air should move the most moist air.
Be aware of the dew point. Humans can not feel wetness like other animals unless you have a fake knee from the 70s or, I am guessing, a neuralink
Black mold can cause cancer. Be smart and move.
get a portable air purifier that has ozone
I'm going with the Clap and leaving it there tbh.
Just buy a bunch of these cakes and use them throughout your place.
They sell them in granual form as well if that works better for you.
Also, apply heat to the space for extended periods of time.
If you have the resources, get a UV light (the kind that are soo gnarly you cant be in the room with them) and turn that shit on here and there.
There are also dehumidifiers that you plug in and let run to suck the moisture right out of the space.
When I was a lad, my room got mildly damp once and I treated it by coating the carpet in baking powder for a few hours a week then vaccuming it up since its dirt affordable.
Boric acid is said to be real good at eradicating mold. Could get some Hot Shots roach powder which is 99% boric acid, and put a drinking straw through the nozzle spout thing on the top of the cap of the bottle it comes in, and get a hang of shaking and squeezing it to dust whatever moldy surfaces there are with it.
Maybe a bucket of activated charcoal.
My landlords (very swell people) have been cooperating. They gave me a dehumidifier to use while they look into options. Damn it feels good to be Canadian
>westoids pay 1800/m to live in a mold infested health hazard shithole
good lord
Is the roof concrete? I'm greek and greece is full of old apartments with moisture problems like this.
It's always caused by a shitty upstairs bathroom with damaged wastewater pipes or ceramic tiles or a bust/cracked pipe in the walls/floor that keeps leaking.
You will never get the moisture issue solved until the leak is fixed, and then it'll take 3-4 weeks for the slab to dry. Then you need to scrape off all existing paint and repaint it with mould resistant paint.
These things drag out for months because it's expensive to rebuild a bathroom but if you push for it eventually they'll have to fix it.
>Is the roof concrete?
Nah, I'm on the basement split level. There are 2 units above me.
I thought Greece was dry and hot af? Interesting to know you suffer from the same stuff over there
I'm paying $1200 CAD/month for a spacious, non-highrise unit. Bachelor units go for $1500/month in my city. I have it pretty good
The dehumidifier the landlords gave me helps a lot. The air feels nicer to breath. I'm still curious what's behind the drywall though
If you can't move for the time being, aside from the obvious measures of removing mold I have one method I'd like to share to mitigate it. Buy incense sticks and smoke out your bathroom regularly. Preferably at night during those long periods you aren't using it. I notice that mold doesn't grow on the ceilings anymore, the smoke kills it.
It might not be the smoke. Alot of mono terpenes have unique properties. Specifically anitbacterial anti fungal as a defense mechanism of the plant. Egyptians knew this during embalming procedures. Biblically you could hire jesus to cure your house leprosy....Make sure youre messing with real essential oils. I like to drop oil on a hot hookah coal to smog my house down. I also roll my own doop by grinding up cedar bark and mixing in water, frankincense sap, I grind up and loban i grind up. Then add a little water and roll cones. then let them dry out for burning. Smells nice and has alot of various monoterpenes.
As well as just getting a fan and having air exchange going on.
Results: The dominant compounds of B. carteri EO were α-pinene (38.41%) and myrcene (15.21%), while C. myrrha EO was characterized by high content of furanoeudesma-1,3-diene (17.65%), followed by curzerene (12.97%), β-elemene (12.70%), and germacrene B (12.15%). Burn incense fume and soot had α-pinene (68.6%) and incensole (28.6%) as the most dominant compounds, respectively. In vitro antimicrobial assays demonstrated high bacterial and fungal sensitivity to the liquid and vapour phases of EOs, and burn incense fume. In situ application of B. carteri EO vapour and incense fume resulted in reduction of air-borne viable microbial counts by up to 45.39 ± 2.83% for fungi and 67.56 ± 3.12% for bacteria (EO); and by up to 80.43 ± 2.07% for fungi and 91.43 ± 1.26% for bacteria (incense fume).
Source:
University of Belgrade, Faculty of Biology, Institute of Botany and Botanical Garden
National Library of medicine.
If that is your bathroom the tile grout has not been sealed and mildew is forming on the drywall behing the tile. If thats where you think the smell is coming from you are correct. Only thing to do is a complete bath remodel to get rid of the mildew smell. Once its finished dont take long hot showers. If youre renting they will only take action if mold is bigger that 3' x 3' section.