Bathtub caulking and water damaged wall

[irenek]

In my basement apartment, my tenant discovered a strange alien growth in the carpet in the bedroom, directly below the wall shared with the bath tub. Moisture, right? Right. This growth looks like, well, fungus or some sort of mushroom. It is amber in color, waxy in texture with curly edges, and about a half inch big. Wierd!

Anyway, I looked at the tub and sure enough the (apparently lame) plastic barrier between the tile wall and the tub has pulled away thus allowing water into the wall!! I don't know if simple caulking will do the job because the gap between tile and tub is at least 1/2 inch.

Questions:

[?] Can I caulk in that wide of a space? If not, then what?

[?] What do I do to assess the damage to the wall, floor, carpet etc? (Carpet is on top of concrete - don't know if there is a subfloor or plastic barrier).

[kactuskid]

Sounds like you've got a big mold problem. Don't attempt to salvage it by trying to caulk the gap. That mold is extremely toxic and you'd be opening yourself up to lots more problems. You really need to tear down that shower and clean it up. You also need to remove that carpet. You need to take precautions when cleaning it up, releasing lots of mold spores into the atmosphere is not what you want to do. Here's a link that'll explain what you need to do.

http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/ts/IAQ/Got_Mold.html

After you tear down the shower surround you'll be able to see the extenet of the mold and any rot that may be happening to the wood frameing in your walls. Then once that's cleaned up you need to install a cement board product like Hardibacker to the stud framing to prevent moisture from traveling through into the walls again. Then you can either tile the walls or install another glue on surround to the cement board.