question about mould in bathroom sealant in rented property

[muslimah28]

hello

i am renting and there is some mould that has developed on the sealant around the bathtub. i have a feeling it may be due to not always removing the shampoos/shower gels etc sitting around the bath when cleaning. i only got lax about this when i had just had ds, now its always done.

my question i am hoping some of you may be able to help me with is who is responsible for changing the sealant given that i am renting? can we ask our landlord or do we need to do it ourselves?

many thanks in advance :)

I would say that if it directly your fault, then you should spend the £5 and change it. If there is ineffective ventilation (unlikely) then it is up to the owner to rectify and bring the property up to standard.

You don't need to change the sealant, get the dettol mould and mildew spray, it costs a couple of quid at most. Don't trouble your landlord for little things like this, it'll unnecessarily piss them off.

I'd suggest the Dettol spray too. It works v well on sealant.

thank you. ive not rented a house before, just rooms in shared houses which is obviously different so this stuff is all new to me.

there is actually pretty rubbish ventilation but i do acknowledge my fault, the poor ventilation is not the main reason at all.

will try the spray. i have a managed to find a picture that looks similar to what we have- do you think the spray will be enough for black mould this bad?

many thanks for your replies.

do you mean grouting then

there is a bleach that is designed to deal with this, it's super thick so it sticks to the grouting. leave it on a few hours then rinse off.

As a Landlord, we'd just replace this between tenants if it was mouldy, nothing would be taken from the deposit, it's fair wear and tear according to the inventory clerk. If it bothers you, change it for your own benefit now.

bamboo no its not the grouting, sorry the picture was just to show the extent of the black mould, but its definitely on the sealant.well actually there is a small amount on the grout too, but not so bad at all so i'm not worried about that just yet.

fiorentina thats interesting. to be honest we are moving in the next few months, and part of the reason for doing it is to avoid a deduction in our deposit (but also because i don't like the sight of it). i need to look up what is classed as 'fair wear and tear' then, it might stop me stressing about certain things! is there a good website i can get info on this?

many thanks

Is it definitely mould? I had this and it was that the sealant had gone manky rather than having mould on it that you could wipe off - in which case you need some sealant remover and then reseal it again.

if it is on the sealant then it needs to be replaced because it means that it is not sealing correctly anymore.

we have bad ventilation in our bathroom and had to replace the sealand around the shower. cost us a tenner, was very easy to do (if a bit messy). we just told our landlord that we did it.

amaris i thought it was mould but it doesn't wipe off easily. it looks like a lot of black spots but they look like they've 'stained' the sealant rather than being something layered on top of it iyswim. does that mean its a wasted effort trying to clean it off?

mousy i would rather change it i just don't think dh has the time at the moment with so much on at work at the moment, and i'm 12w pregnant so i don't want to take any risks with strong chemicals- which is a shame because i actually usually really enjoy small diy jobs like this! i was hoping that other posters suggestions of cleaning it off might work for these reasons, but i'm not so sure now...

sealant has no strong chemicals, unless you buy the anti mold version. in the dyi shop you can get the sealant and scraper together for less than a tenner.
you could also try to get a handyman to do it for you. or tell the landlord.

I had exactly the same thing and cleaned and cleaned it and it made no difference so got my dad to look at it and he diagnosed ... manky sealant! Not sure that's the technical term for it! It was a fairly easy job (for him!) to take it off and put it back on again but don't know about any chemicals ....

thank you. amaris i am beginning to think i probably have the same thing! i think even if sealant is chemical free, i'm averse to any strong smells right now they make me want to throw up, so even being in teh house when its being done is going to be difficult. i think maybe i'll look into a handyman. how much do you reckon they might charge for something like this? for someone who knows what they're doing i reckon its no more than an hours work.

thank you for all your help :)

oh I had this done recently by a handyman and he charged me £30. I bought the sealant though as I wanted that fancy mould resistant stuff. i would have it done if only to avoid issues with landlord and make it nicer for you.

we are just in the process of becoming LL I would hope that a tenant of ours would just spend the few quid to put it right themselves especially if it was caused by them.
i have heard horror stories about demanding tenants and how petty they can be and how they cause damage /trash houses.
I hope it doesn't happen to us but am going into it with eyes wide open!

wish you all the best pippala in becoming a landlord. i am certainly not a demanding tenant and am not petty at all, this is why i posed the question in the first place to ascertain what i should do. as you can see from the full thread, i am perfectly willing to sort it out myself.:)

It's just wear and tear imho, but it costs pennies to sort out.

The sprays aren't great once the black mould gets ingrained, but it is quite easy to dig out the old sealant and replace it. We used to do this every few years in our old house, because the bathroom had no window so was always a bit damp.

You can buy a gel which softens the sealant so it comes out easily, but I didn't find it worked too well.

Pippala, be aware, some people are terrified and/or ignorant when it comes to DIY, and will feel that the tiniest tasks are beyond them, or will consider it someone else's problem. Hopefully you will find tenants who can look after themselves a bit.

I would not see replacing sealant as the responsibility of the tenant - maintenace is a landlord's issue. Tell them the sealant is failing as the ventilation is failing and get them to pay for a handy man to fix it or let them deal with the massive problem of a leaking seal. What would happen if you failed to seal it correctly and that caused a bigger problem - would you be liable for the damage? As to not pissing them off - you are paying them for a service and they should bloody well work for it - not surprised though that landlords would prefer their tenants attend to maintenance issues - it saves them time and money but I would only do it if I couldn't be bothered with the hassle of waiting in for a handy man.
Don't worry too much about your deposit if it's in a bond scheme (and it should be) it's a lot harder for a landlord to remove money from your deposit unfairly.