Mold ,mold,mold...and more mold (Seattle: house, purchase, live)

[Hbud]

Why is Seattle homes so full of black mold?


Ghosts need mold to travel

[41Willys]

Originally Posted by Hbud

Why is Seattle homes so full of black mold?


Ghosts need mold to travel

9 month's a year of cold damp weather?

[ness]

mold thrives in moist environments. If homes are not well maintained and water is allowed to infiltrate, it will thrive.

[41Willys]

I think there was a joke in there but it went rite over my head.

[mayfair]

Another problem is poor air circulation in homes. Many homes have baseboard heat and that creates an environment for mold to grow due to lack of air circulation. We had this problem in one house we lived in - mold grew behind the couch and nightstands.

[chris]

yep, it's a constant battle keeping humidity under 60%. As long as it's under that number though you shouldn't have mold. Like Mayfair said, you have to keep air moving (either central air or air vents in windows, etc) to assist in this battle.

[argo69]

I've had issues with the dreaded black mold in my apt., namely behind my bookcases. Only heavy scrubbing with bleach or ammonia has been able to (mostly) eradicate it.

The real nightmare in my building is the basement. After first moving into the buliding I decided to put a few hundred books down there in some cardboard boxes. We'll after one (that's one) winter (about 6 months) I went down and all the books were infested with powdery molds, the pages warped. It was so bad that I had to literally throw literally 90% of them into the trash bin. I am aware that for valuable books there are some very expensive methods that can assist in mild mold issues but these babies were beyond hope, particularly the bindings on the hardcovers and it would have cost more than to purchase them anew. Of course, in a properly weather insulated basement, this should NOT be a problem.

The bottom line is that this is not Arizona or Texas where you can throw stuff like that into a basement or attic and leave it for 50 years, go open them up and find them in pretty much the same condition.

[Woof]

Full strength bleach, then bathroom anti-mold spray. I think hardware stores have something more powerful than the bathroom spray, but I forget what it's called.