The college is beginning to take measures against the spread of mould in residence, after the initial discovery late last year.

Mike Rushton, director of Physical Resources, along with residence staff, believe that the problem is most likely from high humidity and poor air flow in some bedrooms in the building. The moisture is accumulating on the windows, running down the sill, and getting beneath the wallpaper in the surrounding area.

“That seems to be the mechanism, so what we’re starting to do is go through the suites that seem to have the biggest moisture build-up, and understanding whether the ventilation system is working properly or not,” said Rushton.

Algonquin took action in early February to solve the problem. The college hired InAir, an environmental engineering consultant firm, to conduct tests throughout the residence later that month to determine the damage and decide on the best solution.

“Overall, the college’s stance is that we are moving ahead to try to understand the extent of the issue, and then once we understand the extent of it, we will find the solution to solve it,” said Rushton.

Residence released a memo in early February, informing students what mould really is, and some of the health symptoms which are associated with it. Mike Benkie, coordinator for Occupational Health and Safety for the college, stressed that the memo was released to give students living in residence credible information.

“As you can imagine, if a student hears about mould, the first thing they’re going to do is google it, and obviously you get credible sources, and non-credible sources,” Benkie said. “It was why we gave the mould facts out, because it was important to give [the residents] credible information to go on.”

One thing that the report mentioned was that there have been four cases of mould in the building, and that they had all been taken care of. One of these aforementioned incidents was with Allyson Knappers, a first-year child and youth worker student, and her roommate.

Knappers and her roommate had mould in their fourth floor suite, to the point where her roommate had to move rooms completely.  Maintenance told Knappers she had mould growing under her window, but did not immediately take action.

“My roommate told me that her mould was really bad, that she’d been really sick because of it and that she was moving out,” Knappers said.  “Her entire wall around her window had to be re-drywalled.”

The environmental engineering consultant firm conducted their tests in twelve bedrooms throughout the three different phases of the building. The results concluded that there are, “elevated levels of mould contamination in numerous walls under the windows.”

The firm took air samples, lifted mould with tape and took bulk sampling in various rooms and areas around the college. It was confirmed that there was visible mould growth identified in all the bedrooms that were surveyed by the firm.

“It is not a high level of mould where the building is contaminated by any chance. Regardless, we want to take any precaution necessary, and mitigate any risk to any of our students,” Benkie said.

Benkie stressed that the students living in residence aren’t breathing in harmful spores, but it comes down to making sure fans in the room are kept on so there is as little moisture as possible. As of now, all the major problems have been taken care of, and students need to continue to contact maintenance staff if high condensation occurs in rooms, said Benkie.

“Yes, we’ve got mould, it’s not a massive infestation in any way, but at the same time, we want to make sure we have a totally clean environment for all our students,” said Benkie.