Is it safe to sleep in a room with mould?
The short answer
A night in a room with a small patch of mould on a window frame is unlikely to harm a healthy adult, so there's no need to drag the mattress into the hall at midnight. It isn't a room to settle into for months, though. You spend hours in there with the door shut, breathing the air close to the walls, so bedroom mould deserves to be dealt with before mould anywhere else in the house.
How urgent it is depends on two things: how much mould there is, and who sleeps in that room.
When to sleep somewhere else for now
If you have another dry room, it makes sense to use it until the mould has been dealt with when:
- the mould covers a large area, is spreading, or keeps coming back after cleaning;
- it's on the mattress, the bedding or the headboard rather than just the wall;
- the room belongs to a baby, a young child, an older person, or anyone with asthma, allergies or a weakened immune system;
- you wake up stuffy or coughing and feel better after a few hours elsewhere;
- the walls are wet after a leak.
We look after the room, not the people in it. If you or someone in your family has symptoms, speak to a GP, or a paediatrician for a child. In an emergency, call 112.
Why bedrooms grow mould
Each of us breathes out moisture all night, and in a closed bedroom it has nowhere to go. It settles on the coldest surfaces: the glass, the outside wall, the corner above the wardrobe. That's why many people first see mould on window seals and reveals; our guide to mould around windows in Cyprus homes explains why frames are so often the starting point. Cyprus winters add their own habits: running the air-conditioner on heat with every window shut, warming the room with a portable gas heater that adds water vapour as it burns, and north-facing bedrooms that never see the sun. Ground-floor bedrooms can also pick up damp from the walls themselves.
Check the bed and what's around it
Mould in a bedroom isn't always on the wall. Pull the bed out and look at the back of the headboard and the wall behind it. Lift the mattress, especially if it sits on a divan or a solid base, and check the underside; here's how to decide whether a mattress can be saved. Look inside the wardrobe, at the back panel and at clothes hanging against it, because clothes in a damp wardrobe pick up spots and a smell long before the room looks mouldy. Boxes stored under the bed are worth checking too.
Making the room better to sleep in
Open the window wide for a few minutes each morning to let out the night's moisture, and leave the bedroom door open during the day. Keep the bed and wardrobe a hand's width from outside walls. Don't dry clothes or towels in the bedroom. If you clean a small patch yourself, do it in the morning, not just before bed: open the window, wear gloves and a mask, wipe with a damp cloth and a mould cleaner instead of brushing it off dry, never mix products, and let the room air for the rest of the day.
For a fuller look at causes room by room, see mould in the bedroom.
Getting it fixed properly
If the patch returns, the plaster feels damp, or the mould has spread across a wall, the moisture behind it needs finding. A check of the bedroom walls, window and ceiling takes moisture readings in every affected room and ends with a room-by-room moisture map sent to your phone and a written report with the quote. Where growth has got into the plaster, removing the mould from the wall and repairing the cause is the lasting answer, with the surface finished in an anti-mould system.
Mould in the room you sleep in? Don't wait — arrange an inspection from €75 or call +357 99 759144.