What a closed season actually does

Nothing dramatic happens on any single day. What happens is slow and cumulative.

The building keeps breathing moisture in and out through its walls, but with the shutters closed and no ventilation, nothing carries that moisture away. Temperatures swing between day and night, and every time a surface drops below the dew point, water settles on it. On the coast you can add salt air, which holds damp far longer than dry inland air.

The result is predictable, and we find the same three places almost every time: the bathroom ceiling, the backs of wardrobes and behind furniture pushed against outside walls, and the cellar or the lower ground floor where the wall meets the ground.

The smell almost always arrives before the stains. If someone tells you the place smells musty but they cannot see anything, believe them: the surface is already contaminated, it has simply not gone black yet.

What to check on the day you arrive

Before you unpack, walk the property once with your phone in your hand. Twenty minutes, in this order:

  • Open everything and leave it open. Windows on opposite sides, all the internal doors, wardrobes and cupboards. Do this first so the place is airing while you do the rest.
  • Bathroom ceiling, above the shower and in the corners. Then behind the toilet cistern and under the basin.
  • Under the bath, if there is an inspection hatch. This is where we most often find the real source while the owner has been looking at a corner three metres away.
  • Behind and under the washing machine.
  • Pull the wardrobes and the bed away from outside walls and look at the wall itself, not the furniture.
  • Window reveals, the plaster strip between the frame and the wall, in every north-facing room.
  • The cellar, the garage, the boiler cupboard. Look at the bottom thirty centimetres of the walls and at any pipework: pipes that bead with condensation drip several litres a day into a closed room.
  • Extract fans. Hold a sheet of thin paper against the grille. If it does not stay up on its own, the extraction is not working, and that is usually the whole story.

Photograph everything you find, even what looks minor, with the date. You will want the comparison next year.

What to ask someone else to photograph

If a tenant, a neighbour, a caretaker or an agency is your eyes on the ground, asking for « a photo of the mold » gets you one useless close-up. Ask for this instead:

One wide shot of the whole room from the doorway, so the scale and the layout are visible.

One close-up of each affected area, with something for scale — a hand, a phone, a tape measure.

The bathroom ceiling and under the bath, always, even if nobody has mentioned them.

The extract grille in the bathroom and kitchen.

The bottom of the walls in the cellar or lowest level.

With those five, we can quote properly. With one close-up, anyone quoting you is guessing, and the number will change when they arrive.

Having it dealt with while you are elsewhere

This is a normal working arrangement for us rather than a favour. In practice it runs like this.

  1. You or your contact send the photos. We reply with the rate, the surface we will count and the final figure, before anyone travels.
  2. Access is arranged with whoever holds the keys — tenant, neighbour, concierge, letting agency or building manager. You tell us who, we agree the time directly with them.
  3. We photograph before and after and send you both sets with the line-by-line calculation, in a form you can forward to a tenant, a co-owner or an insurer.
  4. Payment by bank transfer, invoice from Tatiana Subbotina EI, SIRET 845 294 883 00028. VAT not applicable under art. 293 B du CGI.

Our first job of this kind came from an owner in the United States whose house in Menton had mould in the cellar. Since then it has become a large part of what we do.

What it costs

The rate is €45 to €90 per m² of surface actually treated, and the minimum call-out is €250 in zone A — Ventimiglia through to Monaco and Cap-d'Ail — or €350 in zone B, which covers Nice through to Antibes. Travel is included in the minimum.

The point worth knowing for a closed property: in a damp room we treat the affected areas in full and give the rest of the surface a single preventive pass, because the spores are already there. Treating one corner of a bathroom that has been shut for six months is money spent for one season. The full calculation is on the Pricing page.

Before you close it up again

Most of the damage is decided in the hour before you lock the door.

  • Leave internal doors and wardrobe doors open. Air that can move around the whole property is worth more than any product.
  • Pull furniture five centimetres off the outside walls.
  • Empty and dry the washing machine and dishwasher, and leave their doors ajar.
  • Do not leave textiles in sealed cupboards. Bedding and towels in a closed wardrobe against a cold wall are the classic find in April.
  • Leave the heating on a low frost-protection setting if you can. A cold building condenses more than a mildly warm one.
  • Arrange for someone to open the place for an hour, once a month if possible. It is the cheapest insurance there is.

If you are not sure whether what you are looking at is worth a visit, send the photos anyway. If it is something you can wipe down yourself, we will say so — a trip that ends in disappointment is worth less to us than a straight answer.

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