How to remove mold in the bathroom — folk remedies and household chemicals

Mold makes any room not only untidy, but also haz­ardous to the health of the peo­ple who are in it. It can cause con­stant malaise (headache and weak­ness, cough) and the devel­op­ment of var­i­ous dis­eases (aller­gies, asth­ma, onco­log­i­cal patholo­gies), so it must be elim­i­nat­ed imme­di­ate­ly after detec­tion. Mold most com­mon­ly affects sur­faces in areas such as bath­rooms and kitchens. There are often cre­at­ed opti­mal con­di­tions for the life and repro­duc­tion of fun­gi — high humid­i­ty and air tem­per­a­ture, ven­ti­la­tion dis­or­ders, lack of sun­light. If the mold begins to spread active­ly, it spoils the fin­ish, eats into the tile joints, cor­rodes the plas­ter and wall­pa­per. And it’s get­ting hard­er and hard­er to get rid of it. A vari­ety of means can come to the aid of house­wives — impro­vised ones, like vine­gar and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prepa­ra­tions, as well as spe­cial­ized ones, that is, house­hold chem­i­cals and liq­uids used in con­struc­tion work. In this arti­cle, Exper­tol­ogy experts will tell you how to deal with mold, how to pre­vent its reap­pear­ance, with min­i­mal effort and with­out spend­ing a lot of mon­ey.

Where to look for traces of mold in the first place

In pri­vate hous­es, espe­cial­ly large, poor­ly ven­ti­lat­ed ones, where there are dif­fi­cul­ties with uni­form heat­ing of all rooms, the fun­gus can appear lit­er­al­ly any­where, in the bath­room, in the kitchen, and in liv­ing rooms. It occurs on the walls behind cab­i­nets where air cir­cu­la­tion is dis­turbed, near win­dow frames, near the base­board, under the ceil­ing and on it.

In apart­ments of apart­ment build­ings, the most vul­ner­a­ble places are the bath­room and the cater­ing unit, less often the toi­let. But mold is not so easy to detect, as it affects places where a per­son rarely looks. For exam­ple, in the area where plumb­ing and fur­ni­ture are adja­cent to the walls, under the bath­room, in the cor­ners on the ceil­ing, in air con­di­tion­ers (fil­ters), etc. The obvi­ous breed­ing grounds for fun­gi are the seams between the tiles. They begin to turn gray at first, then black­en. Also, mold fun­gi love to set­tle where there are a lot of books, inside wash­ing machines, on an elas­tic band that is locat­ed on the refrig­er­a­tor door around the perime­ter, on mir­rors and behind them, on cur­tains in the bath­room.

To pre­vent the prob­lem from mov­ing into a seri­ous phase, it is rec­om­mend­ed once a week or two to care­ful­ly exam­ine hard-to-reach places. And, of course, make sure that the char­ac­ter­is­tic black spots do not appear on vis­i­ble sur­faces. At the first signs of dam­age, it is nec­es­sary to elim­i­nate the symp­toms, that is, the spots them­selves, as well as the caus­es of their occur­rence.

Precautions During Mold Removal

In the kitchen of every house­wife there are prod­ucts and liq­uids that will help to cope with the defeat of mold fun­gi, if it has not yet great­ly spoiled the plas­ter, wall­pa­per and seams between the tiles. In order not to dam­age the skin of the hands and not inhale the fumes, it is rec­om­mend­ed to use all prod­ucts only with rub­ber gloves (those in which dish­es are washed are suit­able) and an ele­men­tary mask that can be made from a piece of cloth or a kitchen tow­el (but it is still bet­ter to use an inex­pen­sive and effec­tive anti-aerosol res­pi­ra­tor). It will not be super­flu­ous to pro­tect your eyes from fumes and splash­es, trans­par­ent plas­tic glass­es that builders use are suit­able for this. Also, be sure to throw away wash­cloths and rags used for clean­ing. Do not store them until the next time and do not use them for clean­ing in oth­er rooms, oth­er­wise there is a risk of spread­ing mold spores to oth­er sur­faces that have not yet been infect­ed. If any tools (scrap­ers, spat­u­las) are used, dis­in­fect them after the pro­ce­dure. By the way, if the mold lay­er is quite thick, it must first be cleaned off mechan­i­cal­ly — scraped off. Then you can remove the rem­nants of mold with a wet sponge (it is accept­able to use liq­uid deter­gent, laun­dry soap). And after that, you can already pro­ceed with the anti­fun­gal treat­ment, which will pre­vent the appear­ance of mold in the future.

Dur­ing clean­ing, chil­dren, preg­nant women, the elder­ly and pets should not be present in the room.

How to remove mold with the help of improvised and inexpensive preparations from the kitchen

So, the brief­ing on safe­ty rules has been com­plet­ed, let’s start list­ing “kitchen” tools and recipes for remov­ing mold from wash­able sur­faces:

1. 1. A solu­tion of ordi­nary bak­ing soda. The con­cen­tra­tion is small — about 1 tea­spoon of the prod­uct per 200 ml. water. Soak a sponge with the solu­tion and care­ful­ly wipe the places where there are mold spots. If there is a lot of mold, you can pour soda on a wet sponge and treat the places with the result­ing paste. In this case, there will be not only an anti­sep­tic, but also an addi­tion­al abra­sive effect. After that, you can already work with the solu­tion. It is not nec­es­sary to clean the treat­ed areas with plain water, let the soda solu­tion remain on the sur­face.

       

 

1. 1. Food vine­gar, trans­par­ent, at a con­cen­tra­tion of 6% or 9%. It can be slight­ly dilut­ed with water or not dilut­ed, applied to the sur­face with a sponge or a spray bot­tle. Leave liq­uid on sur­faces, leave the room. After 60–90 min­utes, wash off with a wash­cloth soaked in clean water. After the pro­ce­dure, be sure to ven­ti­late the room.

       

 

1. 1. Cit­ric acid with water or dilut­ed lemon juice. If cit­ric acid is used, you can take one tea­spoon per glass of water. Lemon juice can be used undi­lut­ed or dilut­ed with water on the eye to increase the amount of the drug. You can treat not only the affect­ed areas, but also the areas that are near­by to pre­vent the spread of the fun­gus. Rinse is not required.

       

 

1. 1. Soda and acetic acid. There will be a dou­ble effect, since two drugs act on the mold at the same time, plus a chem­i­cal reac­tion occurs. First, the affect­ed area is treat­ed with soda or its solu­tion in high con­cen­tra­tion. Vine­gar is then sprayed over the bak­ing soda. The room is pre­served for 30–60 min­utes, then the vine­gar is washed off, the room is ven­ti­lat­ed.

       

 

Pharmacy products to remove mold in the bathroom and kitchen

Now you can look into the first aid kit and see what it can be use­ful for fight­ing mold:

1. 1. Hydro­gen per­ox­ide (has bleach­ing prop­er­ties, there­fore it is used only on light or invul­ner­a­ble sur­faces). Before apply­ing the prod­uct, remove vis­i­ble stains of the fun­gus in any con­ve­nient way. Then treat the affect­ed objects and sur­faces with per­ox­ide, you do not need to wash it off.

       

 

1. 1. Ammo­nia. This pun­gent odor must be used with care, but it is quite effec­tive in remov­ing mildew from smooth sur­faces. Dilute ammo­nia with water, tak­ing liq­uids in equal parts, pour into a spray bot­tle, spray and leave for an hour. After that, rinse off the solu­tion, ven­ti­late the room.

       

 

1. 1. Oils, includ­ing essen­tial oils tea tree, rose­mary, lemon, spruce, pine, laven­der or grape­fruit. Add a tea­spoon of oil or a com­bi­na­tion of oils to a glass of water, pour the solu­tion into a spray bot­tle, and spray sur­faces. It is not nec­es­sary to rinse off the liq­uid, but be pre­pared for the per­sis­tent smell of the oil or mix­ture used to last for some time.

       

 

1. 1. Potas­si­um per­man­ganate (paints sur­faces pink, there­fore it is used on dark coat­ings). First you need to dis­solve one tea­spoon of crys­tals in a small amount of water, then add the con­cen­trate to a 1 liter jar. water. Mix thor­ough­ly until com­plete­ly dis­solved. Apply to the affect­ed areas, do not rinse off.

       

 

House­wives also mix kitchen prod­ucts with phar­ma­cy prod­ucts to effec­tive­ly remove mold in the bath­room or kitchen. A com­bi­na­tion of water, bak­ing soda and vine­gar will do, you can add per­ox­ide and boric acid. One rem­e­dy enhances the ben­e­fi­cial effect of anoth­er. Approx­i­mate pro­por­tions are as fol­lows: 4 parts of water, 2 parts of per­ox­ide, 2 parts of acetic acid and 1 part of boric acid, the same amount of soda.

Household chemicals will allow you to remove mold in the bathroom, and get an excellent result.

If you don’t want to spend a lot of mon­ey on mold removal, you don’t have to use only the prod­ucts that are in your kitchen cab­i­nets or first aid kit. Chem­i­cals used dai­ly in every­day life also do a good job of this task, and are inex­pen­sive.

White

Let’s start the “hit parade” with the sim­plest means — “White­ness” or chlo­rine solu­tion. The drug has bleach­ing prop­er­ties, so it is not used on those sur­faces that can “shed”. But it is per­fect for remov­ing mold on a white­washed ceil­ing and pre­vent­ing its occur­rence in the future. If the pres­ence of the spe­cif­ic aro­ma of “White­ness” for some time does not both­er you, mix the treat­ment solu­tion. To do this, take 10 parts of water and 1 part of a chem­i­cal agent. You can apply the drug in any way — with a sponge, spray. Let the prod­uct dry, do not rinse, ven­ti­late the room as much as pos­si­ble.

Oxygen bleaches

The sec­ond place in our list of prod­ucts that help remove mold in the bath­room is prepa­ra­tions based on sodi­um per­car­bon­ate — a rel­a­tive­ly safe for humans, envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly sub­stance with­out an unpleas­ant odor, which dis­solves well in water. These are the so-called “oxy­gen bleach­es”, which bear such a name due to the fact that dur­ing their action oxy­gen, water and soda are formed. In the domes­tic mar­ket of house­hold chem­i­cals, there is a large selec­tion of oxy­gen bleach­es.

Advan­tages of oxy­gen bleach­es based on sodi­um per­car­bon­ate:

1. 1. High con­tent of a reagent that has bleach­ing and cleans­ing prop­er­ties. At the same time, it does not affect the orig­i­nal col­or of the mate­ri­als, it bright­ens only light ones.

       

 

1. 1. Does not have a destruc­tive effect on coat­ings, does not cor­rode.

       

 

1. 1. Dis­in­fects, remov­ing mold and pre­vent­ing its occur­rence, spread.

       

 

1. 1. Eas­i­ly washed off, can come into con­tact with objects of the type of dish­es.

       

 

To prop­er­ly use oxy­gen bleach to remove mold, read the instruc­tions on the pack­age. There should not be any­thing com­pli­cat­ed — applied, wait­ed 30–60 min­utes and washed off or left on the sur­face.

Special antifungal drugs from the class of household chemicals

Look on the shelves in stores for sprays that say “For mold” or “For fun­gus.” They have an opti­mal com­po­si­tion that gives them exact­ly antimy­cotic prop­er­ties. That is, such drugs do not just dis­in­fect, they pur­pose­ful­ly destroy the fun­gus and its spores. You can use this spray on any sur­face — plumb­ing, tiles, bath­room cur­tains and mir­rors, etc. The aver­age cost of drugs is from 150 (Silit Bang) to 3,5 dol­lars (Tur­bo). Instruc­tions for use are on the pack­age.

Antifungal drugs used in construction and renovation work

When mold hits walls, seams and joints very strong­ly, impro­vised means and even house­hold chem­i­cals will not help to solve the prob­lem rad­i­cal­ly. When wall­pa­per and plas­ter are fun­gus-eat­en, bub­bling and falling apart, you can’t expect a sprin­kling of vine­gar or Van­ish to clean up the mess. In this case, only car­di­nal mea­sures will help — the seams need to be cleaned, plas­ter and wall­pa­per removed. After the sites of infec­tion are thor­ough­ly cleaned, it is pos­si­ble to car­ry out treat­ment with potent prepa­ra­tions that will not leave the mold any chance for fur­ther repro­duc­tion and spread. And after that, it is already pos­si­ble to make cos­met­ic repairs, that is, to return the plas­ter, wall­pa­per and oth­er fin­ish­ing mate­ri­als to their place.

blue vitriol

This “harsh” tool right­ful­ly occu­pies a lead­ing posi­tion in the rank­ing of tools that help remove mold in the bath­room, in gen­er­al, in any res­i­den­tial and non-res­i­den­tial premis­es. It is intend­ed for antimy­cotic etch­ing of walls. For pro­cess­ing, dilute 100 grams of the prod­uct in 10 liters of water. The solu­tion is applied to the sur­face with an ordi­nary paint brush. If the fun­gus has hit the walls very deeply, it is rec­om­mend­ed to per­form sev­er­al lay­ers of coat­ing with a solu­tion. A few hours after the pro­ce­dure (it is bet­ter to wait up to 4 hours), the prod­uct is washed off, and the walls are allowed to dry com­plete­ly.

Cop­per sul­fate is an effec­tive and inex­pen­sive (150–2 dol­lars) rem­e­dy for com­bat­ing fun­gal infec­tions of walls (ceil­ings and oth­er sur­faces) of vary­ing sever­i­ty. But it is also very dan­ger­ous for humans, as it has severe tox­i­c­i­ty. It must be used with extreme cau­tion, after care­ful­ly study­ing the instruc­tions for use and observ­ing it. Pro­tec­tive equip­ment (gloves, res­pi­ra­tor, gog­gles), as well as ven­ti­la­tion of the premis­es, are nec­es­sary.

Specialized emulsions with antiseptic properties

No less pop­u­lar than blue vit­ri­ol, and more “civ­i­lized” drugs with anti­fun­gal prop­er­ties. They do not have such an aggres­sive chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion, but just as effec­tive­ly as CuSO4 they fight mold and, in gen­er­al, any man­i­fes­ta­tions of bio­log­i­cal cor­ro­sion of build­ing / fin­ish­ing mate­ri­als. They can be used both at the stage of repair, and for clean­ing / pro­tect­ing joints, tiles dur­ing clean­ing. Users pre­fer Reno­gal and Alpina Grunt emul­sions for 350–370 rubles. Also pop­u­lar is the less expen­sive drug “Snow­ball Puma” for 1 dol­lars.

Primers

If the mold has cor­rod­ed the fin­ish­ing mate­ri­als so much that they need to be removed, and then repaired, walls and oth­er sur­faces will need to be treat­ed with a primer. This agent impreg­nates the sur­faces to which it is applied and pro­vides effec­tive pro­tec­tion against fun­gus and mold. The primer is sold ready-made in con­tain­ers of dif­fer­ent sizes. It is applied very eas­i­ly, you can use a brush or roller. After that, the treat­ment area is dried, after which the nec­es­sary repairs can be car­ried out.

Bura

Sodi­um tetrab­o­rate or borax is used more on the farm (for exam­ple, for sol­der­ing) than for repair or con­struc­tion work. But this rem­e­dy with preser­v­a­tive, anti­sep­tic and dis­in­fec­tant prop­er­ties will not only kill the fun­gus, but also help it no longer appear or sig­nif­i­cant­ly delay its occur­rence. For pro­cess­ing, dilute 100 grams of borax in a liter of water. For sur­face appli­ca­tion, use a brush with flex­i­ble bris­tles. If pos­si­ble, it is bet­ter not to wash off the prod­uct, but if you still want to wash it off (when unwant­ed con­tact of the drug with food is pos­si­ble), wait half an hour.

How to remove mold in the seams between tiles and at the joints of plumbing with walls

Pro­cess­ing flat sur­faces, even in hard-to-reach places, does not cause any dif­fi­cul­ties for most users. Sprayed with a suit­able agent or rubbed, and you’re done. But what to do when the mold has firm­ly eat­en into the seams between the tiles on the wall or into the joints, for exam­ple, at the junc­tion of the bath­room rim and the wall? It is very dif­fi­cult to wash off black plaque in such places. It is eas­i­er to replace the grout or sealant, mate­ri­als are removed with a stiff brush with met­al bris­tles, a spe­cial knife or oth­er more con­ve­nient tools. Just be care­ful not to dam­age the fin­ish. Then you need to treat the exposed areas with an anti­sep­tic, proivomy­cotic prepa­ra­tion, dry the area of ​​​​impact. After that, the seams and joints are filled with a spe­cial grout (sealant) with the addi­tion of anti­fun­gal agents.

Mold Prevention

Experts con­fi­dent­ly state that mold, or rather its appear­ance, is much eas­i­er to pre­vent than to remove. There­fore, if you notice that a fun­gal infec­tion prob­lem occurs time after time, take appro­pri­ate mea­sures. They will help not only get rid of the harm­ful fun­gus, but also make the micro­cli­mate in your room health­i­er and more ben­e­fi­cial for the health of the fam­i­ly.

What can be done to remove mold in the bath­room, kitchen or oth­er room:

1. 1. Reduce the aver­age lev­el of humid­i­ty in the room. To do this, you first need to pay atten­tion to the con­di­tion of pipes and plumb­ing. If some­thing leaks, if unwant­ed con­den­sate forms, then the leaks must be repaired, and con­den­sate must be pre­vent­ed with the help of appro­pri­ate mate­ri­als.

       

 

1. 1. Ensure opti­mal ven­ti­la­tion of the room with the help of an air con­di­tion­er, an exhaust hood, spe­cial valves on the frames of plas­tic win­dows. Air should cir­cu­late freely through­out the room, includ­ing places in the cor­ners and behind fur­ni­ture, plumb­ing. There should not be an unpleas­ant smell of damp­ness, the air should not seem stale.

       

 

1. 1. Do not place fur­ni­ture close to the walls. Leave a gap of a few cen­time­ters so that air cir­cu­lates freely and mold can be detect­ed in the ear­ly stages of its devel­op­ment.

       

 

1. 1. Make sure the room is as dry as pos­si­ble. This is an addi­tion­al mea­sure to reduce the lev­el of humid­i­ty. You can make a warm floor, con­duct heat­ing by con­nect­ing a large heat­ed tow­el rail. Or put an ele­men­tary heater in the room (in com­pli­ance with fire safe­ty mea­sures!), Which will main­tain the opti­mum tem­per­a­ture.

       

 

1. 1. Remove all cracks in wall, ceil­ing and floor cladding. In the cracks, the fun­gus devel­ops espe­cial­ly active­ly, close them up, and you will not leave the microflo­ra a chance for a “com­fort­able” exis­tence.

       

 

1. 1. Reg­u­lar­ly treat the room with anti­sep­tics and prod­ucts based on them. This can be done as part of a nor­mal dai­ly or gen­er­al clean­ing. Just buy or make a spe­cial prepa­ra­tion accord­ing to a folk recipe that will pre­vent the devel­op­ment of mold fun­gi on espe­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble sur­faces.

       

 

1. 1. Pro­vide sun­light to the room when it does not inter­fere with oth­ers. If there are win­dows, keep them as open as pos­si­ble and allow sun­light to enter the room dur­ing the day.

       

 

Pre­ven­tive mea­sures, if applied con­tin­u­ous­ly, can pre­vent the recur­rence of the fun­gus in the bath­room or oth­er areas of the house / apart­ment. And if the mold nev­er­the­less man­i­fests itself, do not post­pone the treat­ment with house­hold or spe­cial­ized prepa­ra­tions, the fun­gus will not dis­ap­pear any­where and will only grad­u­al­ly, slow­ly, but inevitably cap­ture large areas of your home.