Is this rising damp? What should we do?

[MissF]

Hi there, I'm a DIY novice and could use some advice please.

We live in a two bedroom ground floor flat. Shortly after we moved in we noticed that there was mould on some our clothes and then in the back of the wardrobes. We dealt with this and from the research we did it suggested that this could be due to the fact that the room was cold and not well ventilated. (We had no central heating at this point due to boiler woes.) Part of our plan to tackle this problem involved us moving the wardrobes to the spare room so this problem wall was bare - and therefore better ventilated. The wall is an external wall.

On Wednesday this week my partner painted this wall in a dark colour. On Friday we noticed that the paint appeared to be dripping down the wall in the two corners and when we felt the paint it had not dried at all in these two corners, although it's dry elsewhere. Along the bottom of the whole wall near the skirting board you can see mould coming through the paint - it shows up against the dark colour. We've checked the brick work outside and the bottom course of bricks look very mouldy and there is a gap between the path and the bricks - would this be the problem? I'm thinking this is where water is getting in and causing the problem. We've check all round the flat and although some parts look better than others it's a bit ropey all the way around.

I've had a look at some of the pages on here and I can't see that the wall has a damp proof course - on the pictures I've seen you can see it poking out of the bricks all the way round, I think. We've got nothing like that.

What should we do about this? Can we fix it ourselves or do we need to get someone out?

I've had a look at the descriptions on here and it doesnt seem like it's as bad as rising damp. It's only actually damp to the touch on the bottom corners and the skirting board looks fine at the moment. Could it still be rising damp?

I'd really appreciate any advice on either the service charge stuff or the damp itself. Please feel free to share experiences! I'm feeling a bit hopeless about the whole thing at the moment.

:cry:
Thank you.

[mdpmspitfire]

hi, depending on external wall construction you may have rising damp but it could also be penetrating dampness. you mention the path outside. this may be bridging any current dpc or allowing rainsplash to soak the wall. if damp shows on int walls this will generally be rising as there is no external influence.
mark

[TheDoctor5]

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