Found mold in the closet...

sattva · 03-27-17, 09:11 AM

Both my wife and myself have had breathing problems the last couple of months... My wife decide to go through the boxes, in the closet, in the snake room Saturday and found it was wet and moldy down by the floor... My first thought was I am keeping this room to humid... I had mold in the window seal and had cleaned that up, but in the closet? It just didn't make sense... I went outside to see the outside wall and sure enough the rain gutter dead ends at that wall and the end is rusted out and the water is seeping through the wall...
Were going to give the manager the bad news this morning... Fun, fun, fun...

**EL Ziggy** · 03-27-17, 09:31 AM

Dang sattva. I hope they can clean that up for you quickly.

GyGbeetle · 03-27-17, 09:59 AM

omg! How could the building manager miss that? keeping fingers crossed the resolution is quick.

Jim Smith · 03-27-17, 09:23 PM

You need to be very careful with mold. There are some kinds of mold that can kill you fairly quickly if you breath in the spoors too long. Make sure that they get that fixed right. In fact, I would insist that they bring in a mold mitigation company just to me sure.

sattva · 03-28-17, 10:24 PM

Well the maintenance guy said it is mildew not mold... They fixed the problem cleaned up the mildew with some sort of special stuff and painted over it... Their going to send somebody out to replace the carpet...

**Pareeeee** · 03-28-17, 10:35 PM

Ugh I HATE mold. We have mold on the windowsills of our apartment - and mildew likes to form on random things like the back of my wicker chair. I'm very allergic to both mold and mildew, and I try to keep on top of keeping it clean but it just keeps coming back!

It's not fun cleaning an entire wood and wicker chair with a toothbrush.

Tip: MoldEx helps to slow mold regrowth. A dehumidifer also helps immensely.

Glad you are getting yours under control.

akane · 03-29-17, 03:14 AM

A dehumidifier is kind of a problem in a snake room unless you've got desert species... I've had to reseal moldy apartments when I was painting. Just throw on a layer of killz and so long as the cause is fixed it's not really a problem. Despite the arguments and attempts to even sue people have gone through claiming continued health issues when it's disproven every time. The floor is the bigger issue and owners or managers tend to skimp there claiming they can just dry it out with fans or something instead of removing or killing and sealing the under layers before new carpet layers if you have carpet.

**Pareeeee** · 03-29-17, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by akane

A dehumidifier is kind of a problem in a snake room unless you've got desert species... I've had to reseal moldy apartments when I was painting. Just throw on a layer of killz and so long as the cause is fixed it's not really a problem. Despite the arguments and attempts to even sue people have gone through claiming continued health issues when it's disproven every time. The floor is the bigger issue and owners or managers tend to skimp there claiming they can just dry it out with fans or something instead of removing or killing and sealing the under layers before new carpet layers if you have carpet.

Hmmm...my apartment has old carpet (on cement pad - bottom floor). My landlord told me the reason I had mold was because I have an aquarium and that I needed a dehumidifier. You've got me thinking there's probably mold under the carpet...

sattva · 03-29-17, 10:29 AM

I wouldn't have thought you'd have a humidity problem in Ontario, Canada... Whats your average humidity outside?... Mine drops pretty low when it's not raining... The mold in my window was my fault because of a humidifier I was running 24/7... The water that seeped into closet came from a rain gutter... I'm going to make a good effort, to have all self contained cages by next winter...

akane · 03-31-17, 03:55 PM

Winter causes very low humidity in the north except maybe if you are close enough to an ocean but oceans are far so I wouldn't know. In Iowa we can go from below 20% to 90% through the seasons.

I've had 100s of gallons worth of aquariums in an apartment with carpet on the basement level with never a humidity and mold issue (except when their sump pump failed and the ground flooded around us) and many use their basement or concrete foundation level for that purpose when they have large collections. Even in spring rain storms I never saw a sign of it. The evaporation should be fairly equivalent to the air humidity so that it doesn't just continue infinitely at a high level. It probably reduces it some if you don't use overflow filters (HOB style) or air driven to create a lot of surface movement and water thrown in the air. Even then something else is contributing if that is your problem and you can reduce the aquarium contribution by just sticking glass lids on but it's more for tank stability and maintenance in dry weather than really any need to reduce humidity. I leave most of mine open top. Most of my deep tanks are in a room kept shut but the cats quit falling in them after getting soaked twice each lol I actually have a 24/7 humidifier in the room with the big tanks because I put my python up there and still needed higher humidity except the days I've been able to crack a window during rain but it's still near freezing point outside.

**Pareeeee** · 03-31-17, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sattva

I wouldn't have thought you'd have a humidity problem in Ontario, Canada... Whats your average humidity outside?... Mine drops pretty low when it's not raining... The mold in my window was my fault because of a humidifier I was running 24/7... The water that seeped into closet came from a rain gutter... I'm going to make a good effort, to have all self contained cages by next winter...

Glad you got it cleaned up. Mold is so bad for your health (and even worse if you're allergic, like I am)!

I have one 33 gallon open-top aquarium (riparium), a betta bowl and a covered 10gal. My humidity will go up to 70% if I don't run my dehumidifier. Very humid in this apartment and I don't know why. Just doing dishes makes my windows fog up! It's insane. Outdoor humidity is about 70-80% for my area according to theweathernetwork.