Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with mildew

How do hotels keep their shower curtains mildew-free?

smackfu — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:21:26 -0800

How do hotels keep their shower curtains mildew-free? Is it part of the daily cleaning regimen? Do they replace them often? Do they buy better ones?

I ask because I have an awful time with mildew on my shower curtain, and I assumed it was mainly because I don't have a bathroom window for light and ventilation. But hotel rooms don't either, and yet the hotels seem to have the problem solved (presumably because a mildewed shower curtain would be a deal-killer for most hotel guests.)

How to dry moldy clothing on humid days

mizrachi — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:52:01 -0800

Will line-drying damp clothing on humid days make our clothing smell mildewy? We live in Tallahassee and usually hang the clothing we'd like not to shrink on a line in our garage. Unfortunately, Tallahassee is almost always quite humid, the garage particularly so, and as a result of this humid, still environment and the mildew that may have been present in our washer, our line dried clothing now smells like mildew. I've cleaned the washer with a Purewasher solution that is supposed to remove the mold from inside the washing machine and I'm soaking the mildewy clothing in the same stuff as well as running a final rinse with white vinegar to completely remove the odor. However, where do I dry the items we normally air dry? Since we have the option of line-drying outside in the sun I'm wondering if this would be our best option. Or will the humidity in the air just reintroduce this problem?

help me not kill my new lemon tree!

beandip — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 19:22:06 -0800

Help! I was just given a potted lemon tree! What do I do? I don't know anything about growing potted citrus plants (or any kind of potted tree). My mom gave me this plant, which a friend gave to her a couple of years ago. She said it was too hard to take care of, and that it was leaving sticky residue over everything nearby indoors. I think she's been watering every day. And when there were blossoms, she pollinated with a Q-tip. She moved it outside when the weather warmed up. I don't think she's done much else with it, other than trimming the top branches last year. And she repotted it recently but did not fertilize. Last year it produced some lemons.

Right now it's on my west-facing balcony, which gets a lot of sun in the afternoon and evening. That is the sunniest spot in this apartment so hopefully it will be enough. We live in Minnesota so I know that's going to make things harder.

My questions are:
1. How much water is enough? It seems like daily watering is probably overkill, especially if it's outside for the summer. Some of the leaves are yellow...
2. How do I know when to fertilize?
3. Should I be worried about bugs. When I picked the tree up, it was covered in ants (we're in a second floor apartment and have never had ants here, so I think that will be less of an issue than it was in my mom's backyard.) Some of the leaves look chewed. And there are a lot of brown bumps on the leaves (both top and bottom surfaces). Here are some pictures. Are these things anything to worry about? If so, what should I do? I'd really like to be able to eat any lemons that survive, so I suppose that most insecticides are ruled out.

Also, what are your favorite gardening sites where I could learn more about how to care for this thing?

Please help me! I am terrified of killing this tree through ignorance.

Why is there a mildew smell in car during rain?

supertouchme — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:03:00 -0800

Can someone tell me where a mildew smell in my car might be coming from on rainy days if there are no apparent leaks? For the last year i have noticed that whenever i step into my car and it's raining there is a strong mildew smell. it happens relatively soon after it starts raining.

the smell lasts for a couple days and it even seems more humid inside the cabin until the smell goes away.

i've checked everywhere inside the car and nothing is ever damp. i've brought it to the dealership and they couldn't find any problems.

has anyone else experienced this?

Foodsafe after mildew damage?

Ambrosia Voyeur — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:26:12 -0800

Can I adequately clean a mildewed bookshelf for food storage? So, I'm moving house, and my current house has a moisture problem, such that over five years, there's been slowly encroaching mildew on the inside of the shadiest wall of the house, which is cinderblock and partially underground (the house is built into a hillside). I've had a large oak bookcase against this wall all this time, but have cleaned it periodically of thin greenish dusty film I've taken to be mildew. The back of the shelf was the worst hit; most of the books in have no noticeable damage whatsoever.

Now, measurements indicate that the small alcove off our new kitchen which we'd like to use as a pantry would be the best home for this shelf. The shelf actually also has some ironic sentimental value, such that I'd like to either keep it or burn it, because it was the big-deal fancy pants bookshelf with the leather bound books my stepdad bought for all his phony prestige before he wound up in jail for embezzlement and blah blah blah. My heirlooms are hollow and crappy, in other words. Also, I'm a cookies-off-the-floor eater and cheap, to boot. I'd rather not waste furniture if it's useful.

Is a thorough bleach cleaner treatment and a move to a drier climate enough to make a mildewy oak shelf safe for food storage? Is this likely to be mildew, or some other more dangerous substance?

Oooh that smell.

cowboy_sally — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:55:27 -0800

What is the strange smell emanating from certain areas of our apartment? It's very strong and sour, like boiled cabbage...and it's confined to the front hallway and the bathroom. Initially I thought it might be cooking smells from other people's apartments--there's a lot of that in the stairwells--but no one's cooking smells like this. And if that were the case, why would it smell that way in the bathroom? The smell is strongest when the heat has been on or it's hot outside, and it seems to be concentrated by the bathroom sink and (oddly) inside the hall closet.

We've lived in the same apartment for 4 years now, and the smell's aways been here. Pre-war multifamily (30+ apartments) rental building that's not well maintained. Yeah.

After reading through the other stinky-apartment askme posts, I suspect the source is something not so benign. So what nasty substance is the culprit? Is it mildew? A cockroach colony? Cracked pipes? (I doubt it's a dead animal, unless there's a special rat burial ground in our walls.) Even if it's something we can't fix on our own, I'd still like to have an idea of what it could be before I approach the landlord about it. Thanks folks.

Help for killing a mildew odor that I can't smell myself

The Giant Squid — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 21:14:14 -0800

How do I kill a mildew smell -behind- a sink? My wife can apparently smell mildew coming from the vicinity of our kitchen sink. I can't, so I chock this up to the her pregnancy-induced super-sense-of-smell. We have this sort of bizarre set up, where I ask her if she can smell it, and where she can smell it.

Anyways, the kitchen sink apparently -did- have a leak underneath it, some time ago, although that has been fixed (months and months ago).

There remains a small possibility of some leakage within the wall behind it, but there are no telltale signs, aside from my wife smelling the mildew.

So, assuming there is no further leakage (which would mean ripping the cabinets out of the wall), what can I do to kill the mildew smell?

Can I seal furniture in plastic to prevent mold?

intermod — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:44:58 -0800

Is it possible to "seal" furniture in a plastic bag to protect it from mold while stored in a basement? Please help me protect my inheritance until I have a bigger house! I have inherited some nice furniture but have no space in my current house. Climate controlled storage is too expensive for the 2-3 years that I'll need it until we get a bigger house. And I've got a basement, so if only I could store it down there ...

The basement is what they call "an improved crawlspace", under a 1930's bungalow. It's not open to outside air, but there is bare dirt crawlspace in half of the plan and standing room with rough concrete in the other half. I do have drainage properly worked out so that rainwater doesn't come in. There's no climate control in the basement, in the system that handles the living spaces of the house is not big enough to handle the basement too. I do have a dehumidifier to remove the worst of the humidity but it's not enough.

Other furniture I've stored in the basement has quickly been consumed by mold. I've already taken all other reasonable steps to keep the dampness down, but it's still damp enough that the furniture will quickly be ruined if I put it down there unprotected.

I'm thinking that there must be some solution to this, something like a plastic barrier that you can seal the furniture in, or even have a professional come out with their fancy Seal-O-Matic and do it onsite. Alas, googling on that leads nowhere so perhaps it doesn't exist.

Does such a product or service exist, or can anyone suggest any other solutions?

Stinky Genitals

Drohan — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 23:52:38 -0800

What would cause a woman's vaginal discharge to smell strongly of mildew? The smell is unmistakable: it's mildew, like a wet carpet or old shower curtain liner. Not fishy, not musky, not at all good. No considerable increase in discharge, no itching. It happens every few months without warning and seems impervious to showers and careful drying. Underwear: Always cotton crotch. No correlation with sex. Usually lasts under a week. Help?

Why does our kitchen sponge smell like mildew after less than a week?

ezrainch — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 21:10:38 -0800

Our kitchen sponge starts to smell like mildew after less than a week of normal use. We use a standard "scrubby" sponge that has an abrasive side and an absorbent sponge side. Has anybody else experienced this problem, and if so, what did you do about it, or do you have any general advice about keeping sponges from mildewing quickly? Both my wife and I make a point of always wringing the extra water out after each use, and store the sponge on the edge of our stainless steel sink. We never had this problem before we moved to our current home; sponges would generally take a month or more to get nasty in all our previous residences. We can't figure out what could be causing this premature bacteria growth! Our water (chlorinated municipal water supply!)? Mold spores floating through our house? (We do live in the Pacific Northwest, but keep our house well heated and don't otherwise have a mold problem.)

We've considered keeping the sponge in a dish of dilute bleach water between uses, but would prefer to not have a ubiquitous bleach presence in the kitchen. We've also tried several different brands of sponge, and only use the sponge for washing dishes and wiping the counters down.

sump pump concerns

GrumpyMonkey — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 06:26:14 -0800

I have 2 related questions about sump pumps. 1) Will bleach damage the pump? 2) Is there a way to monitor the pump for failure (or the water level which would tell me the same thing) easily? Basically, we have a sump pump in our basement* that we recently replaced after our old one failed. I now live in constant fear that this new one will fail as well and since our A/C unit and water heater are both on the floor of the basement, there is a lot of damage that might be caused. My first thought on monitoring was to put a simple float in and somehow rig a mechanical contraption to a guage at the top of the basement stairs but would prefer a more tried solution.

I also plan to build a cover for the hole that the pump is in since the smell from the mildew that has built up permeats the guest room directly above but am thinking I should pour bleach in regularly as well to kill any nastiness down there but don't know what that will do to the pump.

*12'x12' concrete hole dug in the middle of our crawl space containing a/c and water heater. Our dehumidifier and A/C both drain into the pump hole as well as minor leaks during heavy rain.

Clean and mean here on the Green

oflinkey — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 19:53:35 -0800

What are your favorite heavy-duty cleaning products and super-cleaning secrets? I know about FlyLady. This question is about products and large-scale techniques.

I am moving out of my apartment very soon. I do not relish the apartment-clean that will take place, as we have lived here for 6 years. While I have kept a good house, there are some trouble spots involving recurrent mold/mildew in the bathroom (that will not stay away!), rust stains, and a terrible kitchen floor that I have to make look at least passably good.

I am looking for product recommendations mostly for bath and kitchen, but I welcome all advice. I do not have a ton of money to try out CLR and all that other fancy stuff, so recommendations for excellent products are what I am after. However, if a product really is THAT good, I will spend lots of money on it. I know that sometimes the price is worth the performance (see Anti-Icky Poo versus Nature's Miracle-- only the price is a miracle).

Also, if any of you have clean hacks or other tips/tricks you have learned when it comes to massive, move-out cleaning, please share. While I have plenty of elbow grease myself, I am tackling this alone as DH will be away (lucky bastard).

How do I keep things from growing in my couch?

jjbb — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:37:15 -0800

How do I prevent or treat mold, or any other kind of growth, on a couch in a screened in porch? I'm a college student and I have a couple couches on my front porch. The porch is screened in, but when it's rainy and windy, they can get a little wet. Is there anything I can spray them with to keep them from getting nasty?

Need professional (in Brooklyn) to make car smell better.

blapst — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 13:20:54 -0800

Know of any car care specialists in or around Brooklyn that can make my car stop smelling so bad? About a year ago my girlfriend left my back window down overnight and it rained. Ever since, the entire car -- front seat, back seat, floor mats, and trunk -- has reeked (I can't tell if the air blowing from the vents also smells or not). The smell is not acrid, just very musty and pervasive. I assume it is some sort of mold or mildew, but can't say for sure.

I've tried most of the tricks suggested in related Ask MeFi threads -- fabric softener, Febreze, Borax, activated charcoal -- all to no avail.

I've also gone to two professionals so far (one in Boston, one in Brooklyn) both who claimed they could do it, but they just did a standard shampoo and sprayed the car down with some nasty perfume, which did not dampen the smell, just made it temporarily more complex.

Because of this, I feel I can't trust anyone I call. I need hard core anecdotal evidence from a group of strangers on the internet. Any suggestions?

Mamma Mia! Massive Mold! Mediation Mandated!

pjern — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 20:24:49 -0800

How to best mitigate a *severe* mold/mildew problem? We had a bit of a rot problem on the eaves, but that has been repaired (we had a new roof put on this summer due to hailstorm damage). We started smelling a mildewed odor in the office near where the roof had been repaired, and it eventually got strong enough that I started investigating. Last night I pulled down the bookcases that I had sort of "built-in" to the wall in that area, and found the entire area behind the bookcases completely black with mold and/or mildew... about 60 square feet of it. I suspect I'll have to replace the entire wall and ceiling in that area, but what should I do immediately to mitigate? I started by spraying it with Clorox cleaner to get some bleachish stuff on it, but I'm wondering if I should evacuate the house and call in a napalm strike or something. It's really bad. What would be your immediate action?

Factors to consider: One 5 year old, four adults and two cats live here. The area can be closed off, although ventilation is problematical due to outdoor winter temps.

Basements and mold and carpet

adampsyche — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 10:45:30 -0800

Basements, mildew, and mold, oh my... I live in a reverse duplex, with the bedrooms in the basement. The storms that ripped through the NYC region Friday left me with a flooded basement, which has since receded, but left the carpets very wet. My landlord came by and used a wet vac to get water up, but it's still damp, and starting to smell like mildew.

From what I've read, this is no good, and the carpet needs to be replaced. My landlord keeps trying to skimp around it, and is having a carpet cleaner come out tomorrow. Is there any chance that this will work, or should I tell him not to bother (which then opens the other can of worms, but I'll work with that later...)?

How to clean my ceramic water dispenser

atlatl — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 10:18:33 -0800

I have a ceramic water crock and have recently noted an odd taste in the water that it dispenses. I've tried pouring several kettles of boiling water through it, and running the water through the spout, with no results. I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions for cleaning out the crock, getting rid of the strange mildew-ey taste..?

Environmenally friendly bathroom cleaning products?

occhiblu — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 10:14:25 -0800

Are there environmentally friendly ways of cleaning the bathroom, especially to remove mildew from the grout around the shower? I've been switching over to more environmentally safe ways of cleaning the apartment, which at this point are basically hot water, Dr Bronner's soap, and Simple Green. While I'm fine cleaning the bathroom sink and floor with castille soap, I'm still using bleach to get rid of the nastiest mildew on the shower tiles, and bleach-infused commercial products to scrub the tub, and I'd like to find an alternative.

I'm not at all well-versed in the household chemistry that many eco-cleaning sites seem to require (hard vs. soft water, for example) and words like "Borax" freak me out a bit, so be gentle and go slow.

If it matters, my main concern is not breathing in toxic fumes, and a huge secondary concern is not dumping toxic chemicals into the environment. I'm willing to pay for ready-made products, but I'd prefer not to spend $20 on a froofy toilet cleaner with imported Castilian bergomat.

Is there a way to remove mildew off of a painted wall without bleaching/stripping the paint?

spiderskull — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 13:18:16 -0800

MildewFilter: Is there a way to remove mildew off of a painted indoor wall without bleaching/stripping the paint? We have old windows in our apartment which allows moisture to build up around the edges, and mildew to thrive. I've tried using Lysol and a mildew remover from Zep, but both stripped off some of the paint.

A wet cloth gets some of the mildew off, but leaves me feeling a bit unsettled about whether or not the area is really sanitized.

I've found a few resources, but none of them guarantee that the paint will not lose its color (and I have every intention of keeping my security deposit).

I'd appreciate any homebrew solutions (no pun intended)!

Limited liability?

-harlequin- — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 20:53:04 -0800

ApartmentFilter: Is it financially safe to not clean up impeccably when moving out of an apartment, or will a landlord normally go after you for money over and above the security deposit, if they think enough work was involved? WA. USA.
The rather exuberant hourly rates listed in the move-out contract for any cleanup you allegedly didn't do "properly" when moving out seem like they could easily exceed the bond even for a pretty thoroughly cleaned place.
Is this likely to result in me being hounded for money in addition to the security deposit? It gets potentially a little worse:

There is a mildew problem in one room that for all I know about mildew (nothing) might need some solid work, so I don't know if it could blow things way over the security deposit.

What normally happens? Do landlords cut their losses at the limit of the deposit, or try to bill you? And if they try to bill you, how much "over" is enough to make it worth the effort?

Should I try to negotiate the cleanup rates in my next contract renewal?

(The landlord runs several apartments, but probably less than a dozen. I am quite happy to lose the security deposit in exchange for less clean-up work when moving out, but I don't want to screw my landlord, and I don't want him to screw me. Or more to the point, I'm ok with being screwed up to the level of the deposit already paid, just not more than that :-). My contract isn't specific about this, it mainly just lists hourly rates and fees (eg $X if the blinds are dusty)).

How much over and above the security deposit (in the landlord's view) is enough to taint referrals? (I imagine it depends on the landlord and how much over, but experiences are welcome)

Neutralize bleach?

theora55 — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 21:01:06 -0800

Does bleach need to be neutralized after the mildew is cleaned, and before painting? Bad mildew in the tenant's bathroom. Scrubbed with 1:2 bleach:water to great success. After it is rinsed, then dries thoroughly, can it be primed and painted, or does it have to be neutralized, or ??

Question number 14741

GrumpyMonkey — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 18:07:01 -0800

Please help me with my smelly chest (chest of drawers that is...)

Question number 9724

gleuschk — Fri, 27 Aug 2004 14:27:50 -0800

Please help me save my books. The movers just dropped off several rooms worth of my pretties, which have been sitting in a storage facility in Kansas for nearly two years. I was, needless to say, ecstatic, until I realized that fully a quarter of the boxes show signs of wetness around the bottom. Looks like they've been sitting in an inch or so of water for Logos knows how long. At least the bottom layer of each box is thoroughly soaked, and stinky. What is my best path at this point to dry out/preserve/resuscitate/de-mildew?

Question number 4344

Sat, 03 Jan 2004 10:24:47 -0800

My hot water smells moldy (more inside)..