Mold in a student apartment: what to do

Written for students living in College Station and for parents who got a phone call about it. The advice is the same either way, and the order matters more than people expect.

First, work out which kind you have

Not everything dark in a bathroom is a maintenance issue, and treating a cleaning job as an emergency costs you credibility for the time it is not.

Probably a cleaning and ventilation matter: dark spotting along shower grout lines, on the silicone at the tub edge, on the ceiling directly above the shower. It cleans off. It comes back over weeks rather than days. This is extremely common in units occupied above their design density, and it is largely about the extract fan.

Probably a building problem: growth that returns within days of being cleaned. A musty smell with nothing visible. Staining on a ceiling or at the base of a wall. Drywall that feels soft. Tiles that sound hollow. Paint bubbling. Any of those means water is reaching somewhere it should not, and cleaning will not touch it.

The three things that decide the outcome

1. Report it in writing

Email or the maintenance portal. Not a text to a leasing agent, not a conversation at the office.

In Texas, the landlord's duty to make a diligent effort to repair a condition affecting health or safety is triggered by notice from the tenant. Written notice is what proves it happened and when.

Include the date, the room, what you can see and smell, and how long it has been there. Keep a copy of everything.

2. Photograph it before you touch it

With something for scale, and with the date. A photograph of a wall you already scrubbed is worth very little.

If it is in a shared unit, photograph the common areas too. Disputes at move-out often turn on what was there at move-in versus what appeared later.

3. Keep paying rent

This is the one people get wrong, and it is the most damaging.

The landlord's repair duty in Texas is conditional on the tenant not being delinquent in rent. Withholding rent to force action generally removes your protection rather than applying pressure.

There are procedures in the Property Code for repair-and-deduct and for terminating a lease over an unrepaired condition, and they have strict requirements. Do not attempt them from an internet summary.

What not to do

Do not clean it away before documenting it.

Do not refuse access and then complain about delay.

Do not buy a home test kit. Settle plates always grow something, because there are spores in all indoor air. They cannot measure concentration and there is nothing to compare the result to. They produce anxiety and no information.

Do not move out without advice. Abandoning a lease over a condition, without following the correct procedure, can leave you liable for the remaining term.

Do not let a parent send the notice. The tenant gives notice. A parent's email may not count and can raise privacy issues for the manager.

Reduce the moisture while you wait

None of this fixes a leak, and all of it helps with surface growth in a unit that is simply too humid.

• Run the bathroom fan for twenty to thirty minutes after showering, not just during. If your fan has no timer, set one on your phone
• Leave the bathroom door open afterwards
• Do not dry laundry on a rack in a closed bedroom — that is litres of water into the air overnight
• Leave interior doors and closet doors open so air moves
• Pull furniture a few inches off exterior walls
• Do not leave wet towels or gym clothes in a pile
• Squeegee the shower walls if you can be bothered; it genuinely reduces the load

In a four-person unit built around a smaller household, the bathroom is being used at several times the rate the ventilation was sized for. That is not your fault and it is partly within your control.

Where to get help

Texas A&M Student Legal Services advises enrolled students on landlord and tenant matters free of charge. If a dispute is developing, talk to them before you act rather than afterwards.

For non-students, tenant advice resources exist in Texas and a short consultation with a lawyer is cheaper than a forfeited deposit or a broken lease.

For parents

Three things worth knowing.

Your child is the tenant. Notice has to come from them, and the manager may not be able to discuss the tenancy with you at all.

Look at ventilation when viewing, not just finish. Run the bathroom fan and hold a tissue to it — if it does not hold, the fan is not moving air. Look at the sealant around the tub. Open the cabinet under every sink. Look at the ceiling under any upstairs bathroom.

A musty smell in a unit that has been closed over summer is common in this climate and is not proof of a problem. It is a reason to look harder.

What is actually dangerous

Honestly: for a healthy adult, a patch of growth on bathroom grout is an irritant and an allergen rather than a hazard.

Damp buildings are associated with respiratory symptoms and with worsening of asthma, and that is well supported. Claims about specific severe illnesses from one species are not.

If somebody in the unit has asthma, is immunocompromised, or is consistently worse at home and better away, that is worth raising with a doctor and worth escalating with the manager.

See student rental inspections and landlord and tenant rights in Texas.