Apartments are notorious for getting mold. This is sometimes due to landlord negligence, and sometimes due to tenant negligence. But since you don’t own your apartment… there’s nothing you can do, right? Wrong! Cleaner Guys, a team of professional mold experts, is here to tell you 5 ways you can help keep mold out of your apartment. Want to know how to prevent mold in an apartment? Read on!
Table of Contents
- 1. Leak Checking
- 2. Manage Indoor Humidity
- 3. Clean Mold’s Favorite Places
- 4. Protect Your Plumbing
- 5. Ventilate, Ventilate, Ventilate!
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Key Takeaways
1. Leak Checking
Want to know the very best way how to prevent mold in an apartment? Check for leaks regularly, and alert your landlord as soon as you find any. Hidden leaks are perhaps the most common way we see mold grow in apartments.
Check under sinks, behind toilets, behind refrigerators, and behind washing machines at least once a month. These are the most common places that we at Cleaner Guys find hidden leaks that have caused mold. If you ever find even the smallest leak, tell your landlord about it immediately, and keep contacting them about it regularly until they fix it.
It is absolutely essential that you report leaks immediately. Sometimes people ignore leaks for a while, because it’s too overwhelming to deal with, and so you ignore it and hope that it goes away on its own. This is a fatal mistake! Leaks almost never go away on their own, and every single hour they go on, the water damage and mold can be growing exponentially. The most important thing you can do to prevent mold is report leaks immediately.
2. Manage Indoor Humidity
Mold needs 3 things to grow: moisture, warmth, and organic material to feed on. High humidity in your apartment supplies mold with 2 of these 3 things — warmth and moisture! But you can easily take those away by managing the humidity of your apartment.
We encourage our clients to follow the CDC’s recommendation of keeping your indoor humidity lower than 50% at all times. Most thermostats display the room’s humidity levels, but if yours doesn’t, the best way to determine the humidity level of your apartment is to get a hygrometer — or humidity monitor and thermometer — like this one from Amazon.
If the humidity levels in your apartment are too high, we recommend purchasing a dehumidifier. This is essential for ensuring your home is inhospitable to mold.
3. Clean Mold’s Favorite Places
Another essential practice, if you want to keep your apartment mold-free, is to regularly clean the places mold loves to hide, which are usually the dusty, dark places you never clean. Remember, to grow, mold needs moisture, warmth, and organic material to feed on. Dust and crumbs can feed mold, so they need to be cleaned away.
The most common places mold likes to grow are behind your refrigerator, behind and under your washing machine (if yours comes away from the wall), and in the cupboards under your sinks. We recommend pulling out everything and cleaning these areas about once a month, to clean and check for mold growth. Tip: you can clean these areas while you’re checking them for leaks!
4. Protect Your Plumbing
Leaks, pipe bursts, and other sources of water damage usually cause mold. We’ve seen it countless times in our line of work, fixing water damage and removing mold. Pipes usually leak or burst in winter, when the weather is so cold the water in the pipes freezes and expands.
To help prevent your pipes from freezing and bursting, follow our 8-step guide to keeping pipes from freezing in the winter. Not all of the steps will apply to your apartment since some of them apply to homeowners, but you can still adjust our expert tips to work in your space.
The two most important things you can do are “slow dripping” all your faucets as long as it’s freezing, and keeping the heat above 65 degrees Fahrenheit, opening all your cupboards and doors so that the heat can reach everywhere.
5. Ventilate, Ventilate, Ventilate!
Another trick on how to prevent mold in an apartment is to ventilate your apartment as much as you can, whenever possible. Open windows and doors everywhere you can, whenever it’s comfortable, to encourage increased air circulation. This air circulation helps keep the air in your apartment from getting stagnant and still, which can increase humidity, which can encourage mold growth.
Frequently Asked Questions
We do not advise sleeping in an apartment with mold. However, if you cannot go anywhere else, at least do not sleep in the same room as the mold. Some people are much more susceptible to mold exposure sickness, and you don’t want to find out if you are susceptible to it the hard way. But regardless of whether you experience mold sickness symptoms or not, you should get the mold in your apartment removed as quickly as possible, because it’s not healthy for anyone.
Mold exposure sickness is the most common indication that there may be mold in an apartment. Mold sickness symptoms can include constant headaches, persistent cold symptoms like a running nose and coughing, and red and itchy eyes. If you experience these symptoms, you should get a professional mold inspection right away.
Unfortunately, yes, mold is very common in apartments, especially in humid places, and in particularly rainy and wet places, like the Pacific Northwest. The likelihood of mold is higher simply because of so many people living so close together, sharing plumbing and walls.
Key Takeaways for How to Prevent Mold in an Apartment
Mold in apartments is very common, but there are several ways you can significantly reduce the chances of it happening to you. They include cleaning the hidden areas where mold likes to grow, checking exposed plumbing regularly for leaks and reporting any you find, and reducing the humidity of your apartment. If you follow these steps as recommended by Cleaner Guys, we can guarantee you’ll be far less likely to ever experience mold growth in your apartment.
However, if you ever do have to deal with mold growth in your apartment, and you need mold inspection or mold removal near Mount Vernon WA or the surrounding counties, don’t hesitate to call Cleaner Guys to fix it! We’re the only mold remediation company in the area that boasts award-winning customer service, and our prices are better than most. Save our number just in case: 360-757-4300.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. No part of this article is medical or legal advice, and may not be used as such. For all serious medical matters, consult your doctor. For all serious legal matters, consult your legal advisor. This article contains Cleaner Guys’ experience and opinions only.
