My apartment smells of mold and mildew!?

Question

My apartment flooded due to the rain and half the carpet in my bedroom is soaked. The management is aware of this, but since there is still rain in the forecast, they are waiting a day or two to pull up the carpet and replace it. My carpet flooded once before due to my water heater and this took the maintenance almost two weeks to completely fix everything. My question is this: what can temporarily help the smell? I am sleeping in the living room and the smell is minimal, but I would like to reduce the smell in the bedroom as well. I have the window raised and a fan to help dry it out in the meantime. Is there anything inexpensive that I can do?

Answer 1

You are pretty much doing what you can with the fan and window.  If you see any mold growing, you can spray it with a 10% bleach/water solution which will help kill the mold growth.  Avoid creating any humidity.

Management should be taking care of this for you immediately!  The longer the wait, the worse the mold can get.  Since you are smelling mold right now, it is likely that mold is growing under your carpet (all it needs is a dark place and humidity).  You should get on management to take care of this for you right now.  Also - Just because they replace your carpet, doesn't mean mold spores will disappear.  Once the carpet is replaced, if the smell is still there, you may want to look into having a professional consultant collect some air samples in your apartment (and outside for comparison) to find out if you have elevated growth in there.  Management should pay for this, but I also suggest if you have Renters Insurance you look at your policy regarding mold damage.