Rentals Around Gettysburg College and the North End: Moisture, Inspections and Mold

By John Calhoun, owner of Mold Remediation Gettysburg PA · Updated October 20, 2026

The north end of the borough, along Carlisle and Washington Streets, is where town meets Gettysburg College. Rentals are everywhere in the borough: the Census shows 53.3% of borough households renting, against 21.1% across Adams County. Rentals get mold for the same reasons any house does, but they have two extra problems. Tenants change, so nobody watches the same wall for years, and the person who sees the problem usually isn’t the person who pays to fix it.

The college and the rental market

Gettysburg College was founded in 1832, and most of its students live on campus. The student paper reported in 2022 that the college would stop releasing students from its residency requirement, after five years in which roughly 98 to 133 students a year had lived off campus in about 23 to 30 houses. A smaller off-campus process came back for 2024 to 2025.

So student rentals are a small slice of the borough’s rental housing, not the whole story. Most borough renters are ordinary households, and more than a third of borough homes are in buildings with two or more units. The moisture problems are the same either way, and they follow the building, not the tenant.

The north end by the numbers

The Census treats the north end of the borough, including the college, as its own tract, 315.01.

Tract 315.01 (north end)	Figure
Homes	599
Median year built	1940
Built before 1940	49.7%
Households that rent	56.1%
Attached single homes (rowhouses, twins)	19.0%
Homes in buildings with 2 or more units	38.2%

Turnover is the other number that matters. Across the borough, about 36% of renter households moved into their current home in 2020 or later, by the Census count. Every move-out is a chance to look behind the furniture and under the sinks, and every move-in is a new person who doesn’t know what’s normal for that unit.

Every borough rental is licensed and inspected

The borough requires a rental license for every residential rental unit, renewed each year. Units are inspected at the start, on a regular cycle of every three years, and on a change of ownership. The inspections use the 2015 International Property Maintenance Code.

Two items on that checklist matter directly to mold:

• A bathroom and kitchen window that opens, or a mechanical vent. Showers put a lot of water into the air. Without a way out, it ends up on the ceiling and walls.
• A dryer vented directly outside. A dryer pushes a lot of damp air out of the machine. Vented into a basement or attic, it’s a humidifier you’re paying to run.

What the checklist doesn’t list is mold, leaks or drainage. A unit can pass and still have a wet subfloor under the toilet.

What I check at turnover

An empty unit is the best time to look. Here’s my list, in order:

1. Bathrooms. Moisture readings around the tub, the toilet base and the floor in front of the shower. Run the fan and make sure it actually pulls air, and that it goes outside. Fans that dump into the attic are covered in bath fans venting into the attic.
2. Under every sink. Look at the cabinet floor, not just the pipes.
3. Exterior walls behind where furniture sat. Beds and couches pushed against a cold outside wall leave a dark patch in winter. That’s condensation on walls, and it’s common in older units.
4. Ceilings under another unit’s bathroom or kitchen. A stain there is a plumbing question for the unit above.
5. The basement or crawl space, if the unit has one.

If a tenant reports a smell and nothing shows, start with a musty smell but no visible mold.

When heavy rain hits the north end

On October 31, 2019, the student paper reported heavy rain flooding streets near campus and water inside several campus buildings, including basement areas. That’s one documented storm, not a pattern I can promise for any block. But it’s a reminder that a basement apartment on low ground needs a look after a big storm, not just at turnover.

Notes for landlords

Keep records. Date, photos, moisture readings and what you fixed. If you ever sell, refinance or face a dispute, that file is worth more than any spray. And fix the source before the cosmetic work, because fresh paint over a wet wall buys you about one lease.

I’m John Calhoun. Whether you own the building or rent a unit in it, I’ll tell you plainly what I find. For the bigger picture, see mold remediation in Gettysburg, PA, my mold services, and the borough-wide numbers on the Gettysburg housing data page.