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Apartment buildings may look crisp outside but individual rental apartments may be discovered by their tenants to have suffered leak damage and extensive hidden mold - here we give some basic advice

Tenant Mold Tests & Tenant's Notice to Landlord of Moldy Apartment, Home, Office
InspectAPedia®  -    

  • What can a tenant do about a moldy apartment, home, or office?
  • What mold tests can be performed by a rental apartment, home, or office tenant?
  • How to handle mold problems in rental property, apartments, rental homes, offices
  • Mold testing advice for rental tenants
  • Mold testing and mold remediation advice for landlords
  • Should you call your health department about a moldy apartment?
Our site offers impartial, unbiased advice without conflicts of interest. We will block advertisements which we discover or readers inform us are associated with bad business practices, false-advertising, or junk science. Our contact info is at InspectAPedia.com/appointment.htm.

This document discusses the steps that a tenant in a rental apartment or rental home can take to deal with an actual or suspected mold problem and we discuss how to notify building management of a mold problem. An easy-to-print PDF version of this article is here.

© Copyright 2010 Daniel Friedman, All Rights Reserved. Information Accuracy & Bias Pledge is at below-left. Use links at the left of each page to navigate this document or to view other topics at this website. Green links show where you are in our document or website.

What a tenant can do about a moldy apartment

1. Notify building management in writing: You should notify building management in writing of unhealthy unsafe conditions that need attention and that you are unable to live in the apartment.

If you are not certain of the presence of unsafe conditions in the rental apartment, your letter should state your observations, complaints, concerns, and ask the building management to bring in the appropriate professional to inspect, diagnose, and if needed, specify what repairs, cleaning, or remediation are needed.

Most building maintenance employees lack the training to recognize mold, conduct appropriate mold inspection and testing, diagnose the extent and causes of problem mold, and evaluate the risk of mold to rental tenants, nor specify the mold remediation procedures necessary.

2. Simple mold testing: You might be successful in identifying some of the mold suspect material you see as problematic, and you might collect a settled dust sample to see you can pick up indications of other problem molds or allergens.

Mold tests do not measure mold exposure: However identifying mold in an apartment, while it may convince building management to act, does not and cannot establish the level of exposure that an individual has had to the mold found, nor does it assure that the mold identified is the only or even the main hazard. The prime use of tenant sampling in this case is to show management that there is at least some evidence of problem mold in the building

Our mold sampling instruction contains sampling instructions you can follow. I'm on assignment out of the U.S. and won't be processing any lab samples until after 9/10 so if you are in a rush you should use another lab but you can still follow our sampling procedures.

3. If building mangement responds: If building management elects to make some effort to deal with the problem:

3.a. Proper dust control: be sure that the work does not create demolition debris and mess which contaminates or further contaminates your belongings, especially soft goods like curtains, carpets, bedcovers, which may then require cleaning, and worse, upholstered furniture which might not be able to be cleaned adequately.

3.b. Possible contents cleaning: if your possessions are already likely to be contaminated with moldy dust they should be cleaned before taking them to a new home; soft goods can be laundered or dry cleaned; hard surfaces can simply be washed or wiped.

Moldy upholstered furniture is in question depending on how bad it is; surface dust can be vacuumed off of it; if upholstered furniture has been wet or has had mold growing on or in it is probably not salvageable without complete reupholstering from the frame up.

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Use links just below or at the left of each page to navigate this document or to view other topics at this website. Green links show where you are in our document or website.

Also see

  • Mold Action Guide: What to do about mold, mildew, and other indoor allergens. Review all of the sections of this document, particularly the section "Correct the Causes of and Prevent Mold or other indoor environment problems" also outlines the basic steps of mold prevention in buildings.
  • How to Prevent Mold: how to avoid mold growth in buildings: priorities, repairs, products
  • Condensation: Detecting and Correcting Attic Condensation and Preventing Ice Dam Leaks in Buildings
  • Humidity: How Low Should You Keep Indoor Humidity to Avoid a Mold Problem
  • IAQ or Anti Mold Products:Allergy/Asthma, Air Quality, Cleaning, Filtering, Ventilating, Dehumidification Products
  • Ozone Warnings - Use of Ozone as a "mold" remedy is ineffective and may be dangerous.
  • Products - Mold & Allergy Products: Allergy/Asthma, Air Quality, Cleaning, Filtering, Ventilating, Dehumidification
  • Allergen Detection What various indoor allergens look like - identification photos to help identify pollen, dust mites, animal dander, toxic or allergenic mold - Common Mold and other Allergens, Irritants, Remedies & Advice
  • FAQs on Mold - Frequently Asked Questions About Mold -- check this FAQ List & Site Map to see if you can find a quick answer to your mold concern
ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS GUIDE
MOLD INFORMATION CENTER

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