SimonRL wrote in
:

On Aug 12, 6:19 pm, Joe wrote:
On Aug 12, 4:04 pm, "John Grabowski" wrote:

snip.
*It's mold and there is probably moisture behind the wall to
support it
s
growth. Most likely this has happened before, but the previous
owner
s did a
good job of covering it up for the sale. I would cut out the
entire
lower
section of the wall and see what's going on back there.

John's right. Get rid of the contaminated drywall. Then you need to
treat the wall cavities with mold proofing materials as recommended
by experts of your choice (Yellow Pages). Finally, install mold proof
drywall and future water incursions (hopefully minimized, as below)
won't cause mold problems.

Do you know why the basement flooded? You will need to address
that
problem
as well. You might want to consider consulting with several
basement waterproofing companies.

An essential step. Dry houses are healthy houses, with the added
benefit of a very important feature to offer a future buyer should
the OP need to move.

Joe

Thanks for the responses everyone.

The basement is flooding because there is a drain that is connected to
what I assume is a sewer line and it backed up due to extremely heavy
rainfalls.

In regards to identifying it, my landlord was trying to convince me
that it wasn't mold and that mold couldn't grow so quickly. I thought
she was wrong, but I couldn't say for sure.

Thanks for the advice.


Landlord???? Oooooooo!

You had asked

What would be the best way to clean it, if it is mold?

The best way is to tell the landlord to have it professionally
irradicated. It can be rather expensive. That's why the landlord does
not want to admit it's mold. And landlord must fix it because SOME molds
are toxic. Mold is everywhere but some people are very sensitive/alergic
to even non-toxic types. Landlord cannot rent it in the future if there
is mold. If there are other apts and people get wind of your mold
problem they will start an uproar. Landlord will have severe expenses.

Here's some of the things a particular company in NY does:

http://newyork.kijiji.com/c-Services...AdIdZ142369757

Maybe you local city services will do mold testing since you are a
renter.

If you clean it and there is a problem later the landlord can use you as
an out saying YOU took care of it and as far as landlord knew everything
was kosher.

The one fact everyone will agree on is landlords/homeowners do not want to hear $$$mold$$$!