This document describes choices among common cleaning substances and methods used for mold cleanup of building surfaces and contents.

This article series provides an easy to understand step-by-step guide for dealing with toxic or allergenic indoor mold and other indoor contaminants: what to do about mold.

The steps in this document will be sufficient for many building owners who want to do their own mold investigation, mold testing, mold cleanup, and mold prevention in their home or office.

Q&A on What to Use to Clean Off Mold

These questions and answers about mold cleaning products were posted originally

at MOLD CLEANERS - WHAT TO USE - be sure to see the advice given there

What to do about incomplete and improper mold cleanup

I have a few questions about mold cleanup. Please bear with me while I give context.

We live in an apartment where the bay window in our living room leaked.

The seat area, built with laminated MDF and painted, was quite saturated and never properly dried.

The maintenance staff agreed to remove the damaged materials approximately one month later as our cat is being treated for allergies of unknown cause. They did put up plastic tarp while working but negative air pressure was not maintained and (because they said they saw no obvious signs of black mold) no real cleanup was done.

Concerned that they may not have recognized growth that wasn’t black, I did a deep clean of the apartment using my Shark HEPA vacuum (vacuuming all walls, furniture, contents, and slow vacuuming of carpet).

During that month, we couldn’t use the window air conditioning unit and our apartment became humid. In our guest room, I found powdery white growth on the back panels of both dressers and the night stand. It was like dust but had a pattern with more coverage toward the bottoms of the panels.

We actually had to use a flashlight while cleaning the last piece as, once the sun went down, I could no longer see it to vacuum it thoroughly. There was no bed in there at the time.

We didn’t have any fans small enough to fit in the window while cleaning and I was concerned about carrying the furniture through the apartment before cleaning it.

We HEPA vacuumed it well and took it outside (and got rid of it as it was old anyway).

We wore no protective clothing or masks and seemed to suffer no increased symptoms during cleanup. I deep cleaned that room afterward. I also found similar growth on the doors in our bathroom despite our habit of leaving the exhaust fan running for several hours after showering. That was almost a month ago.

I’m wondering if there is reason to obtain post cleanup air samples to verify that we no longer have elevated levels in our apartment. It is expensive and I don’t want to potentially waste funds. I have purchased a hygrometer to monitor the humidity going forward.

Also, we had some paper items and board games on one of the dressers in that room and I don’t know if we should get rid of them or not. I’d like to be reasonable in my approach.

Our cat is still suffering allergies despite steroid treatment and my partner and I are still experiencing allergy symptoms, as well.

Thank you for taking time to read this, as lengthy as it is. I have attached an image that is not ours but that looks similar to what we saw on our furniture.

Please note that we didn’t see anything like what is on the side of this piece, only the light powdery substance on the back. On 2018-10-27 by Ari

by (mod) - using air testing alone as a measure of the completeness of a mold remediation job is NOT reliable

In my experience, using air testing alone as a measure of the completeness of a mold remediation job is fundamentally unreliable.

The explanation is at ACCURACY OF AIR TESTS for MOLD

by Ari

Thank you. Is there anything you suggest we do instead?

by (mod) - how do we make sure the mold cleanup job was complete?

Sure

Details are at MOLD CLEARANCE INSPECTIONS https://inspectapedia.com/mold/Mold_Clearance_Inspections.php

Should we try to salvage the books/mattresses/couches from a mold-contaminated area?

Our house had a mold issue with air samples showing high levels of Aspergillus/Penicillium( air sample showing 292,800 spores m3). We moved everything to a storage unit and are cleaning it as we move into the new house.

Just the carpet and walls had water damage in the old house. I have severe health issues from the mold and now everything that was in the house makes my skin itch when I touch it.

Should we try to salvage the books/mattresses/couches etc?

They probably just have dust that contains mold but I'm not sure. Is vacuuming them with a HEPA vacuum enough? On 2017-07-12 by AndyB -

Sugggestions by (mod) -

Andy,

You're smart to be cleaning or discarding items rather than carrying a big moldy-dust reservoir into the new home - but be sure that the new home itself is inspected with care for a history of leaks, allergns, dust, mold too or things will be more confusing than ever.

Your skin reaction may be due to having become hypersensitized - something about which to ask your doctor.

In my experience, I would not expect a properly-cleaned hard surface item (dishes, glassware, plastic items, wood furniture) or soft but cleanable items (drapes, clothing, bedding (but maybe not mattresses or pillows if those were wet or exposed to damp moldy conditions)) to cause a respiratory or skin reaction.

However, using a mobile microscopy lab during a conservation project I found that the cleaners hired to clean even the hard-surfaced items were sending up items that my tests found were smeared with lots of hard-to-see but significant mold contamination. The problem was they were re-using damp wipes across multiple moldy items. Once they stopped doing that the cleanup went very well.

Carpet that has been wet and moldy is discarded along with its padding. Rugs can be sent out for professional cleaning.

HEPA vacuuming is the right general procedure for dust cleanup but will not remove most of the mold from soft goods like upholstered furniture or area rugs. It's more effect on hard flat surfaces.

Books can be quite difficult to clean thoroughly if they're quite moldy as in that case just cleaning the book exterior may not be enough. But books that remained dry and just got a dose of moldy dust can be HEPA vacuumed and damp wiped.

Do I have to cut out a portion black-mold contaminated ceiling or can I drill holes spray something up there?

My roof leaked at ridge vent causing several spots of black mold on textured ceiling after vacation home closed for 6 months. Washed with detergent then cleaned with bleach let dry next day cleaned with vinegar and borax scrubbed with toothbrush. scrapped spackle down to drywall ceiling letting dry.

Do I have to cut out portion ceiling or can I drill holes spray something up there and hope it kills any mold. It is blown insulation.

The total area at peak is two sections of about 2x3. I am hoping I can paint with kills and texture over it. Is cutting out the portion of drywall ceiling the only way to go. Any help is appreciated. On 2017-06-17 by ann

Explanation by (mod) -

Ann

I think the answer to your question depends on how much leakage occur and over what interval period is only a few inches of material girl wet it's possible that the mould in the ceiling cavity is very small in area and you might choose to leave it alone period however if there was any substantial we could the risk is that you are leaving a substantial mould resin floor in the ceiling.

You may need to do some exploring by making the small test opening cut in the most suspect area in order to look at the ceiling side that is the cavity side of the drywall

 

Is it safe for me age 82 to stay on the 21st and 2nd floors of my home when mediation team is using foster and micromanage in basement

Is it safe to stay in the house while men are using foster and microban. On 2016-07-24 by Is it safe for me age 82

by (mod) - is my moldy apartment safe? Possibly not, IMO not worth the risk - and just spraying and painting isn't a reliable mold remediation job

82

With the apology that I don't know a single thing about your building, nor what's being done in it, I can only answer in general:

A professional mold remediation company whose work is competent will be using dust control measures including physical barriers and negative air to avoid spreading moldy dust from a work area to other building areas.

IF that work goes perfectly (no barrier falls down, barriers are perfect, negative air is always on and always effective, etc.) and IF there was no prior moldy-dust contamination of other areas of the home, then those other areas might be "safe" in general for occupants
BUT
very often, if not most-often, experts will, for safety, recommend that people at extra risk such as elderly (you and me), immune impaired, asthmatic, infant, or other people at particular risk should be out of a building from the time that an indoor environmental hazard is discovered until after a post-remediation inspection and test confirm that the hazard(s) have been removed.

Watch out: IF your remediator of a mold problem is doing nothing but spraying a large (more than 30 sqft) area of harmful indoor mold on building surfaces, I would question the competence and expertise of the job management.

Read INCOMPLETE MOLD CLEANUP, RELYING ON SPRAYS

What would be the best paint and/or sealant to use after mold has been removed?

What would be the best paint and/or sealant to use after mold has been removed?

The source of the mold and moisture problem turned out to be an almost complete lack of of weep openings. The affected interior wall is drywall with plaster behind it, and I've removed and replaced the drywall.

Zinsser Gardz Problem Surface Sealer has been recommended for the drywall, but is there something else I should use?

Perhaps there is another product that works better, and is maybe a little less pricey than this Zinsser stuff? Any and all help is much appreciated, thank you so much! On 2016-03-22 by Ashley

by (mod) - Zinsser Gardz Problem Surface Sealer

Ashley

Take a look at

• FUNGICIDAL & ODOR SEALANT USE GUIDE

and

• MOLD SANITIZER, SPRAY, BIOCIDE USE GUIDE

Need advice for cleaning moldy furring strips

The area I need to clean is in the shower we have stripped the walls and we would like to save the base of the shower.

There are at least (2) furring strips that are wood and I can't get to them to clean. What should I do? (Apr 21, 2011) Wanda

Reply:

We don't understand quite where the furring strips are nor if they are moldy. Also, if they are moldy, there could be mold on other surfaces in that same area. So the total area of moldy surfaces may be more than you think.

For small moldy surfaces (we use the example of the space between a floor joist and the plywood subfloor) that are dry and undamaged, sealing those areas may be sufficient to prevent detectable levels of problem mold from showing up in your indoor occupied space.

Just be sure that the leaks that caused mold are repaired and that there is no hidden structural damage from rot.

 

What do we do about bits of mold on the ceiling and upper wall of our bathroom

(June 9, 2012) S McCumsey said:
We have bits of mold on the ceiling and upper wall of our bathroom.

Suspect that the fan wasn't doing the job which are are going to correct. After surface cleaning can we sand off the remaining mold if it isn't too deep or do we have to remove the drywall?

We have fine colonies that wiping doesn't remove. We are planning to replace the tile as well but not in the immediate future. The grout has mold and we expect we will have to pull it all out.

Reply:

S McCumsey,

It is rarely effective to try to "sand" drywall to clean mold.

The effective repair for moldy drywall is to remove and replace it. However, if the total moldy area is trivial in size, and if I were very confident that the ONLY mold on the drywall were from an exterior source - such as condensation on that surface

- and therefore if I were confident that we didn't risk more mold on the hidden side of the drywall nor a leak hidden inside the wall or ceiling cavity, then I might be tempted to surface clean the small area (say a square foot or less), let it dry, coat it with a lacquer primer sealer or a fungicidal sealant paint, and then repaint the surface.

That little repair, combined with proper moisture handling to avoid a new mold problem could be effective, though it's not our "standard" recommendation. Just be sure you're not ignoring a hidden leak or mold reservoir.

The grout mold runs into the same issue. If the wall is intact and we are sure that there were no leaks into or behind the tiled surface, surface cleaning could be sufficient.

 

Is hydrogen peroxide useful in treating mold?

(May 9, 2015) Robert A. Jungst said:
Is hydrogen peroxide useful in treating mold?

Reply: NO

The object in mold cleanup is to remove the mold = any household cleaner would suffice = from cleanable surfaces, to dispose of materials that can't be cleaned (such as moldy drywall) and to correct the cause of the mold growth. Hydrogen peroxide is an effective cleaner for wounds.

See MOLD KILLING GUIDE

...

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