With all the new concern about mold growing in our homes in our businesses, you may be wondering just what you can do to determine whether mold exists on your property or not.  There are a few different ways to know if mold exists on your property and one of the best ones is to purchase a mold testing kit that you can perform by yourself, but how do you know if you need to test for it?  

Do you throw wet clothing and towels on the floor and leave them there?  Or even worse, throw dry clothing on top of them and forget the wet clothes are underneath?  If this is a habit for you or the rest of your family, especially if the floor you are putting these on is carpeted, then you are inviting mold to start growing in your house.  Wash wet clothing as soon as possible or put them in a sink or other container by themselves and never put dry clothing on top of wet. 

Has your home suffered water damage due to floods or heavy rain?  Mold likes to grow on items that have been wet and forgotten about or just never repaired.  It will grow anywhere that there is moisture or high amounts of humidity.  Stachybotrys mold in particular likes to grow where there is standing water, such as in a leaky area of your basement.  Try to keep the humidity level in your house down and if you see condensation on your windows or on exposed pipes, you are not succeeding in this.  Try a de-humidifier. 

Any part of your home that has been water damaged, especially floors and walls, could be hiding a mold infestation.  To detect mold that you cannot see or smell, purchase a mold testing kit and follow the directions for it exactly as they appear or the test will be useless.

Mold will also grow in closets that have too many clothes packed in them.  Air simply cannot circulate in a closet packed too tight and the clothing provides all the food that the mold needs to survive.  A solution to this problem is to just give or throw away clothing that you do not need and if there is not much clothing that you do not use, find another way to store it.

 Elizabeth Basement Flooded

There are a few things that the average person should know about mold and one of the most obvious ones is that mold growing in the house is dangerous to the health.  But, what exactly is mold?  Why is it dangerous?  How do you get rid of it? 

Mold is a fungus and it exists all around us.  There are thousands of different species of it and they exist all around the world in more colors than you can think of.  Some people seem to think that the words “mold” and “fungus” can be used as replacements for each other, but this is not always the case.  All molds are fungi, but not every fungus is a mold.  We have been known to eat different fungi around the world such as mushrooms and some kinds of mold have even been used to create such foods as cheese or alcoholic beverages and the fact is that some molds, when used in the creation of food or medicines properly, can be quite beneficial to our health.

The news has been making a big deal over mold the past few years, noting “toxic black mold” in many of its broadcasts.  The black mold that it is usually referring to is called Stachybotrys and this is a genus of mold that contains about 10 different species.  It grows mostly on dead plants and has been known to grow in homes or businesses.  Not every kind of black mold mentioned on the news is Stachybotrys. 

People are becoming more and more concerned about hidden mold in their homes and businesses.  This is mold that you cannot readily see just by taking a look around your house and is often found tucked away inside air conditioning vents or inside walls.  Any mold that has been found to be growing inside the ventilation system should be gotten rid of as soon as possible because every time the air conditioner is turned on, the mold is spread to every corner of your home or business and will be creating health problems for everyone in it.

Mycotoxins are what make some molds so dangerous.  These are produced by some molds is what makes the molds dangerous, it is not just the existence of the mold by itself.  If a mold does not produce mycotoxins, it is not a significant danger to human health, only the structural health of some buildings that it grows in.

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