Imagine cooking a meal and your walls start to sweat. Imagine you are not cooking a meal and your walls sweat. These are the conditions Rita (not her real name), a single mother of three, lives in.

Mould is a fact she and her children have learned to live with.

?Christmas 2005 it was so bad we had to move out while the apartment was cleaned,? she said. Rita rents the two-bedroom home through the Bermuda Housing Corporation (BHC) but moved with her children to a hotel for five days back in 2005 while major cleaning and renovation took place.

?They came in and re-plastered and repainted all the walls and ceilings in the kitchen, living room, bathroom and in one bedroom,? she said. Additionally work crews carrying out the cleaning removed all the carpeting, replacing it with tile.

Rita said she specifically requested that the carpet be removed after her teenaged daughter and son were diagnosed with asthma. ?I cannot say the mould caused it,? she said. ?I do not know for sure but they had never had asthma before. Then to develop it in their teens?? Rita believes that mould in the house and especially in the carpet at least triggered the asthmatic reactions in her children.

And she said the children have not had any asthma problems since the tile was laid. ?It?s definitely made a huge difference for us. I don?t have to worry anymore,? she said.

But although the house received such a thorough cleaning less than two years ago, the mould is coming back.

?I have to stay on top of it,? Rita said. She said it starts in the corners of rooms and will quickly take hold and begin to cover a wall with its black fungus.

She says she now has it in good control, cleaning the spots as they appear with Tilex.

?You actually won?t see any if you come to my house now because I have cleaned it up,? she said. She said the BHC has also been diligent, physically coming to check her home for mould every six months.

?It?s no one?s fault,? she said. ?I think it?s the way the roof is pitched. The way it was constructed it?s flat in parts and so the water sits in certain areas and seeps through.?