How to Remove Black Mold

Mold is a vis­i­ble coat­ing formed by micro­scop­ic molds that are able to sur­vive in any con­di­tions and on any sur­face. It is dif­fi­cult to get rid of it, since it is able to pen­e­trate the inside of objects with threads, and not just set­tle down on their sur­face.

The most dif­fi­cult type of fun­gus to remove is black mold. It can appear any­where in the house and in any quan­ti­ty. Such mold can cause asth­ma attacks, aller­gies, res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases, so you need to get rid of it imme­di­ate­ly.

Causes of mold

Mold thrives under the fol­low­ing con­di­tions:

1. humid­i­ty lev­el — 60–80% (typ­i­cal for bath­rooms);
2. tem­per­a­ture — 4–20 ° C;
3. lack of ven­ti­la­tion in the room, draft.

In apart­ment build­ings, mold often appears on the upper floors due to poor water­proof­ing of the roof and on the first floors due to a damp base­ment. If dry­wall was used dur­ing the con­struc­tion of the house, then in this case the like­li­hood of the appear­ance and devel­op­ment of mold increas­es sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

The ini­tial signs of mold are the smell of damp­ness, and then spots of plaque appear on var­i­ous sur­faces.

How to get rid of mold

You will need pro­tec­tive equip­ment — a res­pi­ra­tor, gloves, gog­gles. With­out them, you risk harm­ing your health by inhal­ing the spores. You also need tools to remove plaque from the affect­ed sur­face — a rag, brush, sand­pa­per, deter­gent.

The pro­ce­dure is sim­ple and con­sists of 3 steps:

1. Remove plaque on the affect­ed sur­face mechan­i­cal­ly.
2. Treat the area with your cho­sen anti-mold prod­uct.
3. Dry the sur­face, ven­ti­late the room well.

In the future, mea­sures must be tak­en to pre­vent the recur­rence of mold. Mon­i­tor the tight­ness and ser­vice­abil­i­ty of all pipes, taps and valves in the apart­ment. If the bath­room wall faces the land­ing, car­ry out work on its insu­la­tion from the inside.

If cracks appear on the ceil­ing and walls, they must be elim­i­nat­ed. Inter­pan­el seams need to be sealed — this will not only pre­vent the appear­ance of mold, but also insu­late the room. For such work, you need to con­tact an employ­ee of spe­cial­ized com­pa­nies.

Imme­di­ate­ly after treat­ment, place the waste in an air­tight bag and dis­pose of it imme­di­ate­ly to pre­vent mold from spread­ing to new places in your home.

Ways to remove black mold

Sur­face treat­ment should be start­ed as soon as vis­i­ble signs of infec­tion appear. If you delay, then after 12 months the fun­gus will pass through the plas­ter, brick, con­crete, and then it will not be pos­si­ble to get rid of it.

The right time for such events is the hot sum­mer month. The room should be warm, ven­ti­lat­ed.

Con­sid­er effec­tive ways to get rid of black mold.

Bleach

Sodi­um hypochlo­rite is a non-tox­ic and non-aggres­sive agent, which is nev­er­the­less fatal to black mold. It is enough to mix bleach with water in equal pro­por­tions and treat the tile or floor with it.

Do not use bleach on col­ored items, as the prod­uct may change their col­or.

Be sure to use pro­tec­tive equip­ment so that bleach does not get on the skin — even when dilut­ed in water, it can cause severe burns. Dur­ing sur­face treat­ment, all win­dows in the apart­ment must be open.

table vinegar

A weak acid solu­tion kills 80% of molds. The advan­tage of the prod­uct is that it is not as tox­ic as the pre­vi­ous ver­sion, but leaves behind a spe­cif­ic odor that is dif­fi­cult to remove.

Pour vine­gar into a spray bot­tle and spray all sur­faces that show signs of mold. After 30 min­utes, rinse the treat­ed sur­faces with clean water, and then leave the apart­ment to ven­ti­late for sev­er­al hours — this will neu­tral­ize the pun­gent smell of vine­gar.

To pre­vent the recur­rence of mold, repeat the pro­ce­dure every 7–10 days, treat­ing prob­lem areas in the apart­ment.

Hydrogen peroxide

Rinse moldy sur­faces with per­ox­ide and after 15 min­utes scrub with a stiff bris­tled brush.

Hydro­gen per­ox­ide, like bleach, can dis­col­or col­ored sur­faces, so be care­ful.

Ammonia

This tool can only be used on non-porous sur­faces of tiles, glass. Mix ammo­nia and water in equal amounts, pour the solu­tion into a spray bot­tle and treat prob­lem areas with it. After 4–5 hours, rinse the treat­ed sur­faces with plain water.

Atten­tion! Do not mix ammo­nia and bleach. Such a com­po­si­tion is char­ac­ter­ized by abun­dant tox­ic secre­tions that are dan­ger­ous to health.

Baking soda

Bak­ing soda can be used both to elim­i­nate mold and as a pre­ven­tive mea­sure. Add to 1 tbsp. l. water 1 tsp. soda and treat with a mix­ture of all infect­ed places. Leave the mix­ture on the sur­faces — it does not have tox­ic secre­tions and unpleas­ant odors, and it will also act as an excel­lent pro­tec­tion against the pos­si­ble for­ma­tion of mold in the future.

Bura

Clean the infect­ed area with a vac­u­um clean­er, then pre­pare a mix­ture — 2.5 liters of water with 1 glass of borax. Mix the ingre­di­ents and wipe the prob­lem areas. Next, remove excess mois­ture with a dry cloth. As in the case of soda, it is not nec­es­sary to elim­i­nate the rem­nants of the prod­uct.

blue vitriol

Dis­solve 100 g of cop­per sul­fate in 10 liters of water and treat prob­lem areas with it.

Please notethat the prod­uct can give the sur­face a slight blue tint.

What to do if the black mold has man­aged to deeply eat into the sur­face

If mold has spread under old wall­pa­per, you need to remove it from the walls. The same applies to the top lay­er of plas­ter — you have to get rid of it.

Next, treat the sur­face with a spe­cial solu­tion and wait until it is com­plete­ly dry. To restore the sur­face, use an anti­sep­tic primer.

As soon as the work is com­plet­ed, dis­card the rags, and soak the used tools and clothes for sev­er­al hours in hot water, adding chlo­rine bleach.

After that, the walls must be treat­ed with heat-insu­lat­ing paint and water­proof­ing com­pounds. Then wall­pa­per them or apply paint.

How to eliminate moldy smell

If you have car­ried out a thor­ough treat­ment of the room from mold, but the spe­cif­ic smell still remains in the air, pour a lit­tle bak­ing soda on the treat­ed sur­face and leave it for 4–5 hours. Then remove the remain­ing bak­ing soda with a vac­u­um clean­er.

Char­coal will also help. Put it in sev­er­al con­tain­ers for a cou­ple of days and arrange it around the room.

Final­ly, air­ing the room, as well as aerosols, aro­ma can­dles, will help get rid of the smell.