Dangers of mold

thegreengoblin

Hi,
Myself and my young family have been renting a 3 bed house since last July. Over the last few weeks black mould started to appear in the kitchen on two of the walls. We informed the letting agent who promised to sort out the situation. With the big freeze taking hold the letting agent said that he had to prioritise other tenants whose boilers were broken, pipes frozen and leaking, etc. This was fair enough I thought, as long as we had our problem sorted out soon after.

It's now four or five weeks later and we're waiting to find out what's going to be done. We've now discovered more mould in one of the bedrooms, incidentally on the same side of the house as the kitchen.

My main concern at the moment, apart from getting this issue solved, is how much danger my family is in from the mould. We have a young teenager and two others aged 3 and 1. How dangerous is this stuff? And if we were to move out temporarily while waiting for the problem to be solved are we entitled to withhold any rent money?

Thanks in advance.

BostonB

The a couple of causes of mould that I know of. Damp or lack of ventilation. http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=153555 I'm not saying its not an underlying damp problem. But usually its from lack of ventilation. Not opening windows etc. If it was damp from leak there would usually be water damage and it would generally be very localized. If you clean it and ventilate the room does it cure the problem. if not then there may be a leak somewhere.

thegreengoblin

I really don't think it's a ventilation problem as the window in the kitchen is always opened at any opportunity and the kitchen never really gets that steamed up anyway. As for the bedroom it's centrally heated and window is always left open.

echosound

If it's just the black mould on the walls or around windows etc, you can pretty much get rid of it yourself - use some dettol mould and mildew remover - make sure the room is well ventilated while using it (leave windows open) as the bleachy smell is very powerful, spray it on, leave for 10 minutes, and wipe it down. The remover costs less than a fiver and job will be done in 15 minutes, and the bleachy smell will be gone shortly after you wipe the walls. I have found that after using this spray the problem hardly ever occurs again.

I've had this issue in a few houses I've rented, and some family have had this issue in their own properties (usually in areas where humidity/condensation would build up - bathrooms, kitchens, around windows in bedrooms etc), and when using dehumidifiers/ventilating rooms/blasting the house with heat sometimes doesn't work, this spray seems to do the trick each time. Problem solved - unless it is actual damp in the building itself, which would be an issue for your landlord to sort out.