How to remove mold from fabric at home

It is almost impos­si­ble to remove stub­born mold from the fab­ric. You may remove the fun­gus itself, its spores, but it is very dif­fi­cult to remove stains from it. Under favor­able con­di­tions, it affects the fibers, changes their col­or, cor­rodes in just a few days. There­fore, a thing can be saved only in the ini­tial stages of mold dam­age, when it is still on the sur­face of the fab­ric and has not had time to dam­age it. Spe­cial­ized house­hold chem­i­cals are suit­able for this, but if they are not at hand, and you need to remove the mold from the fab­ric, as they say, “here and now”, you can try to use what is in the stocks of the host­ess. Exper­tol­ogy has pre­pared a list of proven tools and meth­ods for you to solve this prob­lem.

Improvised means for combating mold on fabric

Before using any of the folk reme­dies, you need to test it on a small area of ​​the fab­ric, in the most incon­spic­u­ous place. This is nec­es­sary in order to make sure that the prod­uct can­not dam­age the fibers or adverse­ly affect the paint that was used in the man­u­fac­ture of the prod­uct. Also, all manip­u­la­tions are rec­om­mend­ed to be car­ried out with rub­ber gloves. If the prod­uct has a sharp, unpleas­ant odor, you can wear a res­pi­ra­tor dur­ing pro­cess­ing.

What home reme­dies can be used to remove mold from fab­ric:

1. 
   Vine­gar at a con­cen­tra­tion of 9%, you can take acetic acid with a high­er mass frac­tion. We pre­pare a solu­tion of 1 liter of warm water and 200 ml. vine­gar, soak the fab­ric for an hour, wash in the usu­al way. If you are wash­ing in a machine, you can add vine­gar to your liq­uid deter­gent as well.

2. 
   Soda. Make a slur­ry out of soda, dilut­ing it with water, rub it into the mold stain, leave for half an hour, wash the thing.

3. 
   Laun­dry soap. Rub a small amount of soap on a fine grater, dilute the chips with warm water to the con­sis­ten­cy of thick sour cream. Lath­er the wet item with a bar of soap, then light­ly rub the soap paste into the mold stain with a soft tooth­brush or sponge. Leave on for 30–60 min­utes, then wash the fab­ric.

4. 
   Ammo­nia. Mix the prod­uct with water in a ratio of 1 to 1, soak a fab­ric affect­ed by mold with the mix­ture, leave for half an hour and try to remove the dirt man­u­al­ly or in a type­writer.

5. 
   Lemon or toma­to juice and kitchen salt. First, fresh­ly squeezed lemon or toma­to juice is applied to the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion (pur­chased juice can­not be used). Apply enough prod­uct so that the fab­ric is well sat­u­rat­ed, includ­ing in areas close to the stain. Sprin­kle the treat­ment area with salt, wait for the fab­ric to dry, wash the thing.

6. 
   White chalk. Crush a piece of chalk, grind to a pow­der state, apply to the area of ​​​​con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. Cov­er the stain with paper or a clean white cot­ton cloth, iron, remove any remain­ing pow­der.

7. 
   Any dairy prod­uct (sour cream, kefir, sour milk) with­out impu­ri­ties and addi­tives and with a low per­cent­age of fat con­tent. Grind (beat with a blender) to a liq­uid state with­out lumps, apply to the stain for sev­er­al hours. Wash nor­mal­ly. Keep in mind that in the case of using fer­ment­ed milk prod­ucts, greasy spots may remain on the fab­ric, which then also have to be removed.

If the list­ed reme­dies are inef­fec­tive, you have a choice — take the fab­ric to dry clean­ing or try to use “heavy artillery” — spe­cial­ized house­hold chem­i­cals to remove stains.

Stain removers can help remove mold

Before using any drug, even at the time of selec­tion and pur­chase, read the instruc­tions on the pack­age, find out if it can be used on the type of fab­ric on which mold has occurred. If this is not done, you can hope­less­ly spoil the prod­uct. For exam­ple, prod­ucts that con­tain chlo­rine or oth­er aggres­sive sub­stances with bleach­ing prop­er­ties can­not be used on col­ored, syn­thet­ic items.

What can be used to remove mold:

1. 
   Domestos. This tool is suit­able not only for the care of plumb­ing. If you dilute about 20 ml. drug in 500–700 ml. water and rub the stain with the mix­ture, leave for 20 min­utes, and then wash in warm water, you can achieve the desired result.

2. 
   White. It per­fect­ly removes mold from white cot­ton or linen fab­rics, simul­ta­ne­ous­ly dis­in­fect­ing and bleach­ing them. In order to increase the effec­tive­ness of the prod­uct, you need to dilute 2 table­spoons of White­ness in a liter of water, then boil the mix­ture, immerse the entire con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed item in it. You can leave it to cool com­plete­ly and then wash it.

3. 
   Van­ish. This tool works great on the most stub­born stains. If the mold has not yet changed the struc­ture of the fab­ric, there are many chances that it will be pos­si­ble to get rid of the prob­lem with­out much dif­fi­cul­ty. To elim­i­nate con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, you can soak and / or wash the prod­uct in accor­dance with the instruc­tions.

The most effec­tive means of the list­ed (and the most expen­sive) can be con­sid­ered Van­ish. If he did not help to wash off the mold, it remains only to take the prod­uct to dry clean­ing or come to terms with the fact that the thing is hope­less­ly dam­aged.

Ways to remove mold depending on the type of fabric

Con­sid­er what can be done to elim­i­nate the fun­gal infec­tion on dif­fer­ent types of tis­sues:

1. 
   Del­i­cate like silk and wool. In this case, it is nec­es­sary to use the most gen­tle agents with a mild effect so as not to dam­age the mate­r­i­al. It can be chalk, salt gru­el, hydro­gen per­ox­ide, tur­pen­tine. Keep in mind that per­ox­ide must be dis­solved in water (5 table­spoons per 500 ml), and tur­pen­tine will def­i­nite­ly leave greasy traces, which then also need to be removed, which is not always easy.

2. 
   Whites are not syn­thet­ic. Here you can apply boil­ing with the addi­tion of wash­ing pow­der, laun­dry soap (selec­tive­ly or in com­bi­na­tion), hydro­gen per­ox­ide to the water.

3. 
   Syn­thet­ic. Ammo­nia will help clean such fab­rics from mold. A few drops of the prod­uct should be added to 100 ml. luke­warm water, then apply the solu­tion to the areas affect­ed by mold, rub with a wash­cloth, let it “brew” for half an hour, wash in a type­writer or by hand using water at the max­i­mum allow­able tem­per­a­ture.

4. 
   stroller fab­ric. Often a prob­lem with mold occurs when the baby stroller is not prop­er­ly stored, when it does not dry out after a walk and is in a room with high humid­i­ty. The places affect­ed by the fun­gus can be wiped with pure vine­gar, White­ness or a solu­tion (100 ml per 1 liter of water) of ammo­nia. After wait­ing a few hours, treat prob­lem areas with a stiff non-met­al brush, dry the fab­ric thor­ough­ly.

Do not use the prod­ucts list­ed unless you are sure which tis­sue is affect­ed. If we are talk­ing about clothes or tex­tile prod­ucts (table­cloths, tow­els), then it should have a label indi­cat­ing the com­po­si­tion. If this is a piece of fab­ric or there is no tag on the prod­uct, it is bet­ter to turn to pro­fes­sion­als.

Prevention of mold on fabrics

In order not to face the prob­lem of wash­ing mold from fab­rics, you need to store things in dry and, if pos­si­ble, cool rooms. Very often, clothes are affect­ed by a fun­gus if they are in the dirty laun­dry bas­ket in the bath­room for a long time. It is dark most of the time, and humid and warm. There­fore, it is bet­ter to move the bas­ket to a bed­room or oth­er room with a bet­ter micro­cli­mate and not delay wash­ing. It is also not rec­om­mend­ed to store clean clothes in the same clos­et with dirty ones, since on clothes that are just about to be washed, the risk of mold is high­er, and it can “infect” oth­er tex­tiles.

If clothes become moldy in wardrobes, on hang­ers in the cor­ri­dor, this is a very bad sign, indi­cat­ing that such con­di­tions are not suit­able not only for stor­ing things, but also for peo­ple to live. From clothes, the fun­gus can move to fur­ni­ture, walls. There­fore, the prob­lem with humid­i­ty in the room must be solved quick­ly and thor­ough­ly, but you can start by installing a heater that will dry the air and fre­quent ven­ti­la­tion of the room. And the cab­i­nets them­selves need to be moved away from the walls to ensure air cir­cu­la­tion. Place spe­cial pacts with absorbent sub­stances between the fab­rics that absorb mois­ture. And do not put clothes in the clos­et imme­di­ate­ly after iron­ing, as they will still remain damp for 10–15 min­utes, let them dry com­plete­ly in the open air. Then things will no longer be cov­ered with mold, it will be much eas­i­er to wash them.