Mold and Mildew Two Part Series: Part 1
As everyone knows the hardest thing to remove is mold and mildew from a home. No matter how often you clean it is always there, staring you in the eyes mocking you and your cleaning skills. But we have some tips that will help you to combat this.
Cleaning:
Dealing with mold can be very tricky and can affect your health especially if you are allergic so always make sure you have the property covering you need to clean effectively. You will need:
- A N-95 facemask with filters to keep from breathing in the spores
- Goggles, preferably with no holes in the sides
- Rubber gloves that go to your elbows
- And if you are especially sensitive to mold you can wear long sleeves to prevent as little of the spores from contacting your skin
The first thing you want to do is make sure everything is as dry as possible. If the mold is in your bathroom and you have more than one bathroom do not use this bathroom for at least 24 hours, this will allow it to be as dry as possible. Open as many windows as you can, set up fans or turn on the air conditioner to get a nice dry airflow moving over the mold surface.
If the mold is appearing do to a leak fix the leak before you try to clean up the mold, if you don’t correct the cause of the mold you will just be cleaning it up over and over and not really preventing or correcting the mold issue.
Remove as much of the mold on the surfaces with a strong cleaner, scrubbing until the mold is gone. You can also purchase form the store a chemical specifically designed to remove mold but make sure you follow the usage instructions. If you are using bleach never mix this with ammonia or other cleaning solutions as this will create toxic fuse that will be harmful to you.
If you have mold on your carpet, clothes, any fabric or wallpaper be careful to not move it around and release the spores. If you release the spores into the air they could settle in your ventilation system or possibly other rooms in the house and then you would have an even bigger problem. Very careful remove the materials from your home and take them outside and away from your house. Make sure you are downwind before you take them outside or you run the risk of blowing the spores on you or back into the house.
If the mold is in your carpet you and you don’t want to remove the carpet then you will have to treat the area all the way down to the pad but even this might not be good enough because the mold could have gone under the pad to the floor its self.