Unless you’re making cheese or growing mushrooms, keeping all fungus out of your home should be a top priority. But sometimes how to get rid of mold—likely the most feared fungus for the hygienic homeowner—seems daunting, especially when it feels inevitable in spaces like the basement and around sinks. Experts say it’s normal for homes to host some amount of the fungal microorganisms we know as mold or mildew. Nevertheless, knowing how to kill them will bring you that much closer to a neater, healthier abode. While it’s nothing to be ashamed of, any identified issues should be tackled as soon as possible—even if it’s a relatively unthreatening amount.
That’s because exposure to unabated mold growth can make your home uninhabitable. Health problems, like allergies, can arise in anyone spending a lot of time on your property (including your children and pets). More severe reactions, like lung conditions, are also a risk.
The good news? You don’t necessarily need to call a mold remediation expert to get rid of mold. Depending on the kind of mold and the extent of the mold growth, you may need to call in the pros, but in some cases, common household products like hydrogen peroxide and bleach are good solutions to try when it comes to cleaning mold and mildew. We asked the experts everything you need to know about this pesky problem.
What does mold look like?
When thinking about mold in the home, the image of fuzzy green globs clinging to old bread may come to mind. In some cases, mold stains may appear as large groups of blackish or green discolored dots. But depending on the affected material, unsuspecting colors could arise. “With certain kinds of things, like vinyl wallpapers or vinyl tiles, you’ll actually start to see yellow or pink splotches on it, and that’s mold on the backside,” says Ethan O’Donnell, an editor at Family Handyman magazine who has undertaken numerous bathroom and kitchen remodeling jobs with mold remediation or moisture damage issues. “Drywall does that sometimes too.”
What are some signs of mold growth?
When investigating the potential presence of mold, you’ll have to engage more than just your sense of sight. Though some mold growth pops out in plain sight, announcing itself through an unappealing array of new colorful splotches, there are myriad less obvious signs that mold spores are present, like musty smells, unfamiliar water stains, and even warped or disfigured materials, like wallpaper or wood.
Be aware if a room feels “off,” or you’re experiencing unexplainable health problems, like constant colds or new allergies, says Glen Apfelbaum, the president of Home Healthy Homes, which handles mold remediation and basement waterproofing projects in the New York City area. “In many, many cases in the work that I do, the mold is not visible—it’s a smell, it’s a feeling, it’s an allergic response, and [residents] just don’t know.”
Apfelbaum recounts an instance when a pair of newlyweds moved into the former home of the wife’s parents, where the moldy area wasn’t easy to notice. The husband soon moved out, saying it made him feel terrible and the house was “killing him.” No one believed him. But at the husband’s insistence, Apfelbaum says, mold tests and blood analyses were conducted, and the results showed that he was having an allergic reaction to a specific mold that was present but not visible to anyone. Talk about a haunted house.
What are the most common types of mold?
Apfelbaum notes that not all strains of mold you’ll find at home are deadly, and that most healthy people won’t experience much more than allergic irritation symptoms upon exposure (like coughing, sneezing, and sore throats). For those interested in the hard science, Apfelbaum specifies that he consistently sees molds within the cladosporium, penicillium, and aspergillus genuses come up during testing, although he says that penicilliums and aspergilli are lumped together on his lab reports.
