ᐅ Moisture Issues in Basement Apartment

You can have as many expert reports prepared as you want, but they only become legally binding when ordered by the court.

@chand1986 I have experienced the issue with ventilation myself.

I lived as a single person for 5 years in a two-room apartment without any problems. Then my wife moved in.
Double the humidity from washing and drying clothes inside, more cooking, etc. Ventilation was no longer regular because I often worked nights, so for hours there was no airing, and a year later there was mold.

The same applies today: anyone building a KfW house without mechanical ventilation is to blame themselves.

I would handle it now independently of the currently not fully clear fault by paying for the renovation myself, while the tenant covers the rent and their furniture.

Weeks ago, when the mold first appeared, we already told him to move the couch away from the wall. What he did is already quite negligent.

The rent including utilities is 500 euros per month.

tomtom79 schrieb:
As a single person, I lived for 5 years in a two-room apartment without any problems, then my wife moved in.
Double the moisture from washing and drying clothes inside the apartment, more cooking, etc., no longer ventilating regularly because I often worked at night, so hours without ventilation, and one year later mold appeared.

Just so I don’t misunderstand you: how exactly should I imagine this?

Drying clothes and cooking inside the apartment without any means of moisture extraction? (How can clothes even dry in that case?)

There are activities inside a home where, if no other option is available, the window has to be open. Cooking without an exhaust fan and drying laundry are such cases. And yes: if there is a window in the laundry area (like in a bathroom), it should be left open permanently while drying.

I don’t want to deny that you can get mold under these conditions. But something must have been done incorrectly – sorry to say.

I lived for years as a couple in a relatively small apartment, also doing laundry there, etc. During the day, with both of us working, there was basically no ventilation. The only exception was when clothes were drying on the rack, the bathroom window was slightly open – all year round. Never got mold. And the roller shutter boxes were cool spots prone to condensation risk. Yet nothing happened.

The idea that moisture from laundry and/or cooking cannot be removed simply because you are not home during the day does not make sense.

Insufficient moisture removal! Incorrect ventilation, for example, using tilt mode, etc. Our bathroom, for instance, had no window and only one-sided windows elsewhere.
We then bought a dryer, stopped using tilt ventilation, and kept the heating on low even when it was warm inside the apartment.

And that is exactly what the tenant here has been doing, as mentioned earlier, plus placing furniture against the exterior wall.

Blaming everything on construction defects is just too easy.

The whole thing costs €7,800. For an apartment that brings in 450 euros in rent.

Crazy.

That's still quite reasonable. As a homeowners' association, we spent 12,000€ on roof windows. It is what it is.