Mold help?
Hello, all!
I've got a bit of a mold problem, and I was hoping y'all could tell me what you would do in my situation. I understand there might not be much I can do, but maybe there's something I haven't thought of.
The mold is in my boyfriend's bathroom, and it's been there for years. I assume it's mildew. It covers the ceiling immediately above and just outside the shower area, and it grows on the walls in those areas as well. Also, on the shower curtain liner, even though we buy the mildew-resistant kind. The ceiling is painted, the walls are mostly tile (it lives in the grout between tiles).
Ventilation in this bathroom is very poor. It has no built-in fan and only one window which is small and difficult to open. There is only one outlet in the bathroom and it is in a place that would make plugging in a dehumidifier impossible. he lives in an apartment complex, so we can't change any of these situations. We shower with the door cracked and open it as soon as we have dried off. I keep the shower curtain halfway open during the day so that the shower gets some ventilation but the shower curtain liner isn't all folded up in a corner and breeding more mildew.
It's very hard to tell if the mold on the ceiling is still spreading or not. I've sprayed it liberally with a vinegar-lemon juice solution. It just sits there and taunts me. Mold doesn't happen to change color when it dies, does it? I've kind of given up on the mold growing on the walls of the shower itself. There seems to be nothing that can be done about it with such poor ventilation, short of wiping it down with a towel after every shower, and I can guarantee you my boyfriend will not be doing that on his own. Overall, for a long time it seemed to have come to a standstill as a far a spreading is concerned, but recently I found tiny patches of mold growing on the inside lid of the face wash I keep in the shower (I had last used it only two weeks prior), and on some bottles in the medicine cabinet, on the opposite end of the bathroom by the door.
I'm really at a loss. I don't know what to to. I don't know if there's anything I can do. I can't even scrape it off the ceiling because I'm too short and standing on the edge of the bathtub really doesn't seem safe to me. Even from there I'd still have to stretch... and it would just grow back anyway, I'm sure. I'm only here once every two weeks at best so it's hard for me to stay on top of this problem. We're hoping to move out in November. It doesn't bother my boyfriend in the least and I simply cannot get him to care, but I know it's far from a healthy situation and it's horribly embarrassing besides. I'm also worried we won't get our security deposit back if it gets worse and/or we can't clean it off before moving out.
Any ideas at all?
I've got a bit of a mold problem, and I was hoping y'all could tell me what you would do in my situation. I understand there might not be much I can do, but maybe there's something I haven't thought of.
The mold is in my boyfriend's bathroom, and it's been there for years. I assume it's mildew. It covers the ceiling immediately above and just outside the shower area, and it grows on the walls in those areas as well. Also, on the shower curtain liner, even though we buy the mildew-resistant kind. The ceiling is painted, the walls are mostly tile (it lives in the grout between tiles).
Ventilation in this bathroom is very poor. It has no built-in fan and only one window which is small and difficult to open. There is only one outlet in the bathroom and it is in a place that would make plugging in a dehumidifier impossible. he lives in an apartment complex, so we can't change any of these situations. We shower with the door cracked and open it as soon as we have dried off. I keep the shower curtain halfway open during the day so that the shower gets some ventilation but the shower curtain liner isn't all folded up in a corner and breeding more mildew.
It's very hard to tell if the mold on the ceiling is still spreading or not. I've sprayed it liberally with a vinegar-lemon juice solution. It just sits there and taunts me. Mold doesn't happen to change color when it dies, does it? I've kind of given up on the mold growing on the walls of the shower itself. There seems to be nothing that can be done about it with such poor ventilation, short of wiping it down with a towel after every shower, and I can guarantee you my boyfriend will not be doing that on his own. Overall, for a long time it seemed to have come to a standstill as a far a spreading is concerned, but recently I found tiny patches of mold growing on the inside lid of the face wash I keep in the shower (I had last used it only two weeks prior), and on some bottles in the medicine cabinet, on the opposite end of the bathroom by the door.
I'm really at a loss. I don't know what to to. I don't know if there's anything I can do. I can't even scrape it off the ceiling because I'm too short and standing on the edge of the bathtub really doesn't seem safe to me. Even from there I'd still have to stretch... and it would just grow back anyway, I'm sure. I'm only here once every two weeks at best so it's hard for me to stay on top of this problem. We're hoping to move out in November. It doesn't bother my boyfriend in the least and I simply cannot get him to care, but I know it's far from a healthy situation and it's horribly embarrassing besides. I'm also worried we won't get our security deposit back if it gets worse and/or we can't clean it off before moving out.
Any ideas at all?