What is this growing in my kitchen cupboard?

[manaboutcoppull]

I live in a mid-terraced house and think I have a weird fungal growth in my kitchen cupboard due to rising damp.

We bought our house in 2006 and it had a damp proof course in 2002.

Our next door neighbour had flaky paint on their walls, and it turned out to be rising damp. Their builder fixed it but commented it looked like it gone through our side of the wall too. I don't think the damp course failed, I think it has bridged across from our neighbours side (does this sound like a realistic theory?).

We have a kitchen unit built over the same corner in our house, so there is no easy way of seeing the damp. In fact we had no idea until our neighbour told us what their builder said. We have an "L" shaped cupboard and I went looking for signs. The back of cupboards do no appear damp, but when I looked down right at the back I saw a weird growth.

Picture of weird growth: http://tinypic.com/r/2ajtmk9/7

Questions:

Does this look like a fungus which has penetrated through the cupboard?

Is fungus like this associated with rising damp?

Does this indicate the problem may be really bad when we get a builder to tear down our unit to fix?[url][/url]

[stoneyboy]

manaboutcoppull,
You'll either have to remove the cupboard or cut the back out to see the condition of the wall behind. Your picture could be anything.
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