Mould

pederholm wrote:

I read that expats are having problems with mould on walls. I was woundering what I have to look for (when im looking for appartments) to avoid this problem. is it aircondition i should look for?

Dear Pederholm,

First of all, welcome to Montenegro!

As a property developer in Montenegro myself, I can give you sensible advice about the issue, as I am myself very sensitive about it.

Unfortunately, the answer will not be as simple as you would wish because the problem is quite complex and depends on a lot of factors:
Mould problems are usually a result of what is called the "sick building syndrome". You will find a lot of interesting information about it by reading this wikipedi article and this document of the US Environmental Protection Agency.

To make it short and more simple, the common situation in Montenegro is that most available accomodation has been built for summer rentals, with poor or no insulation, no ventilation system, usually equiped with
reversible A/C units. This is pretty OK in the summer when humidity levels are low, and rooms can be cooled down with A/C or by opening the windows. In the winter, these apartments face several problems:
- they will have to be over-heated because of the lack of proper insulation (and electricity is expensive in Montenegro);
- walls will often stay very cold, which, even if the room temperature is high, always provides a great discomfort;
- cold walls coupled with no ventilation causes the mould problems: air with higher temperature contains more humidity than cold air, so condensation appears on the cold surfaces (and then mould) - sometimes there is actually insulation on the building, but bad building practices have caused 'thermal bridges'.

Anyway. Here are a few tips to help you choose the accomodation:
- check the walls, ceilings and particularly the angles and around doors and windows for stains that mould would have caused.
- be very suspicious if the walls have been recently repainted, it is usually not because the owner is being nice and wants to welcome you in a clean-looking-freshly-painted accomodation, but more likely to hide the damages caused by the mould. Additionnally, recent paint of bad quality (the cheap ones that would certainly have been used) is bad for your health. 
- Trust your nose: if you smell anything like mould, mushroom smell, old cellar type of smell, this is a very good sign (to run away);
- Check if there is any type of ventilation system (look for round or rectangular grids in the walls or ceiling) and not only in the bathrooms (but in any case in the bathrooms it is a must-have due to the humidity levels there).
- It is also a bad sign if the windows are slightly open when you visit the place: this is how they ventilate the place in the winter to avoid the mould. But you will not want to do that when you heat the place...
- the best heating system you should be looking for is underfloor heating. However it is still quite rare here. In any case, no heating system will be efficient if the insulation is poor (but this is difficult to check once the building is finished).
- Ask to be shown electricity bills for previous winters (december to february months), supposing anyone has lived there over the winter, or if the owners live in the same building, ask to see theirs (however, they usually heat and insulate their floor - usually ground floor - better than the others...)

I hope this will have helped a little.
Good luck for all the settling!

Carine