The Creeping Crud

Here's the upstairs hall bathroom.

 

It's going to be our primary bathroom when we move in while we work on the master bathroom. We got it all cleaned and painted (my mom did all of that and it looks beautiful) and were ready to put in tile when we saw this:

Soooooo...we have an issue. Looks like the linoleum was installed not under the toilet but around the toilet, and then wasn't sealed with any kind of caulk. Moisture inevitably worked its way down into the floor and turned into nasty grossness. It doesn't look like it's the bad "Toxic Black Mold" because it doesn't have the distinctive spotty pattern, but it's certainly some kind of mold. We've got a call in to the county health expert to have her come out and identify it and make sure it isn't something super-nasty. If she says it's okay we can clean it up, seal it up, and tile over it. We may need to pull the tub in order to check under it and make sure the mold hasn't spread. If it's bad and has gone under the tub, we may need to cut out and replace the subfloor in there before we can do much else. Joy! We did pull the toilet out, which is important. The bolts that hold it on were all rusted out and we nearly had to just tear the thing out of the floor.

Always make sure to seal up your drain holes. Nasty gases can come out of there and into your house and that's bad news. The duct tape should be fine, but we've also seen folks use rags and stuff just to plug it up so the gas doesn't get out. How gross is that floor, though?

On the plus side, my mom and wife busted out more primer and cut in all the edges of the walls with more primer so it's fully ready for color now. We just need to pick up a bunch of paint (getting paint in 4 or 5 gallons at a time can save you up to 20% over buying individual gallons) and get to work.

We'll be back there tonight working on stuff, hopefully dealing with the mold and getting it all mitigated. We may even be able to start marking and measuring the floor in there to prepare for tile. We'll just have to see how everything goes. We're waiting for calls from the HOA regarding the design approval group and when they meet and also the guy who's dealing with the sliding back door and the dudes who are going to help us with the master bathroom. Oh yeah, and the carpet guy. I really don't like having so many things waiting on other people, but it's the way it has to be.