[Clemintine]

I'm just trying to get prepared. I'm calling my landlords tomorrow and preparing myself for the load of bull**** they plan to serve me for breakfast I bet... (Not the most caring property management I've dealt with!).
Anyway! I really really need to know how bad I should be worrying over this. I am a horrible stress case I can't relax after finding this. It's a big patch of mold, a meter stretch and a foot thick sort of patch on the wall... I don't know if it's black mold I wouldn't be able to tell. Does it really matter? All mold is bad for our health! It's wet to the touch and is clearly discoloured from the rest of the wall, found it when I was moving my pillows and sheets off the bed to wash them. To my disgusted surprise I find it RIGHT BEHIND MY HEAD ON THE WALL, I feel like throwing up... no wonder I have felt on the brink of being sick for awhile... been sneezing at nothing but now I know why! My boyfriend and I live together and he has horrible horrible lungs, very weak and asthmatic his whole life, I'm wondering how well he will hold up with this. Did me moving that pillow (which I am throwing out) stir all the spores up? I can't sleep but he fell asleep in our room anyway, just switched his feet around so his head was farthest away from the affected wall. Sorry if this information is jumbled all over the place, I'm a bit scatterbrained at the moment... So I mentioned I worry. I can't help but smell mold everywhere now and I know some is actually mold smell, but some is just in my head but I never know how much is actually real and it drives me crazy! My cat used to pee on every schoolbag I had, and now I smell cat urine anytime I wear a backpack, so smells sort of haunt me when they cause stress. We also had bedbug scares in our old apt building (never our actual apartment) and now every time I have an itch or a bite when I wake up I send myself into a panic to make sure it hasn't finally somehow caught up to us. (yay backstory on my paranoia!)
Will the mold spores settle on everything in our room? Our clothing? Furniture? Will I have to throw out a lot, including the bed that was pushed up against the affected wall? Or just anything I smell or visually see mold on? (Mold is sneaky)
Is my boyfriend going to die in his sleep tonight since the spores probably got shuffled around? He mentioned he had trouble breathing since we moved that pillow that was sortof covering the wall spot, I told him to come out to sleep on the couch... his reasoning "I'll get a better sleep here." I told him he better not die in his sleep... he would laugh but I am actually really worried.
I've never dealt with this before, so please if anyone knows how much mold actually damages let me know, so I can stop worrying that everything in my room will be a forest in a few days or something.
Also, I have a fan/air purifier in our room and I turned it off as soon as I found the mold not wanting to stir any more mold around, was this a good plan of action? It had been on since we moved in (2 months ago) until now I just turned it off.
I also did NOT crank the heat up, now that there is mold there if I did that it would only hasten the spread of mold I believe... let me know if I have taken the precautions I should have and if I have anymore I need to do! (the rest is up to the landlords I know)
I also have only been sneezing for a week ish... don't know how long that means the mold has been there..
Though when we moved in they were having that room painted. Just that room, even though the rest of the apartment had some pretty bad patches from the previous tenants attempts to cover up holes they had made. Though they still only put the effort into painting that room ( they didn't even clean the carpets =/ )The painters were there finishing the first day we moved in, they both kind of gave me a weird look... and not just once, every time they saw me. A sort of sheepish look, I'm wondering now was that a "I hope she doesn't notice we are painting over a bunch of mold spots" look? Or is that my over reacting mind... either way, these property managers are sort of fishy, and have a bad reputation for being slow at fixing problems and neglecting tenants. I'm not looking forward to dealing with them but I shall harden my resolve with this issue. I just want to know if I'm going to die if I sleep in my bedroom tonight, or tomorrow night because currently I am about to sleep on my kitchen table (I'm afraid of spiders and somehow I think I'm safe on there)
And out of curiosity, will they have to break that wall open and re build it? Or is it some kind of humidifying treatment for the whole place that fixes this? Or does the treatment depend on the amount of damage I guess?
So tired... thanks to any who read or reply this late night cry for help!

[creahands]

Mold is caused by moisture. Is it possible there are water or waste line pipes in that wall?

The mold will have to be removed and the cause will have to be corrected in order to eliminate it.

If landlord drags his feet in correcting to problem, notify your local health department. They will put pressure on him to make repairs and correct the problem.

Chuck

[Clemintine]

The wall it's on is facing the outdoors and our apt is slightly underground... I'm assuming it's because of all the rain from this season that it's leaking from outside and through

[creahands]

When the foundation is set, the outside is water proofed. If it is not done correctly, u will get water in and this will cause mold.

There are 2 ways to correct this. The first and best way is to dig down outside and redo waterproofing.

The second way may work and may not. This is to paint inside of foundation with waterproofing paint. U can get this at one of the big box stores. Cost about $100 for 5 gallons. U will have to do the whole wall because water will move to get in someplace else.

Chuck