If you think you may have a problem with mold in your home, you might be tempted to either ignore it or to try and clean it up yourself. In fact, many of us will live with mold growing on our walls and windows and will treat it as “not a problem” or “no big deal”.
In this article then, we will look at why you should clean up the mold and at why you should definitely let the mold remediation services handle the more severe cases. Read on and you’ll see why mold is certainly fit to classify as a ‘big deal’.
What is Mold?
Mold is a type of fungus, just like mushrooms. And actually, mold is pretty much everywhere and is highly ubiquitous outdoors especially. Leave anything to rot for a few days and there’s a good chance it will gather a layer of mold on it.
There are also a number of different types of mold. For instance, there’s one type of mold called “ulocladium” that requires lots of water to grow and that is most common near bodies of water. Serpula is yellow and grows on trees. Suffice to say that the mold you find in your home is not the same mold you get on an apple.
The big problem with mold – and the reason that mold remediation is so necessary – is that it can spread so easily and is so hard to eliminate entirely. That’s because mold can actually travel through the air in the form of ‘spores’ and these spores will then be able to spread when they come into contact with any moist surface. Specifically, mold only needs moisture and some form of nutrition in the form of dust, plants, or wood. In other words: pretty much any home is ripe for mold!
Why Mold is So Serious
All mold is ugly. Mold is what we see on things that are rotting and as such, humans have a very primitive reaction to mold which is to recoil away from it. Moldy surfaces look ‘poisonous’ and we tend to do our best to avoid them. This is one reason that we don’t want mold settings in our homes. It also doesn’t help that mold and moisture can damage property and cause paint and wallpaper to come away from the wall while staining and ruining furniture and fittings.
The other big reason though is that mold is bad for our health. Not all mold is damaging to us – but ‘black mold’ in particular will produce what is known as ‘mycotoxins’ and these are poisonous when breathed in. This is the main reason that mold remediation is so important.
Many of us have a slight allergy to mold spores. If you are continuously breathing in even ‘harmless’ mold, then this can leave you feeling rough in the morning with a scratchy throat and a compromised immune system that may lead to you getting ill.
But if you are breathing in those mycotoxins produced by black mold (also known as Stachybotrys chart arum) then you are likely to develop a number of more serious problems. This is how you get what is known as ‘mold poisoning’ and that in turn can cause lethargy, fatigue, aching joints, nausea, and headaches. This might feel a little like having the ‘flu’ all the time. At the same time, mold poisoning can lead to the development of asthma and eczema in formerly healthy individuals, and in the most serious cases, it can lead to neurological damage and even death. This is definitely a “big deal”!
Why You Should Use Mold Remediation
In that case, then, you might be considering trying to clean up your mold yourself. If you have a little mold collecting under your window and you can simply wipe it away then it’s fine to go ahead and do that.
If the damage is any more extensive than that though, you should definitely leave it to the pros. Why? For starters, when you try and perform your own mold remediation you can actually disrupt the mold spores from where they’re settled and cause them to enter the air again. This, in turn, can then mean you end up inhaling them – doing damage to your health again – or it can cause them to travel and then settle on another surface in your home. Did you know that it only takes 24 hours for mold to start growing again if it finds another moist surface in your home?
Note that when professionals handle mold remediation they tend to use powerful vacuums and other tools to kill and suction all the spores. What’s more, they will often wear protective gear to protect their own health – mold is considered a hazardous material!
Another important reason to avoid handling mold remediation yourself is that sometimes mixing cleaning materials with mold can result in even more toxic fumes that can be even more harmful to your health.
And on top of all of this, often you won’t be able to find all the mold that is causing the problem in your home. There’s a good chance that you may have mold under your carpet, under your floorboards, or inside your wall cavities. In all these scenarios, it is, of course, going to take a professional to identify the source and then excavate it and repair the damage.
Mold remediation companies also will be able to remove any odor that could linger in your property after the mold is gone and they can help to address any other issues. If your mold problem is caused by a leak for example, then mold remediation will include sealing that leak and handling water damage restoration too.
For all these reasons, using a professional mold remediation company is a very good idea and is almost certainly a better strategy than trying to handle mold cleanup yourself. Using a professional company is the most surefire and reliable way to restore your property and to go back to normal knowing full well that the mold is completely gone and won’t be coming back.
When you are in need of a mold damage repair company in Asheville, Montreat, and Fairview, NC contact Secure Restoration.
