Urgent Advice

09/19/2009 - 06:38

Can anyone out there give me some advice regarding green mould.   We have arrived back at our appartment after a 12 week absence to find a green mould on all the dark bedroom furniture and in the bathrooms.  It is also showing on the cotto flooring and some of the bathroom furniture. Strangly it hasn't affected the lounge/kitchen area at all.  We have cleared it off everything now using disinfectant but we are concerned it could come back during our next enforced absence. I would like to know what could have caused itHow it would normally be removedHow we can prevent it in futureAny other advice on how to deal with itI'm sure we aren't the first people to experience it but it is certainly a shock to the system dealing with it.Thanks fr nay help available.Michelangelo

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 We experienced something very similar and was linked to not enough ventilation whilst new plaster work was drying out. we had to clean all the furniture in one particular room. We bought some humidity crystals / box which absorbs any moisture and it works well.We also had to ensure we had someone going into the house to air it now and again and to replace the crystals. We bought the stuff from a local DIY store.  hope this helps Donald

Sounds awful, I feel for you!We had some work done in our house that required plastering and concreteing and.............. for two days water was LITERALLY dripping down the walls ! The weather outside was dry and we at first thought that we had some sort of leak but no...............the secret was to open the windows. It was dried up within a day!Ventilation is crucial, is there any way to put some air vents in your property?Good Luck

Mould will thrive in a warm and damp environment. So use bleach to kill the spores and ventilate the house. Before leaving the house empty we spray with anti-muffa and also pull furniture away from walls to allow air to circulate. If you are in the house in cold weather, using heating and keeping windows closed this is creating an ideal environment for mould so take extra care when you leave. We had the same problem as you the first time we returned but nothing since.

 Just to update Nigelgh, you can also buy a dehumidifier which allows you to connect a hose so that the condensate can be run to a suitable drain, in our case the ground floor shower. The dehumidifer can thus be left running on a timer which can be set to cycle as much or as little as you wish. The dehumidifier will also generate a small amount of heat which will help with the cold. This tip appeared last winter from I believe Adriatica and it seemed a good solution to the problem of leaving your house unoccupied over the winter months.    C