Possible Signs of Mold in Your Home

While mold is actually a natural and good part of the outdoor ecosystem; it can be harmful when it is inside your home. Mold is a type of fungus that likes to be in a humid and mostly dark place. Mold in a home can damage building materials, ruin fabrics, and cause many health problems in high concentrations.

It is pretty easy to determine if you have mold in your home, but not all the time. Here are signs that your home may be harboring some mold:

Common Types of Mold 

The three most common types of household mold are Cladosporium, Penicillium, and Aspergillus. Many people confuse one of these with the more dangerous black mold and get spooked thinking they have a huge health hazard on their hands, but black mold is actually a lot less common in homes than most people think. The three most common types of mold are much less dangerous than black mold.

• Cladosporium- usually likes to grow in wallpaper and carpet
• Penicillium- is usually found on leather and other fabrics
• Aspergillus- is usually found growing in insulation and air ducts.

These molds are able to grow much quicker in less damp conditions than black and that is why they are more common.

Smell

Though mold is easy to see it may not always be living in a visible space. Mold can grow in places you may not see like under carpet or the back side of drywall. In these situations you are probably able to smell the mold and detect it that way. As mold grows it feeds on materials such as wood, paper, and organic fibers and as it grows the smell it produces grows and becomes detectable to human sniffers. If your home has a musty smell similar to the smell of soil or decomposing leaves it very likely you have mold growing somewhere nearby.

Health Signs

Exposure to mold can be an irritant to some people in small doses and to all people in large exposures. Some people that are allergic to mold will have symptoms such as sneezing, itching, watery eyes, coughing, wheezing, skin irritation, and a runny or stuffy nose. None of these symptoms or deadly, but they can cause a great deal of annoyance and even lead to more severe problems the longer they persist. If you have these symptoms mostly when hanging around home you may want to check for mold.

Sight

A mold problem can usually be seen by the naked eye, especially if it has had significant time to grow and make its way out of hiding into common spaces. Mold has a very distinctive spotty appearance and is usually black or dark green in color. Usually you will find mold in rooms that are prone to moisture such as the bathroom, basement, laundry room, and certain areas of the kitchen. If there is water leakage that goes unnoticed or untreated mold will surface, this could happen anywhere like around windows, doors, pipes, etc. Discolored walls can be a sign of water damage and even the beginning of mold problems.

If you spot or smell what you think is mold in your home it is important to contact a mold remediation company to help determine what your next steps should be and what the cause of the mold is.

If you have a water leak you will want to get it fixed and taken care of before it becomes a huge problem. Significant water damage is no fun and can turn into bigger mold problems leading to very costly remodeling.

Water damage is nothing to ignore and should be dealt with right away so that it does not become a mold problem. The moisture needs to be quickly dried to prevent this from happening. If you have a large water leak it is good to call in an expert water damage restoration crew.

Let All Kleen get your home back in moisture free shape. Make an appointment online.