LESLIE: Rick in Indiana, what can we do for you?
RICK: I’ve got black mold on the inside of my wall.
LESLIE: Ooh.
TOM: Oh, no. That’s bad. Where is it on your walls? Is it – is this a basement, first floor? Where?
RICK: It’s a concrete floor. It’s on – it’s in a corner where I had a roof leak.
TOM: Oh, boy. Well, the risk here, Rick, is that that black – it’s actually, usually, a very dark green but people call it black mold – is a type of mold called stachybotrys and the …
LESLIE: Which is bad.
TOM: Which is not good. Yeah, because it has micotoxins which basically get into the air and you breathe them and they can make you super sick. Now, is this a very small area or a large area of mold?
RICK: Just a small area about …
TOM: Alright, good.
RICK: … about the size of a basketball.
TOM: Alright, so here’s what I want you to do. The roof leak’s been fixed?
RICK: Yes.
TOM: Alright. You need to get proper respiratory protection and that is one that’s designed to keep mold spores out of your lungs. You’re going to mix up a bleach and water solution of one part bleach, two parts water and you’re going to saturate that area to kill the mold. Once that area is – has been sprayed with bleach and sitting like that for a while, then you can clean it off. And as long as the moisture source has been eliminated, that should solve that problem.
If you want to read up on stachybotrys, Rick, head over to our website at MoneyPit.com because, together with our friend, Jeff May – who’s the author of the book “My House is Killing Me” that’s published by John Hopkins Press – we put together something we called the Mold Resource Guide, available on MoneyPit.com, with information on the mold problem in homes and how to deal with it.
Rick, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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