Mold grew nearly overnight – Sylvia Bittner couldn’t believe her eyes when she moved the bed in the children’s room to one side. Within two weeks, a dark turf of mold had grown on the wallpaper from the base to a height of forty centimeters. Sylvia had only moved into the rented apartment on the second floor with her family in the summer. The realtor had told her nothing about a mold problem and the apartment had been freshly painted. In late November, mold growth came upon the residents out of the blue. Sylvia picked up the phone and reported the matter to the property manager. When after eight days there was still no remedy in sight, the worried mother of two asked the consumer advice center. The friendly lady on the phone advised her to record the damage with a camera and to put the property management in default in writing. The advicer recommended that the rent payment be made with reservations so that she could later assert claims for repayment. But Sylvia Bittner was not thinking about money at first – she was much more concerned about the health of her children.
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Tag Archives: mold
Pay attention to the dew point
The focus is on room air temperature and relative humidity
Visible mold growth in the apartment always causes discomfort for those affected. After all, no one wants to have the unloved co-inhabitant in their neighborhood. To analyze the causes, it is essential to take a look at the physical relationships in the building. The focus is on room air temperature and relative humidity as well as on the surface temperatures of the surrounding surfaces. Mold always grows when it finds enough food and sufficient moisture in its environment. The fungus is not choosy about its “food”. A little house dust is enough, as it can be found in every apartment. In the most frequent cases of damage, condensed water vapor from the air in the room is responsible for the influx of moisture. Mold experts use the dew point calculator to determine cause and effect.
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Molds endanger people with weakened immune systems

The fungus Aspergillus fumigatus blocks messenger substances in the immune system
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Disastrous “low-budget” mold treatment
Recently made in the press a report circulating that many mold remediation are not conducted properly. “Three quarters of the architect, building surveyor, construction and renovation contractor and lawyers assume that 70 percent of the renovations are flawed,” reported the director of the Institute Peridomus Dr. Gerhard Führer from Himmelstadt/Germany. Even if there should be ten or twenty percent fewer cases, the incidence of improper renovations would be a disaster for the affected residents. So-called “brush renovations” mean nothing else than that the moisture damage was simply painted over. The new tenant sees the problem not at first attempt and the landlord has his first sleep. Continue reading