Dealing with mold and leak disputes with a neighbor/landlord

[Eli Ling]

Hi everyone,

I’m dealing with a situation with my downstairs neighbor. There’s a leak coming from my unit, and a small patch of mold and some mushrooms have grown on their ceiling. I’m wondering how long it takes for these to grow and whether any of this might have contributed to their delayed reporting of the mold.

Now, the neighbor wants me to fully cooperate with inspections. He insists on first hiring a mold remediation company to remediate the area before even opening the ceiling to identify the leak. The quote he got is about $2000, and he says if the leak is from my unit, I have to pay. On top of that, he wants to continue checking further behind the ceiling, and any additional mold found would also be my responsibility.

I haven’t agreed to this because there’s no way to know if the mold behind the ceiling is from my leak or something else. In my opinion, this is a relatively minor issue. Even though there’s some mold, it’s a small patch of ceiling that could just be cut out and replaced.

I suggested he let a handyman come first, cut a small section of the ceiling, and identify the leak. But he refuses and insists on a mold company doing it first.

He’s the landlord himself, has been one for many years. I don’t understand why he wants to escalate this so much—it feels unnecessary.

Has anyone dealt with something similar? How would you handle this situation? Is he giving me a hard time, or am I overreacting?