Mold In Your Home
Mold in your home can be annoying… or downright dangerous. Left unchecked, it can lead to chronic illness such as intense cold and allergy symptoms, headache, and even more serious pulmonary issues.
It’s important to understand the nature of mold, possible causes, and ways to remediate it.
Mold is naturally occurring in the air and is virtually everywhere. It becomes an issue when it is able to attach to moist surfaces, reproduce and thrive. Understanding that, let’s look a little deeper into how mold presents itself in your home.
Where To Look for Mold In Your Home.
Mold will not grow without water or moisture, so it makes sense to look in places where moisture typically collects.
Here in Georgia, those spaces include basements, crawlspaces, and cellars; underneath kitchen and bathroom sinks; underneath or behind refrigerators; behind walls; around air conditioning units; around windows and doors; and underneath flooring.
In addition to these areas, your air condition system and ductwork can be a prime spot for mold to grow.
These are the typical suspects… but any location in your home that has elevated humidity or a hidden water leak may harbor mold growth.
Identifying Mold In Your Home.
Signs of mold range from a musty smell, to discoloration of surfaces, to impacts upon your health and quality of life.
While surface mold may be obvious, hidden mold is harder to identify and can be found inside wall cavities, underneath flooring, or in hard-to-reach places such as crawlspaces.
You may be facing hidden mold if you notice peeling or bubbling paint, bulging walls and ceilings, musty smells, or unexplaned health symptoms.
If any sort of water is present due to a broken pipe, flooded basement or roof leak and it wasn’t dry within 24 – 48 hours, there’s a good chance you have mold. These hidden leaks can go unnoticed for months or even years.
Health Clues
Aside from visible clues, you may suspect you have a mold problem because of unexplained health symptoms. If someone in the home has allergy symptoms that improve when they leave the house, mold is often a primary suspect.
Among others, these are the things you may experience due to mold:
- Fatigue and weakness
- Headache, light sensitivity
- Poor memory, difficult word finding
- Difficulty concentration
- Morning stiffness, joint pain
- Unusual skin sensations, tingling and numbness
- Shortness of breath, sinus congestion or chronic cough
- Appetite swings, body temperature regulation,
- Increased urinary frequency or increased thirst
- Red eyes, blurred vision, sweats, mood swings, sharp pains
- Abdominal pain, diarrhea, bloating
- Tearing, disorientation, metallic taste in mouth
- Static shocks
- Vertigo, feeling lightheaded
To learn more about the effects of toxic mold on your health, visit our page on toxic mold.
When To Clean. When To Call.
Indoor mold growth can be prevented by simply controlling moisture and controlling humidity indoors.
You may be able to clean surface mold on the walls, ceilings or floors of your home that are less than ten square feet by using gentle detergents and water.
If you see areas larger than ten square feet, or there is a musty smell you can’t identify, it may be time to call a professional.
We’re Here When You Need Us.
Call Branch Environmental. We’re experts not only at mold removal, but at determining and remediating the underlying causes. From hidden mold sources to major contaminants. We can identify exactly what is going on in your home and rid it of environmental toxins, often for good.