Mold P.S.A.

All -

I encourage you to check your houses for mold. For the last couple months, I've felt a bit under the weather. I've attributed my sneezing, congestion, coughing, red eyes, constantly being tired, shortness of breath, and so on, to allergies and have taken Zyrtec. However, as the weather got cold here in TN, I started getting suspicious and wondering what the heck I'm actually allergic to, as nothing is spreading pollen or growing - it's cold outside. I've evaporated quite a lot of water from my 75 since I set it up, and never thought much of it, until it started getting down in the 30's outside - I started noticing large amounts of condensation around my windows. I would mop up the condensation as best I could on the windowsills. I started noticing some black mold starting on the wood and windowsills. I knew this wasn't good but would clean it daily.

Powerman mentioned he saw mold in his closet, and this got me thinking even more. I knew I needed a dehumidifier to handle the humidity in my house but didn't know how bad. Today I went on a cleaning spree and I was shocked to find very large amounts of thick, black, slimy mold at the very TOP of my windows (all of them) - where I wasn't cleaning daily. The blinds cover the windows, I was cleaning the bottoms and sides. I quickly cleaned and disinfected the entire window, sprayed with Lysol mold / mildew spray, and went out and bought a dehumidifier.

I've been breathing mold spores and likely most of my respiratory issues have been due to living in high humidity, and a moldy environment. I have checked to see how the dehumidifier performs a couple times and the first time the collection container had about 12 ounces or so of water in it. I let it go for a few more hours and the bucket was about half full. That's a lot of water and I'm still showing about 60 humidity. Not good.

I encourage everyone to check their house for mold, and if you don't have good air exchange, or you see traces of mold anywhere, to look harder and make sure you don't have any problems which could be growing.

 

Sorry to hear about your health issues. I hope you start feeling better soon!! I know in the winter my sinus and allergy problems are a lot worse, because I'm in the indoors a lot more, where the air is constantly recirculated.

Feel better!!

 

dang, that sucks, hope your feel better now that youve found the mold

 

Thanks.

Never had to deal with mold problems before. It seems that it's only around windows, I don't see it anywhere else in the house. Anyone have to deal with this stuff before? I have read this stuff is pretty potent. It's an apartment so I don't plan to replace any drywall or anything of that sort.

Will running a dehumidifier / keeping everything dry solve the problem long term? Not sure if I should go to a doctor or not. This truly has me worried.

 

wish i had an answer for you zach. i know here in winter we actually run a humidifier. with the furnace on , its dries out the house too much. alot of times with condensation building up on the windows, its windows that have lost their seal and the argon gas has leaked out . its thermal seal is gone. thats if theyre double paned windows. sounds like there could be alot bigger prob where the mold is actually getting its start , not just from the humidity in your place. and if youre feeling that horrible, a check with your dic is a good thing. best of luck with everything, especially you gettin feeling better.

 

I would talk to your landlord and ask for someone to come out and inspect your apartment for mold. It needs a professional. And if mold is found it's your landlord's responsibility to have it fixed. Mold is very dangerous.