All Forum Posts by: Atalia Abat

Hello,

I have found myself in a very unpleasant circumstance. The end of this past November my family and I moved into a new apartment and less than a month after this we discovered that mold had started to grow on our ceilings and walls (ruining a dresser and clothing). The first time the mold appeared we figured it was coincidence and cleaned it. About a month later around the beginning of January the mold reappeared darker and more spread out over the ceilings. We discovered a couple leaks in our ceiling and immediately called maintenance. All they did was paint over the mold, set up a huge fan in our room, and bring a bucket for the leak. Now about a month after this incident we had ANOTHER bout of mold, this time worse, we found it on all our walls upstairs in our closet and on our ceilings again. This was about a week and a half ago. We live in California and I know we have some sort of Mold Act put in place to determine guidelines to live by concerning mold. Is there a way I can break my lease without having to pay out the remainder of the contract? I went through my lease and it does mention that mold and mildew can occur from the moisture content of the area we live in (near the beach) but this level of mold has to be unsanitary and is damaging our items. Me, my husband, and 4 year old daughter have been sick on and off since we moved in and definitely suspect it is due to the mold as we never get this sick. I would walk away and choose the health of my family over my lease but I am trying to build my credit back up and my husband has good credit which we don't want to destroy. Any advice out there?

Des N- Why is it that you hate car loans? I have heard similar statements from other people, are they less beneficial to one's credit than other types of loans? Thanks for the advice!

Eduardo- Thank you for site reference I have already found many helpful tips on there I plan to follow!

Charles- Yes I definitely plan to keep all my accounts open from now on.

Steve Babaik- Thank you for the insight, I will keep that in mind. Is it possible to open old accounts? Is it better to leave them in a closed state?

Greg- Thanks for the advice, debt to income ratio is fairly low. No mortgage, and car was paid in full.

Patrick- Yes, I've heard that too about closing the accounts and I think that goes for store accounts too. I was young around 17 or 18 when I closed them, oh well live and learn.

Mike- Thanks, that's definetely the route I'm going to take. I always thought it was better to have a balance until I started hearing about the utilization ratio factor.

Anyway thanks to you all for the welcome, and your help!

I am 23 years old and I am starting over with my credit. When I was 18 I was married for a short time and owned a condo. Eventually that ended in a foreclosure. It's been about 3-4 years since that was reported on my credit and I have been trying to build my credit back up since. My score is at 609 right now.

I have a credit card with a $500 limit, balance at $400
I have a store card with a $250 limit, balance at $200
And about 3 other old accounts that I had paid balances on and closed years ago.

I have been paying a little over minimum payment on my cards each month but want to pay them down quite a bit more.

Any suggestions on what I can do to build my credit and get my score back up? Should I try to pay my cards down completely or leave a little balance on them?