Moldly Going
2 min readA Star Trek-themed apartment battled a mold and fungus war which was caused by heat and humidity from another tenant’s apartment.
Trek fan Tony Alleyne had been fighting the unexplained mold and fungus without success until the police paid a visit to the apartment directly below his. “I had no idea what was causing it,” he said, “but there was mold in the bathroom and the transporter. It was a nightmare.”
It took two years and £30,000 to turn his apartment into a Star Trek Voyager-themed residence, and even more money was spent to try to eradicate the mold and fungus problem. “I’ve had to remove the paneling and replace some lighting,” said Alleyne. “I sugar-soaped the surfaces but nothing worked.”
It turns out Alleyne’s downstairs neighbor was growing marijuana in his apartment, using hydroponic growing equipment. “The police came and knocked on the door of the place below and took away twenty-five cannabis plants and the equipment,” said Alleyne. “I couldn’t believe there was something like that going on right below me. When the police took the hydroponics away all that stuff looked as hi-tech as my place.
“It takes a lot of heat and humidity to grow cannabis and having that going on below me was causing the problem with the mould.”
Now that the pot-growing enterprise has been shut down, Alleyne hopes that his mold problems will come to an end. “Since the raid I’ve cleaned up two thirds of the flat and there’s been no more fungus,” he said. “I am now re-paneling and repainting the place and, hopefully, it will be fine. It’s probably cost a few thousand pounds to do everything and I’m not finished yet.”
Alleyne’s thirty-one-year old neighbor has been arrested and is currently out on bail.
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